Nothing phone (1): New renders project a highly atypical transparent design for the Carl Pei-led OEM's inaugural Android device

Carl Pei's latest company Nothing has now hinted that it might launch its second-ever piece of tech during its upcoming 2022 keynote. This device is thought to be the emerging brand's first-gen smartphone, currently slated to run Android on a Qualcomm Snapdragon platform. 

Nothing is a company that has sold itself as capable of delivering hardware with emphatically distinct looks and a focus on blending into the user's life. Given that this has translated into TWS earbuds with a semi-transparent shell that reveals some of their internals in a pointedly artful way thus far, the design student Osho Jain has taken these cues and incorporated them into new "phone (1)" renders, presented in partnership with the blog Yanko Design.

The resulting images initially give the impression of a device that does indeed follow the see-through trend, in a way that suggest the putative phone (1) will support wireless charging. Looking closer, Jain predicts that one of Nothing's most original design touches pertains to its fingerprint sensor.

Rather than being integrated into the display as normal, Jain seems to think the OEM has developed a relatively novel piece of hardware, set off to one side of the rear panel as a raised, prominently red button-like protuberance.

Most of the rear cameras, on the other hand, will be set into the transparent panel in an irregular arrangement - except for what might be the main lens, presented with a bluish-green tinge to the glass for some reason.

Jain also now projects that the phone (1) will exhibit a number of little Nothing-esque legends and mottos ("Rethinking Everything" and so forth) found at various points alongside its internals, which are of course visible through the clear case.

Otherwise, the hypothetical phone (1) is presented with a bottom-facing USB type-C port flanked by speaker grilles, another prominent yet skinny grille along the top of its possibly flat display and no sign of a headphone jack. All in all, these renders, while impressive, suggest that this vision of Nothing's inaugural phone is indeed one for big fans of the transparent look.

Then again, given the only possible evidence of how its real-life counterpart might look, there may be little scope of a see-through design after all.