Nothing isn't doing conventional pre-orders on the Nothing phone (1) and is essentially taking the same approach used for the OnePlus One, using a waitlist and invite system. That's no surprise as this seems to be coming from Carl Pei's playbook.

The public waitlist for the Nothing phone (1) is now open so you can add yourself to that list. There are at the time of writing nearly 14,000 people on that list. There's also a private list that will already be getting invites.

The way that this works is as follows: you sign up to the waitlist and at some point in the future you'll be sent an invite. That invite grants you access so that you can basically pre-order a phone.

That part of the process will ask you for a £20 deposit which is non-refundable, but comes off the final cost of the phone - which won't be announced until launch day. On launch day - 12 July - you'll be able to log in and complete your order, paying the balance for the device.

There's also a pre-order bonus of £20 credit towards accessories or the Nothing ear (1).

It's then promised that you'll get the phone earlier than general release, although we still don't know exactly when that might be - and it sounds like Nothing will be closely watching stock and demands just as we saw with OnePlus in the early days.

There are some ways you can move up the waitlist - if you recommend friends and they use that referral link you'll move up the list. Again, it's a bit of a hype-building measure to encourage people to spread the word.

The elephant in the room here is that you're essentially being asked to put down a deposit on a device when you, firstly, don't know the final price and, secondly, you don't have the full specs.

So there's something of a risk - you might end up getting your hands on the hottest phone of 2022, the phone that everyone is talking about, or you might end up with a lemon and leave you wishing you just got a Samsung like everyone else.