Carl Pei is the head of Nothing, the new “tech company” whose marketing machine plucks ideas from Apple and OnePlus. Pei is also behind OnePlus, who also was sly about its marketing practices. Nothing’s first product, the Ear (1), was pushed hard via cooperating “influencers” and tech sites. We were pressed to help continually make articles that hyped the Ear (1) but stopped once we figured out they were using us as a marketing tool. Now, the new hypebeast push are reports of a Nothing smartphone.
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I’m not at all against writing about a potential product or smartphone from any company; we do it frequently. But when it becomes clear that websites and “influencers” are becoming part of the marketing material and we’re being used as a free marketing tool, then it becomes a little dirty. Perhaps this is why we never got an Ear (1) review unit to test ourselves.
I still remember some years back when a Huawei press contact agreed to send us a smartphone for review because our site was considered a “friendly” site to the company. In other words, we hadn’t written anything about them they considered bad for their image. I’m starting to think Nothing subscribes to the same idea. But I am getting off-topic here, which is why this article is labeled as an Editorial.
According to several Nothing friendly websites, the company is reported to be working on a smartphone due to drop in Q2 of 2022. This isn’t surprising given that Carl Pei started OnePlus and worked closely with Oppo.
If this news surprises you, earlier this week, the company announced it raised $50 million in funding, plus a new partnership with Qualcomm to help power its “tech ecosystem.” Keep in mind, Nothing also acquired Andy Rubin’s Essential company and all of its IP, so Nothing has a bit of a head start if it’s looking to make a phone. Still, a challenging process regardless of the resources you have at your disposal, making a smartphone is.
The report comes from 91mobiles, who details that the phone should launch relatively soon, as in early 2022. In fact, we could even start seeing teasers for the device in the next few weeks.
DroidLife
As you can see from the DroidLife article, there’s already talk of “teasers” coming for the new Nothing smartphone. I suspect the company will be sending out press releases with teasers and leaking stuff to friendly outlets in a full marketing push throughout Q4 2021 and Q1 2022.
We’ll bring you any news we feel is relevant to the company’s first smartphone, but we’ll try and stay clear of the small marketing pushes made by Nothing. That’s likely to mean we will never see a review unit coming across our desk due to our uncooperative nature. But that’s life.
Review unit or not, it is still interesting to see what Nothing will bring to the table in Q2 of 2022. Once we have some actual solid news to report, we’ll do just that.
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