Switching to Android? - First follow-up

First and foremost: if you haven’t read my previous piece, Switching to Android? it’s better if you do so before proceeding.

The initial feedback

In that post I wrote:

Digital entrenchment is silly, and it’s wiser to have a more open-minded approach. Big tech companies aren’t your friends or even allies. ‘Rooting’ for one is naïve and cringe.

Unsurprisingly, 90% of the feedback emails I got about my post were from digitally entrenched people and Apple fans. I explained clearly enough what this transition means for me and the way it’s going to play out, but still the majority of comments assumed I’m going to ditch all my Apple stuff and do a hard switch.

I don’t have the time and the patience to write back to each of these people explaining what I have already said in my piece, so my general, public reply is simply, re-read the damn article.

Some other feedback I received, while not being openly hostile, insinuated that I’m going to regret the switch, suggesting that using an Android device is like tinkering with volatile machinery, while the iPhone and iOS ‘just work’.

Finally, a small percentage of readers and followers either welcomed me ‘to the other side’ or manifested genuine interest in my platform transition. Some gave me a few tips. And some, like Peter and Jeffrey pointed me to Asus’s Zenfone line as one good example of current compact Android phones. I actually remember looking into Asus and OnePlus as possible brands to consider when I started pondering Android as an ‘exit strategy’ some time ago; I even remember a very positive review of the Zenfone 9 by Marques Brownlee, but I hadn’t realised how relatively compact Asus’s phones are. The Zenfone 10’s dimensions are fairly similar to the iPhone SE 3’s, for instance.

What tinkering?

Back to those foreseeing I’ll have a hard time adapting to an Android device because, unlike the iPhone, it involves more ‘tinkering’, let me give you a brief update about that.

I still haven’t removed my SIM card from the iPhone and put it in my Nothing Phone 2a. I’ve been busy these days, and the only things I had time to do were keeping an eye on the 2a’s battery life, searching for Android counterparts of the apps I use most on iOS, and enjoying the Nothing Watch Pro 2 smartwatch. So far, what I can tell you is this:

I’ve downloaded 32 apps from the Play Store. Granted, the sheer majority of these are common, popular apps for services and social media, but in terms of look & feel all these Android counterparts appear to behave exactly like the iOS apps I know and love. Combined with the iPhone-like feel of Nothing’s hardware, most of the time while using these apps I had the impression of simply using a bigger iPhone. And while it still feels a bit awkward to be handling a phone with a display that’s 2 inches bigger than what I was used to, I can’t deny that Nothing Phone 2a’s bigger and better-quality display, together with the 120Hz scrolling (and the adaptive scrolling in general), made for a very pleasant experience.

The only fiddling involved when using the 2a was the usual fiddling anyone engages with when getting a new device: studying the Settings app, figuring out how to fine-tune Notifications and permissions, browsing and customising widgets, stuff like that — nothing out of the ordinary.

Some Apple fans, since they’ve never looked past their ecosystem, appear to be stuck with an outdated idea of how Android looks, feels, works. Their idea involves clunkiness, bloatware, erratic software behaviour, constant bugs, a subpar user experience, inferior hardware, etc. Clunkiness and bugs were definitely a thing on Android, like, ten years ago. My wife used to have an old Sony Xperia running Android 4, and she often complained about the performance and the experience. But when I got a Xiaomi MI A2 in 2019, running Android 9, my opinions (and maybe prejudices) about Android dramatically changed. As for bloatware, sure, it’s still present, but in varying degrees: a lot on phones from Chinese brands, a little on Samsung devices, but there are also handsets with stock or near-stock Android like the Google Pixel line, Asus phones, Motorola Razr, and of course Nothing phones. And you’ll encounter inferior hardware if you look for very cheap phones. The build quality of flagship Android phones is top-notch, and there’s an ever-increasing amount of well-built midrange phones — my 2a being one of them.

Even pairing the Watch Pro 2 and using its dedicated CMF Watch app was a seamless experience, comparable to pairing and using AirPods with an iPhone.

Additional observations

I’ve monitored battery life on the Nothing Phone 2a rather closely these days while using it as a secondary device at home and out and about. My phone usage could be considered ‘light to moderate’ by today’s standards. The 2a consistently lasts two full days, sometimes a little more. I charged it to 100% one morning at 10 AM, and it was about 20% at 11 PM of the following day. By turning on Battery Saver (Android’s Low Power mode), I managed to make it last until 9:30 AM of the third day. It’s a respectable performance. My iPhone SE 3 can last one day and a morning if I’m careful, which isn’t bad either considering that I’ve been using it for about one year and a half now. Sure, the Nothing Phone 2a is much newer, has a bigger battery (5,000 mAh versus the 2,018 mAh of the iPhone SE 3), but of course it has a much bigger and brighter display, and I’ve been keeping its Always-on Display feature turned on for the most part of the day.

Speaking of Always-on Display, I like that it’s not a simple toggle. You can set it so that it’s active only during a certain time of the day, which makes sense as you probably don’t glance at your phone during the night when you’re sleeping.

I still haven’t explored in depth the various things you can do with Nothing’s Glyph interface, but I’ve found the Glyph timer to be rather useful (you set a timer, then flip the phone, and as time passes, the illuminated portion of the ‘glyph’ on the back of the phone recedes, so you can see at a glance roughly how much time is left). Features like the volume indicator or music visualisation aren’t strictly useful or groundbreaking, but are fun to use, and represent the tasteful whimsy side of Nothing’s overall sober and minimalistic æsthetic.

When it comes to camera performance, it’s something that typically doesn’t concern me very much, since I prefer using real cameras to take photos and treat smartphone cameras as tools for instant photography of secondary importance. And coming from the ‘generally okay’ single camera array of the iPhone SE 3, Nothing Phone 2a’s dual camera array and front facing camera are noticeably better, especially in worse lighting conditions. Granted, pro iPhones and flagship Android headsets of the likes of Google, Samsung, OnePlus, etc. certainly outclass the 2a’s cameras, but for my limited needs they’re much more than enough.

One little cool detail when using the 2a’s camera (something the iPhone doesn’t have, as far as I know) is that if there’s some dirt on the lens(es), the phone gives you a warning in the camera app.

I’m positively impressed by the Nothing Phone 2a’s fingerprint sensor. It uses an in-screen optical scanner, so, instead of being a pseudo-button outside the display like the iPhone’s Home button, it’s a circular area inside the display and right at the bottom where your finger expects it. And it works remarkably well. The detection rate is much better than on the iPhone and, equally importantly, I get asked to use my passcode to unlock the phone less frequently than on the iPhone; which is perhaps the only thing that truly annoys me of Touch ID, because it seems to happen so randomly and often at the most inopportune times (you’re in a shop paying for something with the iPhone, there are people in queue behind you, and instead of the Apple Pay interaction, you get prompted to unlock the iPhone with your passcode first).

The fingerprint sensor’s haptics are also good. The virtual ‘click’ when the phone recognises your fingerprint is positive and satisfying, and for a split second you’re left with the impression that you’re actually digging your thumb into the display.

The haptic feedback in general really surprised me. Especially when typing with the virtual keyboard. It’s stronger than on the iPhone, and it gives the keyboard a pleasantly tactile feel as you type; which, in my case, also leads to making next to no typing errors.

What about the CMF Watch Pro 2?

This little smartwatch has perhaps surprised me even more positively than the phone. Nothing claims an 11-day battery life. With normal usage, in my informal tests I’d say it’s closer to 7–8 days actually, but it’s still impressive given that this is a traditional smartwatch with an AMOLED display (and a rather bright one at that). My Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition Hybrid smartwatch has a freakishly long battery life (one month average) because it’s a hybrid smartwatch with real watch hands and an e‑ink display behind them. But the Watch Pro 2 — for being what it is — is very good compared with similar WearOS-based smartwatches.

What never ceases to amaze me is that it’s a feature-packed smartwatch (it has a step counter, a heart rate monitor, a blood oxygen monitor, it even has GPS), it is well built and looks and feels premium overall, and it only costs $/€69.

As I mentioned in my previous piece, its companion CMF Watch app is well designed and pleasant to use. Data with the smartwatch is exchanged frequently and seamlessly, and the watchface gallery offers a lot of tasteful watchfaces, both in analogue and digital styles, with varying amount of information. Some faces offer further customisation once installed on the watch — for example if a face features a battery meter by default, you can choose to change it into a calorie or activity meter.

You also have the option of creating a customised watch face. The layouts are pretty basic, but you can spice things up by using a recently-introduced ‘AI’ tool that can create custom face backgrounds by mixing and matching choices you specify. In general, I’d say that the watchface gallery offered by Nothing is a good middle ground between the somewhat limited choices you have on the Apple Watch, and the dizzying selection provided by apps like Facer.

Preliminary conclusions

I don’t know if this is a consequence of playing with new devices after favouring one platform and one type of smartphone for so long, but this experience with the Nothing ecosystem feels refreshingly good and appears to have — at least for now — put a stop to a long period of tech fatigue and lack of enthusiasm. It’s not easy to explain why exactly. Nothing’s hardware and software aren’t especially groundbreaking. They’re well designed, decently built, and without doubt reflect a distinct personality and vision emanating from within the company and its founder and CEO Carl Pei.

If this reminds you of a certain company that used to make machines which were both powerful and whimsy, paired with good software and a solid UI and UX foundation, that’s exactly it; that’s the je ne sais quoi element I’m talking about. Not only do this phone and this watch just work, they’re also just nice.