The new Nothing Phone 1 is already causing a lot of buzz across the internet thanks to the company’s CEO, Carl Pei who was in fact a former co-founder at OnePlus.

The Nothing brand is trying to position itself as a unique consumer electronic business with a glorified user experience in every way possible. Being a new smartphone brand, they already have a target audience in mind and they’re already making their products fall in line with those target users.

On the other hand is Motorola which surely needs no introduction in the smartphone market considering the number of decades they’ve been in the business making great devices even though they have sort of lost a lot of their mobile market share to other brands like Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi but we’re not here to debate whether Motorola can ever go back to its pinnacle.

This is going to be a brief comparison between two new mid-range Android devices: The Nothing Phone 1 versus Motorola Edge 30 both of which have a similar price point, specifications, and features.

The first one to talk about in my brief is the Nothing Phone 1 which is designed to appear polarizing if that’s the right word to use. But the design of the device is pretty solid and one could argue it took its inspiration from the iPhone 13 series however, there’s a lot more going for the device, especially at the back. Transparent back glass with visible LED to read a “glyph” effect each time a notification arrives and a nice Nothing user interface based on the current Android 12 Operating system all at an affordable US$400 price tag (even though the device will not be sold in the United States for now).

And then there is the Motorola Edge 30 which looks like a typical boring Android smartphone that we’re all familiar with but also ridden with some cool features and a nice Android experience. There’s really nothing much to be said about the physical appearance of the Motorola Edge 30. The back panel has the device’s triple camera arranged vertically and then the brand’s logo at the center and the “Motorola” name at the bottom area of the back.

Nothing phone 1 vs Motorola Edge 30

Display: Nothing Phone 1 vs Motorola Edge 30

1. Both have a 6.5-inch display
2. Both have Full HD+ resolution of 1080p x 2400p

Both devices have big 6.5-inch displays that are great even though there’s nothing premium about the display capacity. As mentioned earlier, Nothing isn’t trying to target the highest paying smartphone customers in its first attempt in the mobile market and Motorola has certainly given up on that niche as well by making upper-mid-range smartphones.

The Nothing Phone 1 sports a 6.5-inch display with OLED technology but not LTPO despite the device sporting a fast refresh rate. The screen’s highest resolution is 1080 x 2400 pixels which makes it a certified Full HD+ display.

Protecting the display of the Nothing Phone 1 is a Gorilla Glass 5 which is also quite aged and the display’s brightness can reach 1200 nits at its peak. With 1 billion colors, the display is certainly good for everyday activities including gaming, media consumption, and so forth.

On the other hand, the Motorola Edge 30 which also has the same 6.5-inch screen size based on AMOLED technology. It also sports a 1 billion color configuration, HDR10+, with a Full HD+ resolution just like the aforementioned Nothing Phone 1.

On the protection part, the Motorola Edge 30 sport a much older Gorilla Glass 3 which might disappoint some potential buyers but again, this is just a mid-tier device so you can’t expect too much. However, there is a fast 144Hz refresh rate which in my opinion compensates for the lack of super-strong protection on the display side.

Both devices also sport under-display fingerprint readers because they use OLED technology and apart from that, there’s nothing much to be talked about as far as the display of both devices is concerned.

Design: Nothing Phone 1 vs Motorola Edge 30

As far as the design is concerned, both smartphones have their own target audiences in mind. With the Motorola Edge 30, the device looks pretty basic just like every other Android-based smartphone on the market in 2022 and there isn’t anything I think anyone can find attractive about the physical design of the device…in my opinion.

But there is the Nothing Phone 1 which seems to be slightly unique in the world of boring Android phone design. The device took the aesthetics approach even though one can argue that the device looks a bit similar to an iPhone 13 series thanks to its flattened aluminum frame and back panel.

The Nothing Phone 1 comes in two color options: black and white, while the Motorola Edge 30 comes in three color options: Meteor Grey, Supermoon Silver, and Aurora Green.

The latter has an advantage in the size department though as it’s labeled the slimmest smartphone of 2022 at just 159.4 x 74.2 x 6.8 mm (6.28 x 2.92 x 0.27 in) and it weighs about 155 g (5.47 oz) – that’s because it has a plastic body across its frame and its back panel all of which makes the device to appear slightly cheap in my opinion.

On the bright side is the Nothing Phone 1 which looks like a US$1000 smartphone despite being way cheaper than that. It has about 160 LEDs at the back which can be customized to display in certain ways whenever you have a notification.

The LEDs also sync with the device’s default ringtones which is another cool aesthetic of the device. I also love the design of the back panel which is transparent. The screws are exposed and the camera module can be seen just as the wireless charging section which is enclosed in the semi-circular LED ring design.

The Nothing Phone 1 has a dimension of about 159.2 x 75.8 x 8.3 mm (6.27 x 2.98 x 0.33 in) and it weighs 193.5g (6.84 oz) thanks to the implementation of glass and aluminum parts all of which give the device its premium look and feel.

Specs & Software: Nothing Phone 1 vs Motorola Edge 30

Since both devices are mid-tier smartphones, one is surely ahead of the other but in terms of their processors, both devices sport the Snapdragon 778G+ 5G (6nm) chipset from popular chipmaker, Qualcomm.

The chipset has an octa-core chipset built at 6 nm composed of a Cortex A78 CPU with a max frequency of 2.5 GHz, three Cortex A78 CPUs running at a max frequency of 2.4 GHz, and four Cortex A55 CPUs with a frequency of 1.8 GHz, paired with an Adreno 642L GPU.

But away from that, both devices come with a variety of storage options that surely differentiates them. The Nothing Phone 1, for example, has up to 12GB of RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 internal storage while the Motorola Edge 30 on the other hand only peaks at 8GB of RAM while the storage option can reach about 256GB.

The Nothing OS is pretty minimalistic and is almost stock Android 12 though the company gave the UI some touch such as the font and themes. Apart from that, there isn’t any bloatware like other brands such as Xiaomi or Samsung both of which are known for hauling bloatware around on their smartphones.

Motorola Edge 30 on the other hand has a simple UI that is almost close to the stock Android 12 experience.

Camera: Nothing Phone 1 vs Motorola Edge 30

Nothing Phone 1 has a triple rear camera setup while Motorola Edge 30 has a triple rear camera option all of which are arranged similarly – in a vertical order. Both devices have a 50MP primary sensor with OIS and other configurations and another 50MP ultrawide sensor. The Motorola Edge 30 has a third 2MP macro camera which is pretty useless and there’s nothing else I can say about it.

At the front of the devices, there is a 16MP selfie camera on the Nothing Phone 1 while the Motorola Edge 30 has a 32MP front-facing camera even though both perform fairly the same.

Other Information

Both devices have good battery capacity even though they aren’t so great. I would expect more from Realme or Redmi but I digress. The Nothing Phone 1 has a big 4,500 mAh Li-Po battery that can be fast-charged with a power brick at 33W. According to Nothing, the device can reach 50% under just 30 minutes or 100% in about 70 minutes.

There’s also support for wireless charging at 15W or reverse wireless charging at 5W both of which are pretty standard.

Then there is Motorola Edge 30 which has a smaller 4,020mAh Li-Po battery but can also be fast-charged at 33W even though Motorola didn’t make any claim about how fast the device can go from 0% to 100%. And there’s also no wireless charging not to talk of reverse wireless charging – since the back panel is made of plastic material.

The Nothing Phone has a US$499 price tag or about EU€499 in the EU. But the device isn’t coming to the United States…yet! But if you’re in such a hurry and want one of both, then you can surely get the less expensive Motorola Edge 30 which comes with a US$400 or EU€400 price tag.