The Nothing Phone 2a was a pretty successful device from the brand last year, and the company even launched a “Plus” version of it, which featured a different chipset, slightly faster charging, and an upgraded selfie shooter. The brand has now launched the Phone 3a series globally. The series includes two smartphones – Nothing Phone 3a & Phone 3a Pro. Both are mid-range smartphones, and there are some notable upgrades that these phones bring over the Phone 2a / Phone 2a Plus.
NOTHING PHONE 3A
Starting with the vanilla model, the design is almost identical to the Nothing Phone 2a, but there is one noticeable change. There are now three cameras on the rear, versus two on the Phone 2a. The phone is IP64-certified, and there are stereo speakers. The back is made of glass, so that’s a nice upgrade versus the plastic back on the Phone 2a.
There is an extra button on the side this time, which the brand calls the “Essential key.” Pressing it once will take a screenshot, and then you can add some notes and save it to the “Essential space.” To access the “Essential space”, you double press the “Essential key.” You can also press and hold the key to add a voice recording for the screenshot. There are some more features related to the “Essential key” that Nothing will be adding in the upcoming software updates. Unfortunately, there is no option to remap this key to some other action.
Speaking of the specifications, the Nothing Phone 3a has a large 6.77-inch 120Hz Full-HD+ AMOLED display with a 3000 nits peak brightness, HDR10+ support, a 10-bit color depth, and a 2160Hz PWM dimming. Compared to the Phone 2a Plus, the peak brightness has increased by 131%. There is an optical under-display fingerprint scanner.
While Nothing went with MediaTek chipsets for its Phone 2a series last year, the Nothing Phone 3a features the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset, built on the TSMC’s 4nm process. The octa-core CPU is clocked at up to 2.5GHz, and there is an Adreno 810 GPU. Nothing claims an AnTuTu score of around 825,000 points. For better thermals, there is a 4,500 mm² steel vapor chamber.
The battery is 5,000mAh, and the phone supports 50W wired charging.
Coming to the camera setup, the Nothing Phone 3a has three rear cameras. The primary camera has a 1/1.57″ Samsung GN9 sensor with an f/1.88 lens and OIS. The ultrawide camera has an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor, a downgrade from the 50MP ultrawide on the Phone 2a series. The third camera has a 1/2.75” 50MP Samsung JN5 sensor with a 2x telephoto lens and no OIS. The selfie camera has a 32MP sensor, and it can shoot 1080p videos at up to 60fps.
Finally, the Nothing Phone 3a runs on Android 15-based NothingOS 3.1. The company has promised three years of Android updates and six years of security patch updates for the phone.
Here is the pricing for various markets –
- 8GB + 128GB – ₹24,999 / €329 / £329
- 8GB + 256GB – ₹26,999
- 12GB + 256GB – $379 / €379 / £379
NOTHING PHONE 3A PRO
Talking about the Phone 3a Pro, there are only a few differences. Design-wise, it is easy to differentiate the two phones because the Phone 3a Pro has a large circular camera module with a different camera arrangement than the vanilla model. The phone is still IP64-rated like the vanilla model.
The Phone 3a Pro has a periscope telephoto camera on the rear, making it the first Nothing phone with a periscope telephoto camera. This periscope camera has a 1/1.95” 50MP Sony LYT-600 sensor with OIS, 3x optical zoom, and 6x lossless zoom. This camera offers up to 60x digital zoom. The rest of the rear cameras are the same as the vanilla model.
On the front, the Phone 3a Pro has a 50MP sensor with 4K 30fps video recording support.
And well, those are the only differences between the two phones. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro has the same 5,000mAh battery, 50W wired charging, a 6.77″ 120Hz AMOLED display, stereo speakers, Essential key, and runs on Android 15-based NothingOS 3.1.
Here is the pricing for various markets –
- 8GB + 128GB – ₹29,999
- 8GB + 256GB – ₹31,999
- 12GB + 256GB – $459 / ₹33,999 / £449 / €459