Nothing's approach to its operating system has been quite commendable. Sure, Nothing OS doesn't pack all the bells and whistles you'd find in UIs like One UI and Hyper OS, but it's come a long way from looking like a pure AOSP image to probably one of the cleanest yet functional user interfaces after Pixel UI. Nothing OS 2.5 recently landed for both Phone (1) (in beta) and Phone (2), and it brings new features and improvements for a better user experience. But subjectively, it misses out on some features that could have made the experience better. Here are some useful features of Nothing OS 2.5 on the phone (2) and some flaws that nothing can improve.
Nothing OS 2.5 (Android 14) on Nothing Phone 2: All Changes!
Before the stable release, I had been using Nothing OS 2.5 based on Android 14 for a month, and it may sound cliche but something about Nothing's Beta channel screams OnePlus to me. It is usually very stable with minor errors here and there. Kudos to the development team! However, this review comes after using the stable version for almost two weeks.
There were hardly any errors or bugs in the Beta and the trend continues in the stable version. Some of the minor issues in the beta, such as when the image of Bluetooth devices paired with Fast Pair would not appear in the Quick Settings pane, have been fixed. I haven't encountered any app crashes or UI errors yet and overall it's been smooth sailing so far. Nothing Phone (2)
The new widgets work as advertised. They're still clearly one of the Nothing Phone's best selling points and I wish Google would address them in the same way in the Pixel UI. Widgets are one of the best Android features and it's great and quite ironic to see Nothing pulls more potential out of them than the Android manufacturers.
