Nothing Phone (3a) review

If there’s just one thing where Nothing is set apart from the rest of the smartphone segment, it’s design. Even though the Nothing Phone 3a is a decidedly mid-range option with a starting price of Rs. 24,999, the styling and appearance are nothing like what you’d get from competing options even in higher price brackets. 

A big part of what makes it unique is the glyph system - the three lights at the back of the phone which can be used for a lot more than just the typical flash and torch functionality that most phones come with. Apart from flashing in sync with ringtones, you can also use the glyph interface for a bunch of other features - more on that a bit later. Notably, the Nothing Phone 3a does also have a regular flash module for photography and bright torch light.

 

 

 

 

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Even looking beyond the glyph interface, the back of the Nothing Phone 3a is quite the sight. The device sticks to the industrial see-through looks of its predecessors, but you can’t quite see through to the components; some of the modules and patterns are visible though, and it actually looks quite impressive. 

The triple-camera module sits in a row, which is the most significant visual difference between the Nothing Phone 3a and the Phone 3a Pro. The frame is said to be aluminium, but feels a lot like plastic to touch and feel. Nonetheless, it still feels fairly solid and durable. There are buttons for power and volume as expected, along with a fourth ‘essential’ key which opens up another unique feature in the interface - again, more on that later.

ALSO SEE: Poco X7 review

Under the hood, the Nothing Phone 3a gets the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset. You get 8GB of RAM standard in India, and either 128GB or 256GB of storage depending on the variant you pick, priced at Rs. 24,999 and Rs. 26,999 respectively. Expectedly, you get dual-SIM capabilities with 5G support on both, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4, and expected basics such as IP64 dust and water resistance and an under-display fingerprint sensor.

The Nothing Phone 3a has 3a Pro have identical displays, so you aren’t getting a watered down experience with the non-Pro device. The phone has a 6.77-inch AMOLED 120Hz display with a resolution  of 1080x2392 pixels (Full-HD+). You also get up to 3000 nits peak brightness, but the regular user-accessible brightness levels top out at a much lower level of about 1300 nits - still, decent enough for a phone at under Rs. 30,000.

The phone also gets support for HDR10+ high dynamic range content, and Panda Glass protection on top. The bezels around the display aren’t quite as slim as on competing and higher-priced devices; in fact, I’d even call them a bit on the thick side.

At the base of the software experience on the Nothing Phone 3a is of course Android 15, but it’s Nothing OS 3.1 which provides some key differentiation for this device. Nothing’s homegrown user interface is a bit of a wildcard, and indeed many people might find the changes a bit too jarring. I personally quite like the look and feel, and the added features that come with it.

The special icon set and customisation themes look good, and add a sense of adventure to this phone. You may not immediately recognise some of the icons, but you’ll get used to it eventually. There are also lots of customisation options, and important elements of the software package are where you’d expect to find them on an Android smartphone; there isn’t too much change for the sake of change when it comes to the basics.

 

 

 

 

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Coming to the special features which I promised to get back to - the Glyph interface and the Essential key. The former is the next step in a familiar feature set on Nothing smartphones, and comes with some useful touches in addition to the basic flashing lights when your phone rings. You can also view things like timers and volume levels on the Glyph lights when your phone is face down, get some neat visualisation for your music, and more. 

The phone can also be set to activate silent mode when flipped over, letting you rely on the lights for notifications. Of course, all of this relies heavily on your actually flipping the phone face down often, and this isn’t something I do much. Still, it could work for many, or is something you could get used to for the sake of using the feature.

ALSO SEE: HMD Fusion review

The Essential key, on the other hand, is Nothing’s play at AI. Pressing the button on any screen takes a sort of screenshot which can be saved to the Essential space (an app made for keeping these), and you can also add voice or text notes to go with it. 

Inside the Essential space, you get a quick Gemini-powered AI scan of the contents of the screenshot, which summarises stuff on screen. You can also press and hold the button to quickly record voice notes to save to the Essential space.

Interestingly, the Essential space also now comes with the ability to work with your camera, to capture images and save them directly to the space. This works well to save visual notes for yourself, and once saved the AI functionality can give you additional inputs based on your note and the details in the image itself. It's niche, but I can see the use cases.

It’s great for quickly saving ideas, voice notes, and audio clips along with getting a bit of AI summarisation with it, but I kind of wish the button was customisable in function…

The Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro both have triple-camera setups, but the 3a gets a slightly different telephoto camera; the main and ultra-wide cameras are the same. The more affordable option has a 50-megapixel primary, 50-megapixel telephoto, and 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera system. You get up to 2X optical zoom and video recording at up to 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps. 

You can also choose to capture photos at the full 50MP resolution, or go with more manageable file sizes with 12MP shots. None of this is too fancy, but remember that this phone starts at under Rs. 25,000.

Well lit conditions produce fairly decent pictures on the Nothing Phone 3a, and the phone has enough tricks to be able to pull off artistic and social-media-worthy stuff. Portrait shots looked decent after a bit of image processing by the phone, as did pictures of colourful objects such as plants and other knick-knacks we had lying around the Stuff office. 

Interestingly, the camera UI also nicely presents a few artistic options to get good pictures; some of these are fairly simple mode selections, while others are filters that work with dedicated presets to help you get different kinds of images. Easy access to the monochrome mode was fun, given that black and white shots add a good amount of drama to even ordinary subjects and scenes.

Nothing’s most recent smartphones have featured mid-range chipsets, in an effort to keep pricing at affordable levels that appeal to a younger audience. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is itself fairly new, but it’s derived from the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 which is a bit old, and from a lineup which seems to be getting ignored for any serious further development by Qualcomm.

Still, it isn’t too bad, and does a decent enough job in running the Nothing Phone 3a for most things. The 8GB of RAM should also be enough to run most things efficiently on the phone, although a 12GB RAM option being available in India would have been appealing to many. 

To not sugarcoat it, this isn’t a performance-focused phone at all, and relies more on its looks and software to get attention. However, it does deliver reasonable performance for gaming and routine multi-tasking - enough to keep you going without any slow-downs or unnecessary frustration.

ALSO SEE: OnePlus 13R review

Battery life on the Nothing Phone 3a is very good, thanks to the 5000mAh battery and frugal hardware. With careful use, you could go as long as two days between charges, and you’ll definitely get over a day even with moderate everyday use. 

Charging is possible at up to 50W, and there’s also reverse wired charging to let you top up other devices using the phone. However, the charging adapter isn’t included in the box, though you do get the right cable to get fast charging when used with a decent aftermarket adapter. If you get it right, you should be able to charge the phone in a little over an hour, or work with burst charging to go from about 30-80 percent in less than an hour.

The Phone 3a is the more affordable and slightly less equipped of the two new phones from Nothing, but the difference aren’t a lot in a practical sense. Even objectively, this is a decent device for the price, assuming you’re focused on things like the design and software. It’s a good looking phone, gets some interesting features in the form of the Glyph Interface and Essential Space, and benefits from a nice UI and decent battery life.

This is an adventurous phone, and also a different phone; it’s unique and unlike anything else in the sub-Rs. 30,000 space that you can buy right now. That makes it worth a look, especially if you want the light show to attract eyeballs.