Nothing Phone 1 gets unofficial Android 13 with first custom ROM build

The Nothing Phone 1 quickly became popular due to two reasons despite being the first smartphone a new company. These key pillars were its fresh design and clean software. While the design of the Nothing Phone 1 is no secret now, the clean, stock Android skin that powers the phone may be a little too barebones for power users who want a little more customisation.
To fix that, long time custom ROM making team Paranoid Android has now released its first alpha build for the Nothing Phone 1. The custom ROM brings all the new features of Paranoid Android Topaz, based on Android 13 to the Nothing Phone 1.

For the uninitiated, a custom ROM is essentially a third-party bake of the Android skin, which can be used on an Android phone as a replacement OS (operating system) skin to the stock one that the phone comes with. While installing custom ROMs is not exactly a basic procedure, reserved for users with some Android-tinkering experience, the  benefits could include a completely transformed user experience.
The Nothing Phone 1 custom ROM can be downloaded from the developer’s thread on XDA Developers or directly from the Paranoid Android website. The installation procedure is simple, and includes a couple of commands in addition to the process of unlocking the bootloader of your Nothing Phone 1, in case you haven’t done that already.

Note that the build is likely to come with a number of critical bugs, given that it is quite literally, the first test build of the ROM for the phone. Some of these bugs are also mentioned in the developer’s thread.
The custom ROM is also the first taste of Android 13 for the Nothing Phone 1, which is yet to get an official Android 13-based build of Nothing OS, its own skin. The company has revealed earlier this year that the phone should see a beta roll out before the end of the year and a stable update to Android 13 early 2023.