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It's official: The Nothing Phone 1 has a mid-range processor
- The Nothing Phone 1 will ship with a Snapdragon 778G Plus chipset.
- This is a relatively powerful mid-range processor.
- Nothing said it chose this SoC due to its performance, cost, and power consumption.
The Nothing Phone 1 is still roughly two weeks away from launch, but the company insists on issuing a drip-feed of information in the run-up to the device’s launch. Now, Nothing has confirmed the choice of chipset for its first phone.
Nothing founder Carl Pei told Input Mag that the Phone 1 is powered by the upper mid-range Snapdragon 778G Plus SoC. It’s not a flagship SoC then, but it’s certainly among the better choices on paper if you have to choose a mid-range processor.
The Snapdragon 778G Plus features a 6nm manufacturing process and a pretty powerful octa-core CPU (four Cortex-A78 and four Cortex-A55). You’re also getting an Adreno 642L GPU and an X53 5G modem.
The modem is technically capable of supporting both mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G, but we’re guessing Nothing might skip the former standard if the phone isn’t coming to the US. Omitting mmWave 5G should also result in cost savings as there’s no need to include the relevant antenna modules and other parts.
Why opt for mid-range silicon?
So why did Nothing pick this chipset? Pei told Input that the Snapdragon 778G Plus was chosen for reasons related to performance, power consumption, and cost. The company also claimed that the chipset was more suitable than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 family and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 from a power-saving and heating point of view.
Curiously, Nothing told the outlet that Qualcomm added wireless charging and reverse wireless charging to the Snapdragon 778G Plus:
These are features normally reserved for Qualcomm’s flagship mobile chipsets. Nothing tells Input that Qualcomm added these two features just for the Phone 1.
We’re not too sure about this claim though, as phones like the Pixel 5 offered wireless charging and reverse wireless charging despite using the older Snapdragon 765G processor. So the Nothing Phone 1 certainly wouldn’t be the first Snapdragon 700 series phone with these features.
In any event, it’s clear that the Nothing Phone 1 doesn’t quite have flagship power. But there’s more to a device than silicon, so we look forward to seeing more specs and official pricing.