Introduction: In this review you will not find any specifications or benchmarks. All of those can be found online or in my previous impressions thread. I’ll tell you about the experience of the phone in a simple way.
Design: The design of this phone is inspired from phone 1 but the overall design has been improved. The edges are now soft and comfortable to hold, the overall weight distribution and thickness of the phone is on point. Even in longer sessions you won’t feel your hands hurting. The back is still made up of plastic here but the matte finish here is smudge proof & yes the back is not replaceable anymore. If you remember many people had a complaint regarding the Phone 1 camera lens getting scratches easily this has been rectified here and the rings are now made up of metal. The only suggestion I have is that if possible remove those government certification marks from back in India. According to me white color is the best looking followed by green.
Display: The screen here is very good. It’s not a 1.5k resolution display but hey most of the competition is also offering FHD+ resolution at this price. It’s a 6.77″inch display and it’s actually big and broad. The 6.7″ display used in 2a is a perfect size according to me but at the same time many people do like big displays. The color reproduction of the display is very good at this price. You can play HDR videos in YouTube without any problem , yes there is no Netflix HDR support here. I hope Nothing adds support for native HDR support in Netflix but if you are still thinking of streaming Netflix the display won’t disappoint you either. The brightness outdoor is pretty good. The 1300nits HBM number is doing it’s work flawlessly. Even in harsh sunlight the content was visible & the device do not drop it’s bright either. The bezels are definitely thick here but I like symmetrical bezels over a big chin personally. After a few days i stopped minding those bezels.
Biometrics: The in-display FPS sensor is working fine in my usage. I’ve not faced any issues regarding the FPS. Yes, the position is near to the bottom side which is not according to my liking but again every other phone with in-display FPS has similar position for FPS. Other than that 2D face unlock is also there but I don’t use it due to less security. I won’t suggest you guys to use 2D face unlock in any phone.
Speaker: The Phone 2 Pro comes with a single speaker, I feel dual speaker is one of the major element which i’ve personally missed a lot here. If you ask about the quality of the speaker I would say it’s not good at all, the speaker lacks base & loudness too. They’ve provided a 150% volume mode but after turning it on I’ve felt the speaker starts to produce a crackling sound. The single speaker here is decent enough for isolated environments but not good for crowded areas. I wish the Phone 3 series get dual speakers.
Haptics: I would say the haptics motor here is one of the best available at this price. The X axis motor is crisp and punchy, the feedback is not like spring. I’ve never faced issues regarding the incoming calls while the phone is on vibration mode. Only thing which could’ve been better here is the implementation of haptics throughout the UI else everything is sorted.
Performance: The Phone 2 Pro features the same chipset as Phone 1 the “MTK 7300”. Yes, there is no MTK 7400 or 6 gen 4 here but according to my theory they might have chose this processor to provide the overall camera setup, if you ask me about day to day tasks this processor is powerful enough to handle any possible action until you put heavy loads here. I’ve not played so many games in this phone except a few like BGMI etc; as of now BGMI is locked at 60FPS but as per brand 120FPS will be unlocked in BGMI v3.8, even if it unlocks the 120FPS i will suggest you guys to play it at 60FPS for stable fram rates. The power here is not enough to handle stable 120fps in BGMI. Throughout my usage I’ve never faced any lags in UI , yes there were a few jitters initially but those are fixed with updates now. I’ve not faced any heating issues till now.
Battery: This phone might look like a knife but when it comes to battery backup it literally kills many. Yes, the 5000mAh here is very well optimised, I was easily getting 8-9+ hours of SOT everyday even in moderate usage. This was all in 5G usage, but if you are someone who uses wifi all the time you might get more SOT.
Charging: When it comes to charging this phone behaves the opposite of its battery backup. The charging speeds here is inconsistent and takes a lot of time to charge. PPS charging is actually not that great for smartphones IMO. The charging time is unpredictable here & i think it could’ve been a lot better. It sometimes take 70mins & sometimes 1 hour 40 mins. So if you are someone who oftenly misses out charging the smartphone & charge it at the last time you might not get ample juice for your usage in a short span of time. The feedbacks are shared with the team I hope it fixes soon.
Software: This phone comes with NothingOS 3.2 out of the box with 3+6 OS updates. The long term updates is a plus here. The software here is smooth & ad free which is a nice thing. The animations after the latest update has been faster & snappy, it much better than all the previous generation of NothingOS i would say. Yes, the software here is not feature rich and lacks basic features like app locking in RAM management etc; I hope they rollout all these features soon but at the same moment i feel it’s better to get features slowly instead of rushing for it might introduce more bugs and instability to the UI. Overall the widgets and aesthetics of the UI is on point.
Cameras: The Phone 2 Pro comes with one of the biggest large sensor + 8MP UW + 50MP 2x Telephoto in in this price segment. The main sensor works very well in day light & produces good colors. The details are also good the edges are a bit soft here & I had white balancing issues a few times but both of these can be fixed via OTA.
Low light & Night (MAIN) In artificial lighting conditions the phone performs decent enough, in night if the object is in harsh light then the phone brightens up the situation and sometimes fade the colors (2nd image). In no lighting conditions it lits up the scene very well but then due to lack of OIS the noise kicks in.
8MP UW: The UW works as you expect from a 8MP UW sensor. In good lighting conditions it provides ample details in the pictures.
2x Telephoto: The 2x Telephoto here is a nice addition to the setup IMO. The overall images in day light are very promising. The images are usable upto 5x & after that the noise kicks in.
Portraits: The portraits comes out very well, the addition of LUTs make it even better. The Edge detection is good but it could’ve been a bit better IMO.
Main HDR: The HDR shots are pretty impressive for this price. I’ve no complains with HDR so far.
Selfies: The selfie sensor here is much better than what competition offers in terms of optimisation. For videography kindly check my impressions thread
Pricing: This phone is launched at ₹18,999 for 8/128GB( case & charger included this time), if you recall the Phone 1 pricing which was launched at ₹17,999 for 8/128GB the upgrades here are good. Pros: - Camera’s - Software - Updates - Design - Display - Haptics
Could’ve been better: - Ufs 2.2 - Bezels
Cons: - Single Speaker - OIS in main camera
If you are someone who needs good sets of camera’s, software, updates , display , good battery backup you can definitely look for it.
That’s it from my side. Thanks for reading Do let me know your thoughts regarding the Phone 2 Pro in the comments below
