Adhesive aesthetics rule the day here
The Nothing Phone 1 has generally been something of a darling in the smartphone space this year. It’s carved a very odd, but attractive niche out for itself and has left fanatics in America wanting. We called it an example of “premium design meets midrange everything else” in our review. But just how did the design team achieve what they did? Zack Nelson, the YouTuber behind JerryRigEverything, has decided to dive back in and do something a little different to his usual durability test.
Nelson already took a literal crack at the Nothing Phone 1 in an earlier video and made some mundane observations (glass is at a 6 on the Mohs hardness scale) along with some extraordinary ones (what’s with all those cracking sounds?) and we already learned from PBKreviews that it was just a mess for repair shops to deal with.
Well, now we’re going between the layers, if you will, to find out what’s behind the design of the rear-facing LED strips that make up the Glyph interface. We highly encourage you to watch the video (and Nelson’s emphatic plug for a dinosaur movie we won’t mention here) first before you scroll on. Yep, we’re doing a spoiler alert.
Alright, the short answer? Adhesive. All the panels that make up the rear surface that meets the cover glass is attached to the chassis solely with strips of adhesive — not the most secure or enduring method to secure things in place. Even the diffuser strips lining the Glyph LEDs are attached just by highly-precise sticky tape. Now, that’ll be one hell of a modded look if you go for that treatment. Or, perhaps you might trick it out with a different color of filament. Maybe some people with factory-grade machines can help us out here.
Obviously, we’re not the ones making the phone here, so don’t blame us if Nothing decides to void your warranty if you do go this route. But at least you’ve got another reason to dig into your sparkly new phone if you’re the tinkering type.
