Android 13 beta teased for the Nothing Phone (1)

What you need to know

• Nothing CEO Carl Pei teases Android 13 coming soon to the Phone (1).
• Owners of a Phone (1) may be coming up on a beta period for Android 13 as Carl Pei said it would be coming "soon."
• Tech lovers could get their hands on Android 13 early through third-party ROM Paranoid Android and its Topaz Alpha 1 build.

Carl Pei, CEO of Nothing, appears to have teased Android 13 coming to the Nothing Phone (1).

Car Pei's teaser comes as a tweet where he provided a simple screenshot of his Nothing Phone (1) system information. In the photo, all eyes shot straight down to the "Android version" portion, which reads Android 13.

Carl Pei was then questioned about when there would be a beta program for users to sign up and test, to which he promptly responded by saying, "soon." Many owners of the Phone (1) flooded the responses with excitement and additional questions as to how they could enroll in this beta program. He hasn't yet responded to those comments, so it looks like we're going to have to wait a little longer to learn more.

The Nothing Phone (1) has been teased to receive Android 13 since August. The company has promised three major OS upgrades for its first smartphone, which would take the phone from its initial release of Android 12 all the way to Android 15, at least.

The long delay of Android 13 arriving on the Phone (1) seems to be due to quite a few key features that the phone offers, like its Glyph interface (the lighting on its back). However, things seem to be going well ahead of the beta release, as just before sending out the teaser, Pei posted another tweet saying the first builds of Android 13 are "working much better than expected." Back during the summer, Carl Pei did state that the Phone (1) would probably receive Android 13 in the first half of 2023.

Carl Pei also floated a mention that the Nothing Phone (1) would probably receive a beta by the end of 2022, and from the looks of it, we're getting closer to the release. Nothing still has a month and some change to begin rolling out its skin atop Android 13 to beta testers before we ring in 2023.

It is unfortunate that Nothing has taken so long to prepare some sort of beta for owners of the Phone (1) to begin experimenting with Android 13 on the device. However, eager, tech-savvy users can possibly use Nothing's third-party ROM support of Paranoid Android.

Paranoid Android rolled out its Topaz Alpha 1 build in October, which gave Nothing Phone (1) users a taste of Android 13 ahead of the company's official rollout of the new OS to all devices.