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Nothing Phone (1) Is Here, And You Can Afford It
All models of the Phone (1) are available in black or white across more than 40 markets including Saudi Arabia, Israel, and United Arab Emirates.
A new contender in the smartphone arena is here, and its name is Phone (1). The company behind it, Nothing, was founded in 2020 by Carl Pei, after the Swedish entrepreneur left OnePlus, which he co-founded along with Pete Lau.
The Phone (1) is actually Nothing’s second product. The first was a pair of Teenage Engineering-designed wireless earbuds, called Ear (1).
Just like the wireless earbuds before it, the Phone (1) attempts to grab the attention of consumers with an unusual design and better features than what its starting price of £399 (around $475 USD) would suggest.
The base model comes with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. It costs £50 to increase the amount of storage space to 256 GB, and £100 to also upgrade RAM to 12 GB. All models of the Phone (1) are available in black or white across more than 40 markets including Saudi Arabia, Israel, and United Arab Emirates.
The back of the smartphone features unique light strips that visually set it apart from all other devices on the market. But the light strip isn’t just about looks. For example, it indicates how full the battery is, and it can also flash to let you know that you have a new notification.
When looking at the rear side of the Phone (1), you’ll also notice two camera lenses: one standard and one ultrawide. Below both lenses are 50 MP sensors, and the main camera even has optical and electronic image stabilization (OIS and EIS), so you should be able to take sharp pictures even in low-light conditions.
It’s worth noting that the ultrawide camera doubles as a macro camera because it can focus as close as 4 centimeters from an object.
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The front side of the Phone (1) houses a 6.55-inch 1080p OLED display that can reach up to 1,200 nits of peak brightness and a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The display has a small hole-punch cutout for the front-facing 16 MP selfie camera, and it integrates an in-display fingerprint sensor.
Powering the Phone (1) is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G Plus processor. While not as capable as Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, it should still keep the phone’s Android-based operating system, Nothing OS, running smoothly for a long time.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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