Nothing Phone 2 TEARDOWN - The LEDs aren't what they seem...

Nothing has something new for us today: the  incredibly unique looking Nothing Phone 2. And we get the world's first exclusive look  at what's under the glass. At first glance, the pillowed back panel makes me kinda nervous.  Raised or exposed edges usually crack first during impacts, but time will tell. It's time we delve  into the depths of nothing. Let's get started. [Intro] The Nothing Phone 2 is IP54 water resistant. Good  for a few splashes here or there, but definitely no submersion. Like

always, heat is our best  friend during the back panel removal, along with our trusty matte black JerryRigEverything razor  knife. $14.95. Link in the description. Lifting up on the panel with a large suction cup, the  blade sliced just below the perfectly clear back glass. Cutting through the adhesive to help lift  the glass from the frame. And you gotta admit, the lights do look pretty cool. With the  original Nothing Phone 1, we got 5 strips of LED illumination, with 12 notification zones. H

ere  on this Nothing 2 though, we get a substantial upgrade to 11 LED strips, and 33 individual  lighting zones – meaning that the LEDs can be used for far more diverse notifications...like progress  bars for both charging and timers, including volume levels and custom ringtones. 33 individual  lighting zones on the back, and two and a half million individual lighting zones on the front  of the front (ba-dum-tss).OLED jokes are lit. With the glass totally separated we can see that  the pillowed

three dimensional effect of the slab is not due to a thicker piece of glass as it  insinuates, but actually because it's a turtle shell shape – the edges are curved inward.  Again, having the radius so close to the edge of the glass makes me nervous about longevity –  especially when it's thin. The 7 silver T4 screws under the glass are entirely functional, each  with their own little dab of blue thread locker. If you remember, I did count the individual LEDs  of the original Nothing Phone 1 and

we got 971 total lights all lined up in pairs. And it looks  like this time around Nothing is doing the same thing again – pairing up LEDs under an aesthetic  white diffusing sticker. The LEDs themselves are a brilliant blue shade up in the 6,000 or 7,000  kelvin, and the sticker brings it back down to a more 5,000 white daylight color temperature.  Taking special care, of course, to distinguish between color kelvin and temperature kelvin. I  haven't measured, of course, but I'm going to guess

that the LED strips are not 10,000 degrees  Fahrenheit. The LED layers are not one uniform board, but actually several separate components,  and are hiding 8 more black Phillips head screws throughout the layers, making disassembly  slightly more painful. But I've been told that beauty is pain. And getting to see some of  the insides from the outsides is totally worth it. The red recording LED filter comes off with some  persuasion, followed by the wireless charger and several of the LED strips.

Most of the LED zones  have a singular gold contact pad supplying power to the strip, but the more complex zone, like  the progress bar in the top right quadrant of the charging pad, has its own Lego-style ribbon which  is able to handle the 16 addressable zones in this section alone. The 15 watt wireless charger is  also capable of reverse wireless charging at 5 watts, probably so the Nothing Phone can provide  power to the Nothing headphones without any wires. The earpiece, which also comes o

ut with the  back panel, has some waterproofing mesh over the opening, as well as the little white  foam balls inside, which help the speaker sound bigger than it actually is. Nothing has been  very vocal about their phone being slightly more environmentally friendly than other mainstream  devices, which is great. Keep in mind though, that the more environmentally friendly  thing you can do is actually not buy a new phone at all. But it is nice that  Nothing is factoring in the environment and u

sing things like removable batteries and  recycled metal in the frame and circuit board. Even with the pull tab the battery is still  very strongly adhered to the phone, but it's nice that the tab doesn't break. Thumbs up for  that. This is a 4,700 milliamp hour capacity. With the battery gone we get a glimpse  at the gloriously gold vapor chamber and we can start removing the circuit boards. The  lower board has a single screw in our SIM card tray. It's also been globbed up with glue to  help p

rotect the little components from water. With the board gone we can pop out the USB-C  charging port which can charge up at 33 watts. And then we can remove the lower loudspeaker  which also has balls of its own. The charging port ribbon can pop off the main board just  like a little Lego, and that's all that it is. A single port with a red rubber ring  and a long traversing ribbon that goes the entire length of the phone.  Super simple and easy to repair. The main board has 2 more screws and a 

few signal wires holding it in place. And when those are gone it can  lift up and out of the phone body, giving us full access to the 32 megapixel  selfie camera, which does not have OIS. The 50 megapixel ultrawide camera also does not  have that optical image stabilization. But the main 50 megapixel camera below it does  have both OIS and EIS. Nothing has included some thermal paste to help facilitate the  passage of heat from the motherboard to the gold vapor chamber. And as I always say,  ha

ppy thermal paste is the best thermal paste. Again, down at the bottom of the phone we have the  world's smallest vibrator, along with an optical fingerprint scanner. It's a rather beautiful  device from both the inside perspective as well as from what can be seen of the insides from  the outside perspective. I think Nothing has done a good job of coming in, establishing an  eye catching, unique footprint, in an otherwise very boring, rectangular space. And I'm a fan  of where they're headed. If

the phone turns back on you gotta subscribe. And there you have  it. Nothing is better than coming back to life. With the silver screws and back panel set in  place, our Nothing Phone 2 is back in business. Thanks a ton for watching,  and I'll see you around.