The Nothing Phone (3a) series has launched in India at a price similar to last year’s (2a), with the Phone (3a) serving as its true successor. In our review, we explore whether the Phone (3a) lives up to its predecessor and, more importantly, if it justifies its starting price of Rs 24,999.
Design & Display
The Nothing Phone (3a) took the (2a)’s design and refined it further. While the overall aesthetic remains similar, Nothing has made some notable changes, such as the new wire layout at the bottom, a glass back panel instead of plastic used in the Phone (2a), a slightly refreshed glyph layout, and of course, the third telephoto camera on the back.
The in-hand feel of the Nothing Phone (3a) is far better than its predecessor, thanks to the use of glass. While the frame is still plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap and has a matte finish. The finish of the frame of the Phone (2a) was better in my opinion, but I am not complaining since the Phone (3a) feels much more premium in the hand.
What I also liked a lot is how clicky and tactile the buttons feel, compared to a nimble feel when clicking the Phone (2a) buttons. The Haptics remain similar to last year and for its price, they are impressive as they are tight and strong enough.
The stereo speaker setup sounds decent and does have some amount of bass, with ample loudness on offer.
The glyph lights on the back have been repositioned with the curved one going to the right and the straight one coming to the bottom left over the Phone (2a). However, it’s surprising that Nothing hasn’t added any new feature to the glyph lights. They still offer the same functionality as last year, including essential notifications, progress for uber cabs and zomato orders, volume indicator, etc.
Considering how the glyph interface is an important element of Nothing’s smartphones so far, the glyph lights on the Nothing Phone (3a) left us asking for more. Nothing could have added the charging indicator at least, that it left out on the Phone (2a) which its Phone (1) and Phone (2) had but unfortunately, we don’t see that, or anything else new here.
Aside from that, the Nothing Phone (3a), especially in white (and also blue, from what I have seen in photos online), with black buttons for a contrasting look, is an eye grabber for sure. With its unique design language and a great in-hand feel, the Phone (3a) impressed us with its design and accounted for a notable upgrade over its predecessor in this department at least.
Speaking of the display, the device gets a 6.77-inch AMOLED FHD+ screen with a Resolution of 1080 x 2392 pixels, HDR10+, up to 3000 nits peak brightness, 2160Hz PWM dimming, 240Hz touch sampling rate, and a 120Hz refresh rate.
This is a big smartphone to hold, which means you can’t reach each corner of the display with one hand. For some reason, Nothing slightly increased the bezel thickness on the Phone (3a) compared to the Phone (2a). However, the bezels remain uniform on all sides, which is a positive aspect.
As for the panel’s performance, it remained excellent. Colours look decent while the sharpness and smoothness are on point. Viewing angles were surprisingly amazing and so was the brightness, even when under direct sunlight.
What was slightly disappointing is that the device didn’t support HDR in the Netflix App but it is possible that support for it could be added in the future. Despite that, watching movies or YouTube videos on the Nothing Phone (3a) offered a pleasant experience.
The optical fingerprint sensor worked as it should without any issues.
Software and Performance
Under the hood, the Nothing device is powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset, paired with up to 8 GB of LPDDR4x RAM and up to 256 GB of UFS 2.2 internal storage.
These aren’t the most powerful specifications for a smartphone or even in Phone (3a)’s own price range where devices like the iQOO Neo 10R exist. However, it performs quite well in daily use with no stutters or lags to notice. Apps are quick to open or switch to while the device stays highly responsive.
Those looking for higher-end on-paper specs would get disappointed with the use of older versions of RAM and storage but that didn’t show up in real world use, at least during my review period of the device.
What could have been improved was the RAM management, as the device was often reloading apps from scratch.
Gaming on the device is possible but not at the highest graphics available for any demanding title like Call of Duty Mobile or BGMI. If you are a gamer, you’d be better off with iQOO’s Neo 10R considering it performed exceptionally well in its gaming review due to the use of a far more powerful chipset.
Nothing Phone (3a)’s highlight is its software and the optimisation the brand has carried out. Nothing OS 3.1 is one of the best operating systems to use if you want a smooth, snappy, and well-rounded experience with a smartphone at Phone (3a)’s price point. The device has the right amount of customisation features with a distinctive look for the OS and a useful set of other features.
We have already reviewed the Nothing OS 3.0 in detail and most of the aesthetics and features remain the same in version 3.1, including the lock screen clock styles, the quick settings panel, app lock support, game mode, and more. The device also supports Circle to Search which is again one of the most useful features I have gotten used to on most of my devices.
What’s new is Essential Space, for which you get a dedicated key on the right side with a curved surface to differentiate it from the power button that’s above it. It has its own set of functions, such as press once to take a screenshot of what’s on the screen and save it with notes, hold it and record your voice or tell it to carry out tasks like setting a reminder, and pressing it twice to open Essential Space.
A yellow border goes around the screen when you press it and whatever you save goes to Essential Space. The feature then analyses what you saved so it can later give you contextual information based on the saved content. If you save a screenshot, for example, it gets saved as a memory and then the content of that screenshot is read by the feature to summarise whatever is in that screenshot.
Privacy may be a concern here for many but as written in Nothing’s privacy policy, some content, like screenshots and text data, is sent to Nothing’s servers temporarily for processing. Once the service is provided, the data from Nothing’s servers gets deleted. Data such as audio files are processed on the device itself.
It’s quite a useful feature overall once you get the hang of it. I could find myself taking screenshots using it and setting reminders. If a screenshot contained a date or a place, Essential Space recommended me to add that task to the calendar or open that specific location in the Maps. Again, it’s a more practical and useful feature than some other AI features I have seen in mobile operating systems in recent times, such as Now Brief in One UI 7 which hardly works.
Aside from this, the connectivity performance of the handset remained optimal. Nothing promises 3 years of OS updates and 4 years of security patches for the device which is decent at this price. The device was running on the February 2025 security patch out of the box.
Read More: Nothing Releases Circle to Search Support for Nothing Phone (1), CMF Phone (1)
Battery
The Phone (3a) packs a 5000mAh battery which is the same as the Phone (2a), but supports slightly faster 50W charging. The battery backup the device gave me was nothing short of exceptional. You can go about your day without any battery related anxiety as it can easily last you the day even with heavy usage which may include navigation. The device could also get me close to 2 days of runtime when my usage remained moderate.
Mostly on Wi-Fi, with Always-on display enabled, and usage including WhatsApp, Instagram scrolling, some gaming, browsing chrome, some calling, and watching YouTube videos, the device got me around 7.5 hours of screen-on time with more than 24 hours of runtime. In another cycle, the device could get me more than 8 hours of screen-on time which essentially shows how well the software is optimised.
The Nothing Phone (3a) in my usage, took about 45 minutes to charge from 15% to 100% which isn’t the best but is acceptable. Nothing has also changed the design of the cable it supplies in the box alongside the phone, where the transparent ends of the wire have been replaced with a white block.
Cameras
The Nothing Phone (3a), on the front, gets a 32-megapixel f/2.2 selfie camera. It further comes with a triple rear camera setup, consisting of a 50-megapixel f/1.88 OIS-assisted primary camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto sensor with 2x optical zoom, and an 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide angle camera. It supports Ultra XDR technology as well.
The device shoots excellent photos outdoors under bright sunlight. The dynamic range remains impressive while the details and sharpness of the shot are also on the higher side. Colours of the shots maintain a natural tone, meaning those who like vivid colours may not prefer this camera tuning.
Aside from that, Nothing has included a new feature in the camera app, called Presets. One can use the existing ones and also create their own based on the options available. Presets can help you switch to a different colour scheme, lens, or apply other settings through a single mode.
Speaking of ultra-wide angle shots, the Nothing Phone (3a) doesn’t disappoint in this regard. The colour scheme remains almost identical to that of the photos from the main sensor while the detailing is also likable. The dynamic range is also quite decent.
Portrait shots are even better with a natural bokeh effect and a great amount of sharpness. The colours look appealing to the eye and there’s nothing to complain about with such types of shots.
I didn’t go in with much expectations from the camera under low-lighting but the device seriously impressed me in this area as well. While the colours could have been slightly better, the sharpness as well as the overall look of the photo is amazing. The device does take a second or two to focus on the subject and then there’s a delay of a second after tapping the shutter button but the results are worth the wait.
Same is the case with shots under artificial lighting. The shutter lag isn’t present here but the amount of detailing on offer and how the device handles the colours in this particular scenario is outstanding.
Turning on the Night mode doesn’t bring a drastic difference in low-lighting conditions but definitely helps in increasing the brightness to some extent.
As for selfies, the skin tones appear warmer than in real life but again, the detailing in the shot is worth noticing while the dynamic range is also impressive.
Coming to the shots from the telephoto sensor, you can crop up to 30x digital zoom. Once you tap on the 2x toggle, the colours shift slightly and that shows in the shot as the photos become warmer. However, that doesn’t detract the telephoto sensor from taking detailed and sharp photos. At 4x zoom, the photos start to become soft with a slight amount of noise but the results are still acceptable. 30x shots also have a good amount of noise.
