The Nothing Phone 1 was perhaps the hottest smartphone release of 2022, reminding us of the old OnePlus days with all the buzz in the larger tech community. Even though its exterior design stole the limelight, its clean, near-stock Android experience stood out from the crowd. It launched running Android 12 out of the box, and the company is now updating select Nothing Phone 1 units with an Android 13 beta, putting it right on track for an early 2023 stable release.
But before you go ahead and install the Nothing OS 1.5 beta on your own Nothing Phone 1, there is a lot of stuff in this update that you should know about — and if it’s indeed that big of an upgrade over Android 12. We are going to find out precisely that with this hands-on review of the Nothing Phone 1’s Android 13 beta update.
1. Material You for the win!
Android 12 introduced themed app icons along with the new Material You styling, but it’s Android 13 that’s bringing them to more apps outside the Google ecosystem. That means, more app developers and phone makers are now proactively bringing themed icons to their apps and devices. The Nothing Phone 1 gets all that with the Android 13 update but takes it a notch higher.
On Pixel phones, app icons can match the wallpaper’s color scheme, but only when placed on the home screen. The Nothing Phone 1 can now show themed app icons in the app drawer, bringing the kind of theme uniformity that many sticklers among us would like to have. And as you’d expect, the handset also gets the additional Material You color schemes that Android 13 introduced on Pixel phones to make full use of app icon theming.
2. Nothing-style weather app
While Android 13 has a fresh vibe of its own, Nothing has a flair for its unique dot-matrix design elements that are also part of the new weather app. Nothing’s existing home screen widget can already show weather updates, but it now connects to the new app that comes in tow with the Nothing OS 1.5 beta.
It comes with an unmistakable Nothing design, marked by large icons and dotted elements across the app. For its weather updates, the app relies on AccuWeather and can give you hourly and weekly predictions along with the ability to send extreme weather warnings. You can use the left menu to access and manage your saved locations, while the settings tab lets you switch between metrics and imperial measurements and change app themes, among other options.
3. Everything new from Android 13
Google loaded Android 13 with a ton of improvements and feature additions, and a lot of that has been brought over to the Nothing Phone 1. Some of the more notable upgrades include Android 13’s various privacy controls, notification opt-in, and granular media permissions.
The handy clipboard preview tool has also made it to Nothing OS, and so has per-app language support, which multilingual folks are going to appreciate. Nothing has also spruced up the volume controls, allowing you to change alarm and call volumes from the same window. Live Caption is another neat addition to the Nothing OS beta.
Finally, Nothing’s Game Mode now includes Google’s Game Dashboard. So, when you launch a game on your Nothing Phone 1, you will see a new overlay menu with options for screen recording, showing the frame rate, and going live on YouTube without leaving the app.
4. Some Nothing-exclusive software magic
A new Bluetooth pop-up window has been included with the Android 13 beta to show some basic information and controls for your connected headphones. It could even pull the OnePlus Buds Z2’s icon from Google’s Fast Pair servers, adding a more personalized touch to the Bluetooth tile. However, it gets even better if you have a pair of Nothing Ear 1. In the same pop-up window, you will see the option to change the noise cancellation profile along with the battery percentage. There’s also a new QR code scanner tile in the quick settings menu, powered by Google Play Services.
Nothing says that it has made quite a few changes under the hood to make the Phone 1 feel smoother than before. For instance, a self-repair feature clears the cache and the system dumps automatically to save you from doing it manually every once in a while. Your Nothing Phone 1 can prioritize load times for the apps that you frequently use as Nothing claims a 50% improvement over Android 12.
Metrics like these are hard to gauge in real life unless you are comparing the two versions side by side, but we have some good news. While Nothing OS 1.5 is still in beta, which is bound to have a few issues, the phone felt much smoother and doesn’t seem as buggy as Android 12 was even in stable — something my colleague Manuel Vonau who reviewed the Nothing Phone also corroborates. We will definitely have more to comment on the performance when Nothing’s take on Android 13 hits stable channels, but so far, things are promising.
It’s Nothing like anything
One way smartphone makers differentiate themselves from others is with their OS skins, which are generally not very close to Google’s version of Android for Pixel phones. Between those two extremes, Nothing OS sits right in the middle. It gets you some (not all) niceties of the Pixel experience but without the bloatware that other OEMs tend to pack — you basically get the best of both worlds.
With the Android 13 beta update for the Nothing Phone 1, the company has given its software a facelift that looks refreshed yet familiar. Android 13 isn’t a big upgrade over Android 12 anyway, but all the small changes do add up to a wholesome experience that is enhanced by the added Nothing flavor. Nothing’s quest to stand out from the crowd is clearly working, and we’re keen to see how this less buggy OS update will pan out when all Nothing Phone 1 users get Android 13 next year. The promo video (included at the top) teases that there is more coming to the Nothing OS, probably with subsequent betas, and we’ll keep you posted about everything new in Android 13-based Nothing OS.
You can install the Android 13 beta on your Nothing Phone 1 right away to test it out but be prepared for some broken features. For instance, you won’t be able to use Google Pay. Make sure to install it only if you have a secondary phone you can rely on.
