The bottom line, then, is that Nothing will be the one to bridge that gap. Indeed, in its invitations to this week’s launch event in London, the company described the event as “an invitation to unlearn everything the industry has taught us.” In a recent interview, Pei said Nothing aims to “bring people back to when they were more optimistic about gadgets.” No pressure then. “An invitation to unlearn everything the industry has taught us” It’s a level of promise that I’m not sure any device could live up to, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the one to miss out if Nothing succeeds. Certainly, before the event, there were already signs that we were about to see something less like “a consumer tech revolution” and more like “a smartphone” — a midrange one, in fact, that wouldn’t even be sold in US. But perhaps the in-person event would shed more light on the Nothing revolution. This is what led me, on one of the hottest days of the year, down a series of endless alleys in London trying to find the ominous location where Nothing had decided to personally hold part of the Tuesday release. When you’re promised a revolution, your thoughts might turn to huge stadiums, the Brandenburg Gate, or perhaps a Parisian café. The revolution of nothing would happen in the London design studio in Camden. Posters advertising Nothing’s event, as seen in south LondonPhoto by Jon Porter/The Verge If Pei is good at one thing, it’s taking every opportunity to create “transparent” marketing. Before the launch, Nothing decorated various European capitals with street posters placed next to advertisements for local concerts and festivals. The implication? This is more of a cultural event than just a phone launch. I even spotted a few in my south London suburb, while all over Twitter, people posted pictures of posters appearing in Paris and Berlin (all relayed by Nothing’s social media team). As I approach the event, I bump into another attendee, who turns out to be one of the several thousand Nothing community investors who between them have plowed millions of dollars into the company, according to crowdfunding platform CrowdCube. That’s in addition to more traditional institutional investors like Alphabet’s GV and other notable names in tech like “father of the iPod” Tony Fadell, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman and YouTuber (sometimes) Casey Neistat. Nothing’s relentless commitment to hype has attracted some impressive celebrity investors. And, even more impressively, the participation of these investors has continued to generate even more hype around the company. In total, CrowdCube reports that Nothing has attracted over $150 million in funding across seven funding rounds. Not bad for a company that, to date, has only released a pair of somewhat okay headphones. The Nothing investor declined to tell me how much he has put into the company (he would only say it is less than £10,000 and more than £2,000) and is open about the fact that his Nothing shares are just one of the investments he holds . “There are certain things that are very difficult to invest in,” he says. “How often do you launch a new phone brand with really good people behind it?” But despite putting a significant chunk of money into the company, he seems relatively cool on the Nothing products themselves. He admits he didn’t buy the Ear 1 last year and said he would probably get a Phone 1 but only as a second device. Attendees mingle at the kick-off event. Image: Nothing I walk through the crowd into the venue itself and see the Nothing employees mingling. They are Adam Bates, the former head of design at Dyson who now serves as Nothing’s director of design, and Teenage Engineering’s Tom Howard, who also works on Nothing’s design team – names that attracted a lot of attention to Pei’s company before traffic. They are all dressed fashionably but casually, and although there are one or two people in button-down shirts in attendance, they do not appear to be employees of Nothing. Younger attendees care, dressed in high-fashion clothes, while tech journalists in the crowd dress to gently toe the line between looking professional and avoiding overheating in the sun. I walk in and try to prepare for the Phone 1 launch, but quickly discover that there is no public Wi-Fi in the venue. I was told this is necessary to save the bandwidth required for live streaming. It also turns out there’s no AC and the heat outside means it very quickly gets incredibly hot and humid in the design center that Nothing has repurposed for its release. Someone mentions an air conditioned room upstairs that people had to vacate before the event started. If the intent was to get them in that lower room to make it look nice and busy for the live stream, then it worked — it’s up. “How often do you launch a new phone brand with really good people behind it?” Even apart from the lack of AC and Wi-Fi, the event space is unusual for many reasons. There is no stage and no seating apart from a large box of exposed wood in the center of the room. The entire forward side of the box is occupied, so as a compromise, I sit facing the back of the room. It means I don’t have to touch sweaty skin with any strangers, but in return, I get awkwardly craned to see the video screen behind me. At last, the moment of truth: the great opportunity for Nothing to show Something. The event begins. The video screen changes to show a video of Pei sitting in a cafe and… monologuing about how the tech industry has lost its way. He recites his now-familiar mantra: consumer tech used to be exciting (true) — now it’s boring (talk). The Nothing Phone 1 hopes to change that, we’re told. Its back is made of transparent glass and we can see the now familiar light strips that can act as high-tech notification indicators. So far, so similar to what we saw last month in a hands-on from YouTuber Marques Brownlee. (By the way, you should definitely read my colleague Allison Johnson’s hands-on experience with the phone). As the pre-recorded video continues, I begin to wonder if Pei will be present at the launch of his own smartphone. Not shown: the absolute temperature of this room. Image: Nothing Pei continues. The Phone 1 runs Nothing OS, an Android skin whose design draws inspiration from the kind of synthesizers that design partner Teenage Engineering used to make a name for themselves. There is an integration with Tesla cars and an NFT gallery. Its frame is made of aluminum rather than steel, and both the front and back are Gorilla Glass 5. Meanwhile, in the design studio, I can feel my back sweating. Finally (surprise!), Pei shows up at the studio and the pre-recorded opening turns into a live event. “It’s wet and hot,” are his first words to the livestream host. Pei is interviewed in the crowd, which continues to shuffle to make room for the camera crew. The lack of a stage means it’s hard to actually watch the interview, and there’s no active video feed showing in this packed room that I can watch. People are taking their own videos of the event, and out of the corner of my eye, I keep spotting a reporter narrating the proceedings as he films the event for his (presumably) foreign-speaking audience. I consider leaving the room to watch the interview on one of the large screens dotted around the venue, hoping the distance might make for a better spectacle. “It’s wet and hot” After Pei, there’s an interview with a Qualcomm executive and another with someone from Indian retailer Flipkart. The way the live stream audio is re-transmitted to the event while interviews are taking place makes it impossible to hear what’s being said, even when you’re only a few feet away from the content being recorded. It seems other people have trouble hearing as well if the amount of anxious chatter I hear around me is anything to go by. I stop watching the interviews and after spotting Nothing’s marketing manager Akis Evangelidis in the crowd, I peel off to ask him how the event is going. He asks if we can go outside to escape the heat, but otherwise seems happy. Nearly 100,000 people have tuned in to the live stream, says the former OnePlus VP. He’s reassured by that, he says, especially when so much of the Phone 1’s design and features have been announced in recent weeks. This, he says, is because Nothing wanted to be able to make the revelations “on our own terms” rather than risk it happening through leaks. Carl Pei with rapper ASAP Nast. “I’ve been in contact with some burglars out there,” says Evangelidis. “It’s quite advanced. they know their stuff.” As we speak, event staff are walking around wearing white wristbands. An announcement tells attendees that these wristbands mean staff members have a Phone 1 that people can try out for themselves, like at roaming demo stations. It seems to work a lot…
