Nothing Phone (2a) review: Eye-catching design with decent performance

London-based emerging consumer electronics brand Nothing Inc. earlier in the month unveiled the new mid-range Phone (2a).

The company is offering the Phone (2a) in three options— 8GB RAM + 128GB storage, 8GB RAM + 256GB storage, and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage-- with prices starting at Rs 23,999 in India.

I spent a little over a week with Phone (2a) and here are my thoughts about Nothing's latest offering:

Design, build quality and display

The new Phone (2a) sports a familiar but unique trademark see-through design language of the previous smartphone iterations from the house of Nothing.

On the back, it has a transparent glass-like cover. You can see the internal components such as coils, flex cables, and the camera module with LED light, which by the way is encircled by an NFC (Near Field Communication) coil and three LED-based light strips.

See-through Design and Glyph Interface: Nothing Phone (2a) stands out with its distinct and see-through design. Its minimalist aesthetic and attention to detail make it a conversation starter.

The company offers the device in two colours-- black and white.

The new Phone (2a) model features polycarbonate fibre-based material with a glass-like attribute. Even the frame around the display is made of plastic-based compound. It is very light but sturdy. I dropped the Phone (2a) a couple of times accidentally. It survived with no physical damage.

The screen is protected by a Gorilla Glass 5 shield. Moreover, the company pre-fits a plastic-based thin screen guard over the display. So far, the screen has remained scratch-free.

Also, it comes with an IP54 rating. It can survive accidental water splashes and even light rains, but only for a few minutes. Device owners are advised to clean the phone with a piece of cloth and ensure the type-C port is dry before putting it for charging.

Nothing Phone (2a).

On the front, it flaunts a 6.7-inch full HD+ (1080 x 2412p) AMOLED screen with a pixel density of 394 ppi (pixels per inch). It has a small camera at the top and has uniform thin bezels around the edges. It has an 87.3 per cent screen-to-body ratio. Phone 2(a) is great for multimedia content consumption, be it for reading news or binge-watching TV serials on OTT apps.

Even outdoors, the phone's screen does its job in delivering a clear viewing experience. It can support peak brightness of 1,300 nits and up to 120Hz refresh rate. The latter ensures the device delivers a smooth scrolling experience on social media apps and while browsing the internet.

Nothing Phone (2a).

The new Phone (2a) also features an in-display fingerprint sensor. It works without any issues as long as the finger is clean and dry.

At the top, it houses a lone microphone. At the base, it features a type-C port, a microphone, a dual-SIM tray and a speaker, which by the way works fine. Even with maximum volume, the speaker delivered good audio output with less distortion.

On the left, it has volume rockers while the power button is on the right.

Performance

Nothing's new handset houses a 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro octa-core processor. It can clock peak CPU speed up to 2.8 GHz. And, it comes paired with Mali-G610 MC4 GPU and supports up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.

The company is offering the Phone (2a) in three configurations--— 8GB RAM + 128GB storage, 8GB RAM + 256GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage. Our review unit is the latter.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s CPU and GPU performance score on Geekbench 6.0 performance app.

Initially, the device showed a little lag when loading apps and operating the camera. The company later rolled out a software update with bug fixes.

The new update has had a noticeable positive impact on the device. Even with gaming, it has improved a lot.

Nothing's software update to the Phone (2a).

The phone has a large vapour chamber (3200m2) with a 0.11mm graphite layer. It can cool the surrounding area up to 12,000m2 on the back panel and ensure efficient heat dissipation while doing heavy-duty tasks such as gaming and operating the camera to record 4K videos.

The device supports RAM Booster technology. With this, its physical memory can be expanded from 12GB to 20GB RAM. This comes in handy in making the phone work faster in terms of app loading.

Need for Speed game played on Nothing Phone (2a).

It runs on Android 14-based NothingOS 2.5. While setting up the phone, it offers two interface options-- Nothing's trademark dotted monochrome (black & white colour scheme with a dash of red) and a standard vanilla Android experience. I chose the latter, as I like to spend more time on the phone.

Usually, monochrome UI is used by people who intend to reduce their addiction to the phone. There are dedicated Android launchers on Play Store such as Olauncher AF and Minimalist Phone. The main intention of such a feature is to make the owner use the phone to just read notifications or answer calls and return to important work at hand. But, with a visually colourful home screen, it distracts owners and makes them check out more apps, and spend more time on the device.

Nothing Phone (2a).

Nothing has been confirmed to offer three years of Android OS updates (up to 2027) and an additional year of software security patches (once in three months, up to 2028) to the Phone (2a). This is good enough to serve the customer long.

The USP of the device is the LED glyph interface. It works great.

The three LED strips on the back of the camera module are optimised to offer light-based countdown notifications. Just by looking at the fading light, phone owners can know the estimated time of arrival of a cab on the Uber app or food booked through the Zomato app. Even the stop clock timer is optimised with an LED glyph interface.

Just go to the Glyph feature in Settings >> Glyph timer >> set the time and just put the phone with the display facing down on the table. The timer's countdown will be reflected through the fading LED light.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s Glyph interface.

Currently, Nothing is one of the very few Android partner companies that does a fantastic job with hardware-software optimisation. With more follow-up software updates, the Phone 2(a) will get even better in terms of performance and get more Glyph customisation options in the future.

With a 5,000mAh cell capacity, it was able to consistently deliver one and a half days of battery life under normal usage.

In the retail box, the company offers just the Type-C-to-Type-C cable with support for up to 45W charging speed. With this, the device can get charged up from zero to 50 per cent under 25 minutes. It can reach the 100 per cent mark in under one hour.

The customer has to buy the charging adapter separately.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo.

Photography

The new Phone (2a) sports a dual-camera module-- main 50MP wide camera (with f/1.9 aperture, 1/1.56-inch sensor, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation, PDAF: Phase Detection Auto Focus) + 50MP Ultra wide sensor(f/2.2, 1/2.76-inch sensor, 0.64µm pixel size, 114-degree field-of-view) with TrueLens Engine tech, and LED flash on the back.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo.

It takes fantastic pictures in the sunlight. It manages to retain natural colours of the subject and other finer details of the scene with good accuracy.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo.

It also excels with close up shots too. As you can see in the sample shot below, the delicious poppy seeds sprinkled buns looks lovely with clear details in the frame.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo.

In portrait mode, Phone (2a) does a decent job with delivering naturally blurred bokeh effect.

With the night mode on, it manages to get fine quality photos.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo with night mode on.

Phone (2a)'s ultra-wide angle mode supports up to 114-degree field-of-view. Here too, it manages to get an amazing shot of the hotel complex with pretty sky in the background.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo with ultra-wide angle mode.

Nothing's new mid-range phone also supports 2X zoom. It delivers with great photo with less of quality.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo with 2X Zoom.

On the front, it houses a 32MP camera for selfies and video chatting. Here too, it works great in the natural sunlight. And, indoors, the photo quality is decent, on par with rival brands in its class.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo.

The new Phone (2a) can record full HD and 4K videos with 30 fps (frames per second). It can record full HD 1080p at 60/120 fps.

Nothing Phone 2(a)'s camera sample photo.

The front camera can record full HD at 60 fps. The overall video quality on both the front and the back cameras is quite admirable for its asking price.

Nothing Phone (2a)'s camera sample photo with night mode on.

Final thoughts

At the initial stage of the review period, Phone (2a) showed some lag-ness. But, after upgrading to the new software update, several issues related to camera and animation stuttering were also resolved.

Considering all aspects, the new Nothing Phone (2a) is a good value-for-money mid-range device. Add to that, the trademark Glyph interface feature, makes it a standout among smartphones from rival brands in the sub-Rs 30,000 price segment.

Nothing Phone (2a).

The new Phone (2a) is available in three models — 8GB RAM + 128GB storage (Rs 23,999), 8GB RAM + 256GB storage (Rs 25,999) 12GB RAM + 256GB storage (Rs 27,999) on Croma, Flipkart, Vijay Sales, and authorised retail stores.

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