Nothing is carving its way into the smartphone market with some clear philosophies. First, the company wants to be more than performance and has been launching smartphones that focus on the experience rather than having always the latest possible hardware. This year, Nothing launched its first mid-range phone in the form of Nothing Phone (2a). It costs less than the flagship Phone (2) and has some unique aspects when we look at the mid-range market. Now, Nothing wants to take a bold step to emphasize its focus in the community and is taking a ride on the Nothing Phone (2a) hype.
Nothing invites fans to co-produce a Special Edition Nothing Phone (2a)
Nothing launched a new initiative today that invites its community to design, package, and customize a special edition for the Nothing Phone (2a). This unique and innovative co-creating initiative is called The Community Edition Project. The project will run over six months and four stages. Across this time frame, Nothing will collect community entries for the design of the special edition Nothing Phone (2a). The participation stages include hardware, wallpapers, packaging, and marketing. The creators of the winning entries at each stage will “have the chance to collaborate directly with the Nothing Team as they bring their creations to life”, the company says.
Fans will help Nothing in Hardware, Wallpapers, Packaging, and Marketing
The campaign starts on March 26 with the hardware design phase. Those interested can submit entries on this website from that point on. The winner will collaborate with Nothing’s London-based industrial design team to bring the idea to life.
Stage Two starts in May, and it’s all about Wallpaper design for the Special Edition Phone. The winning Wallpaper collection will ship with the special edition’s phone software. In June, Nothing will start Stage Three with the design of the package. As per Nothing, this is the change to craft a special unboxing experience that ties together the hardware and wallpaper design”.
The Final Stage will begin in July and it is all about marketing. This one is perhaps one of the most intriguing steps as the device will be ready at this point and Nothing will rely on ideas to promote the special edition. To participate, users will need to ideate and submit creative proposals for marketing the Nothing Phone (2a) Community Edition. The winners will get support from Nothing’s Brand & Creative Team. All four category winners will be hosted by the Nothing team in London for the launch of the phone, showcasing how the winning ideas combined to create the project.
You can see Nothing co-founder and CEO Carl Pei’s statement about this initiative:
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“We believe in a future where the boundaries of what a company is and what the community is, will be erased and hopefully become the same thing. In the future, maybe the community can also contribute code to Nothing OS or maybe they can create other products with us. We’ve got to believe in people and in the democratization of information and knowledge. I think this is going to be a great opportunity to expand our community. This is a design and marketing co-creation project that I think will attract a lot of new creative minds. I’m excited to see what we are going to build together.”
Specifications Recap
While Nothing invites fans to design the hardware of the special edition, we don’t think it will take major changes over the original device. The Nothing Phone (2a) has a 6.7-inch Full HD+ OLED Flexible AMOLED with a 30-120 Hz Adaptive Refresh rate. The display has a 240Hz touch sampling rate, 2160Hz PWM dimming, HDR10+, 10-bit color, 700 nits typical / 1,100 nits outdoor brightness / 1,300 nits peak brightness. The display is covered with Gorilla Glass 5 protection.
Under the hood, the Nothing Phone (2a) carries the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro 4nm chipset with Mali-G610 MC4 GPU. The device has up to 12 GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to 256 GB UFS 2.2 storage. It runs Android 14 with Nothing OS 2.5 straight out of the box.
Image Credit: CNET
In terms of optics, the device has a 50 MP main camera with f/1.88 aperture joined by a 50 MP ultrawide camera with f/2.2 aperture. The device also has a 32 MP front-facing camera with f/2.4 aperture. The phone has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
The Nothing Phone (2a) also has a USB Type-C port, Stereo Speakers, and the company’s GLYPH Interface at the rear. It is splash-resistant with an IP54 rating. The device also has a huge 5,000 mAh battery with 45W fast-charging support.
Nothing Phone (2a) Specs Summary
6.7-inch (2412×1084 pixels) FHD+ OLED flexible AMOLED display, 30-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate, 2160Hz PWM dimming, HDR10+, 10-bit color, 700 nits typical / 1100 nits outdoor / 1300 nits peak brightness, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection
Up to 2.8GHz Octa Core MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro 4nm processor with Mali-G610 MC4 GPU
8GB LPDD4X RAM with 128GB UFS 2.2 storage, 8GB / 12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 256GB UFS 2.2 storage
Android 14 with Nothing OS 2.5
Dual SIM (nano + nano)
50MP main camera with f/1.88 aperture, 1/1.56″ sensor, OIS, 50MP 114° ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture, 4K at up to 30 fps, Action Mode
32MP front camera with f/2.4 aperture
In-display optical fingerprint scanner
USB Type-C Audio, Stereo speakers
Dimensions: 161.74x 76.32x 8.55mm; Weight: 190g
Splash resistant (IP54)
5G SA/NSA (n1, n3, n5, n7, n8, n20, n28, n38, n40, n41,n66, n77, n78 bands), Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax (2.4GHz/5GHz) MIMO, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, USB Type-C, NFC
5000mAh battery with support for 45W wired charging
Conclusion
The new Community Initiative is really interesting and seems to be a smart way for Nothing to attract more fans over its new ecosystem. We are curious to see how the project will evolve and what kind of special edition we will get.
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