The Nothing Phone 2 hits the shelves on July 17. Leading up to the launch and eventual sale date, Carl Pei, Nothing Co-Founder and hype builder extraordinaire has been drumming up interest in his growing startup’s latest smartphone with a series of interviews.
In one such interview with Business Today, he was asked if Nothing plans on launching a foldable phone to which he replied, “Not anytime soon.”
“I don’t think consumers walk around saying, hey, I wish my phone could fold. I think it’s an innovation that the manufacturers are pushing onto the consumer,” he added.
In my opinion, there is nothing more than blinky lights of the Nothing Phone 1 and 2 that screams “an innovation that a manufacturer is pushing onto the consumer.” If folding phones are an innovation looking for a consumer, then the blinking lights of the Nothing Phone 1 and 2 certainly are bound by the same fate.
I’m not alone in thinking this. In fact, the headline is inspired by a conversation with industry colleague, Dhruv Bhutani, where we debated Pei’s bravado or, as some might call it, misplaced hype mongering.
With the rise of content consumption habits, the size of phones has increased to an extent that these pocket monsters (heh), barely fit in a pocket. Foldable clamshell phones are solving the problem of facilitating large screen thrills without the inconvenience of carrying them.
The recently-launched Motorola Razr+ is a prime example of pushing the form factor, further still, by providing a large enough cover screen that eases access to almost all my standard apps. Need a larger canvas to edit that task list? Unfold the Razr Plus and the 6.9-inch screen is ready for action. I enjoy the ergonomic benefits of a smaller display while having the convenience of reading or watching my favorite videos on a larger one. It’s the best of both worlds.
On the other hand, book-style foldables like the Galaxy Z Fold 4, Oppo Find N and Honor Magic Vs let me be more productive than a slab phone. As a productivity fiend and avid traveler, I love the convenience of using the cover screen like a plain-jane slab phone, and the unfolding it for enhanced productivity.
Having a bigger display to run two apps side-by-side while researching and jotting down notes is a godsent compared to the pocketable rave that Pei’s Nothing Phone promises.
Now, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But Pei’s blanket statement that foldables are “an innovation that manufacturers are pushing onto the consumer” is pure neglect. It reminds me of the phrase “Reality Distortion Field (RDF)” that was famously associated with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Originally coined by engineers on the Macintosh team, the Reality Distortion Field was a play on Jobs’ uncanny ability to convince himself and those around him to set and succumb to impossible goals. For instance, he asked Andy Hertzfeld, an OG of the Mac World to build and ship an entire operating system in ten months. This monumental task would have taken most others two years.
However, the difference is, Jobs had the ability to “convince anyone of practically anything” with his malleable reality but Pei’s RDF seems to be born out of neglect. Founders and company officials often deny the existence of a product until they launch it but to deny an innovative form factor just because you are not ready or capable of making it yet is startling.
Pei further went on to say that all folding phones look the same. “It’s good that some people are building it, but if you look at how the foldables are evolving, they are all the same again,” he said.
The CEO, famous for making claims of upending the smartphone industry and, in his own words, making phones fun again, thinks all these phones in the below photograph look the same:
Delusion or marketing genius, I’ll let you decide. Let me put things in perspective. There are two kinds of folding phones, clamshell foldables or Flip phones and book-style foldables.
Most phones in either form factors are easily distinguishable. The Oppo Find N2 Flip sports a big vertical cover screen, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 features a small horizontal cover display while the Motorola Razr Plus has a fully functional outer screen. That’s as much part of their identity as the glyph interface is to the Nothing Phone 1 and 2.
Then there are different kinds of book-style foldables. Samsung makes the most popular Galaxy Z Fold lineup with a slim cover display that unfolds to a tall aspect ratio. On the other hand, Google is going the Oppo way with the Pixel Fold to unfold it to a wide display. There are many more book-style foldables available outside the US from Honor, Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Tecno that look and feel more different than the Nothing Phone 1 when compared to the iPhone 12.
Look, I’ve been using foldables since the Galaxy Z Fold 2 in 2020. Over the years, in my time with folding phones from Samsung, Oppo, Honor, Motorola and Tecno, I’ve loved and hated the design choices made by some manufacturers. What I’ve never felt is Pei’s claimed homogeneity of design.
I’ve found delightful use cases that I’ve loved because of the ingenious ways they made my life easier. Pocketable or more productive than a regular slab phone – these phones have, like Mary Kondo says – sparked joy. And not once has it ever seemed that I’m using the same phone in a different skin.
In contrast, the sound and light show on the Nothing Phone 1 has been just that, a show. Watch once, get entertained, and move on to the next one.
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