If there is an immovable rule in the technological world, it is that every year a new generation of any product must be launched. If not more. The RAM market may explode, but what is certain is that every year we will have a new Samsung Galaxy and a new iPhone. And to the question of whether it is necessary to have a new high-end mobile phone every year, someone has answered that, perhaps, it is not necessary.
It has been Nothing, and curiously it could do with a high-end. But… it makes sense.
In short. Carl Pei is not only one of the founders of OnePlus: he is the mind behind the launch of the Nothing brand. After landing in 2022, the British company has relied on different marketing, but also on a CEO who is very active in networks, as well as open about the future of the company. Faced with the opacity of colleagues/rivals, Pei has always been quite ‘playful’ with the opinions of both the industry and his brand and the segment in general.
In a recent self-interview published on his YouTube channel, he gave an interesting clue. “We’re not going to launch a new flagship every year just for the sake of it.” There are two melons here: one is that we won’t have the Nothing Phone (4) in 2026. The other is that you are quite right considering how things are.
Rampant crisis in the background. Although companies like Micron, Samsung or NVIDIA are doing great, we have been immersed in a -new- component crisis for weeks. RAM was the first product whose Price turned this basic component into a luxury one, but graphics cards and SSDs have followed the same path. And things do not look like they will improve in the short and medium term.
This RAM crisis has already resonated in the smartphone segment. There are two options: either -much- more expensive mobile phones or mobile phones with -much- less RAM. Goodbye to the crazy 24 GB of memory on a mobile phone, welcome 4 GB.
Pei himself already commented: if things continue like this, and they have remained the same, the user will have to choose between paying 30% more for a new mobile phone or settling for a new mobile phone at the same price as the previous one, but with less RAM (and the storage we would see). Come on, Pei has said, without saying it directly, what the decision would be with a Nothing Phone (4).
Software > Hardware. Now, as WorldOfSoftware Móvil points out, the fact that there is not a new Nothing flagship for 2026 does not mean that they are not going to launch a mobile phone. It is estimated that they are working on a mid-range Phone (4a) that takes up the baton of the notable Nothing Phone (3a) while keeping the components short so that the price does not go down.
And, furthermore, it gives meaning to an industry strategy, one in which the greatest advances that we have seen in recent generations have more to do with cloud services, artificial intelligence and everything that software encompasses… more than hardware. Yes, more powerful, faster and capable hardware is important to perform tasks within the device, but the cloud is also a pillar in this software.
Qualcomm pushes another narrative. On the other hand, there is the strategy of some hardware companies that are obliged to keep the wheel turning. NVIDIA and Qualcomm are two examples, with more capable graphics cards not so much in terms of raw power performance, but rather better processing of artificial intelligence tasks such as DLSS. And also Qualcomm, which every year-end presents its new chips for mobile devices, and those are the ones we see in the new launches of the most premium range.
Because each new generation is more powerful than the previous one and -may- have better cameras and more generous batteries, but it is also true that from year to year we are not seeing considerable leaps between devices from the same brand. And that is when it makes complete sense for a company like Nothing to point out that, perhaps, this annualization of the ‘flagship’ is not necessary.
It would be necessary to see what would happen in a context other than a component crisis, of course, but Pei himself has said on occasion that software is the future.
Image | WorldOfSoftware
In WorldOfSoftware | I had no idea what the future of the smartphone is. Until I spoke to Carl Pei
