The Nothing Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro are the latest refresh from Nothing’s value-for-money midrange devices and they retain the company’s trademark futuristic design and Glyph notification lights. Well, except, they now have a glass back.
Unlike competing phones in the S$500 to S$600 price range offering less useful macro or monochrome cameras, both Nothing devices carry a wide-ultrawide-telephoto array – the (3a) with a 2x zoom, and (3a) Pro with 3x zoom.
Do these new mid-range models punch above their weight, as it seems on paper? I tried out the S$649 Phone (3a) Pro recently to see if it’s good enough for the average user.
Design
Subway lines made of metal. PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu Embossed paper box. PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu The lens protrude out a fair bit, and is flush with the entire roundel. PHOTO: Esmond Xu Another look. PHOTO: Esmond Xu Right side, with the bigger power button and smaller Essential Space button. PHOTO: Esmond Xu Left side. PHOTO: Esmond Xu The bottom. PHOTO: Esmond Xu
In a world where smartphones are converging onto flat front, back, sides and rounded corners, the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro appears to be a victim of the same trends, while holding steadfast to its bold rear design. In this iteration, they resemble subway lines formed out of metal circuitry.
I can see the reason for the basic shape. It offers the most secure and comfortable grip, especially with the matte finish on the sides. It also maximises compatibility with tempered glass screen protectors.
I like holding the Phone (3a) Pro in my hand, and it does feel a little lighter compared to devices of similar size. The round camera bump up top, however, is so visible that Nothing probably decided to make it a design feature than a bug.
I am okay with that, except that it does skew the weight distribution of the device. The glass surface of the triple camera lens array is also flush without an additional protective lip nor depression.
With the module sticking a good half centimetre out from the back of the phone, I will be concerned with dropping the phone face down without a case that has a raised lip around the module.
Screen
The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro has a 6.77-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate. The aspect ratio is a narrower (but not Sony narrow) 19.9:9 with 1,080 x 2,392 pixels.
The screen shows no sign of being cheap despite its price, perhaps just a little reflective under the sun. The glass is a flat slab without fancy tapering, and protected with “Panda Glass”, which I imagine to be a (cheaper) competitor to Corning.
The display claims maximum brightness of 3,000 nits and averages 1,300 nits. I measured 1,380 nits with the brightness slider at its maximum, and 1,800 nits with adaptive brightness on. I thought I caught the screen pulling over 2,300 nits for a moment while walking under the sun, but could not recreate it.
Dynamic refresh rates wise, the screen kept to 120Hz when I panned around the interface, dropped to 90Hz in most apps, and 60Hz when playing full screen videos and games. Better than nothing, but it would have been nice if the refresh rates varied with touch instead.
Performance
The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro uses a midrange Qualcomm SM7635 Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor released in August 2024, and pairs it with an Adreno 710 graphics chip. This marks a change from the Dimensity chips from Mediatek in earlier (a) devices.
I did not feel any lag while thumbing around the lightweight NothingOS, even if raw performance is expectedly not as great as flagships costing more than S$1,000.
I used PCMark 10 for Android’s Work 3.0 Professional to simulate day-to-day performance workloads like browsing the Web, editing photos and videos, and writing and manipulating data. The score I got is a rather average 12,465.
3DMark for Android (Wild Life Extreme), which tested the device’s handling of commonly-used game rendering engines, stuttered with a score of 1,050 averaging 6 frames per second (fps). The less-demanding Wild Life benchmark fared better, with an average score of 3,980 and 24 fps.
The scores may seem middling, but the Asphalt Legends Unite racing game ran without jitter. Yes, the anti-aliasing is not perfect, but the graphics are not choppy, and this is on a pretty new game that demands more from the graphics core.
Software features
App icons are automatically skinned. I like this a lot. PHOTO: Esmond Xu Wished Essential Space was a less siloed experience. PHOTO: Esmond Xu You can add voice notes to screenshots, but cannot seemingly add photos taken with the camera. PHOTO: Esmond Xu AI can turn the your recorded voice clip into a summarised note (like a diary), but I wished to used this function for finding images outside of Essential Space. PHOTO: Esmond Xu An introduction to the features of NothingOS. PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu PHOTO: Esmond Xu
NothingOS prides itself on a monochromatic palette, down to the app icons. These icons automatically take on a monochrome colour tone and shrink to fit into a black orb. The design is not perfect, but is an implementation that I find sufficiently versatile.
Circle to Search, a Google feature, is now on Nothing devices. I find it very useful for image search and translations, especially since it produces trustworthy results.
Glyph is also back, but simplified. It is now composed of three LED rounded rectangles around the camera ring, which can be customised to be call identifiers, a visual stopwatch, and the like.
Essential Space is activated through a newly added button on the right side of the device below the power button – I always need to take an extra glance to make sure I am not pressing that instead of the power button.
You hold the Essential Key to take a screenshot, which you can add a voice note to after. Press once to record a voice note, or double press to enter Essential Space. AI appears to do some analytical work with your inputs to provide day-to-day summaries.
I have a feeling this will be more useful if the screenshots can actually be seen in other photo gallery apps, or be extended to pictures taken with the camera.
I can see the use case behind this – I frequently struggle to find a particular screenshot or picture after a while. If given a convenient way to record what the shot is for, I can come back to them again through a search more easily after.
And I look forward to a less siloed implementation of the Essential Space.
Other features and battery
The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro supports eSIM, while its SIM card tray holds two SIM cards. Also, it joins a long list of smartphones without a microSD tray, and requiring a tray eject pin.
The bottom speakers share the bottom rail with the SIM card tray, and the top speaker is with the speakerphone sitting up top the device for calls. Good thing is the speakers are louder than average, though it can sound muffled at high volume.
The fingerprint sensor is built onto the lowest 10 percent of the display. This is the same as earlier Nothing devices, and feels just a tad too low.
The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro is IP64 rated for dust and water resistance. It will take a splash, but not a soak. I know this is a midrange device, but I hope every phone can handle pool photography in the coming years.
Battery life from the 5,000mAh lithium polymer cell is impressive, likely thanks to the low power consumption on a midrange processor. I calibrated the screen to 200 nits brightness, and ran the PCMark 10 for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test with Wi-Fi on. With dynamic refresh rate turned on, the device lasted 17 hours and 45 minutes.
The phone supports 50W wired charging with a compatible USB-C Power Delivery adapter (nope, not in box). There is no wireless charging, but probably better this than a weak implementation with slow charging speeds.
Cameras
As mentioned, the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro is among the few phones at its price range to pack a three-camera set up in which all are decent and not a barely-serviceable afterthought.
Make no mistake, there are differences in picture quality when placed right next to the big boys. However, they are comparable to midrange competitors like the Samsung Galaxy A55. Not to forget, the Nothing device has native telephoto instead of having to turn to digital zoom.
Wide: 50 MP, f/1.9, 24mm, 1/1.56-inch, 1.0µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS
Telephoto: 50 MP, f/2.6, 70mm, 1/1.95-inch, 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom
Ultrawide: 8 MP, f/2.2, 15mm, 120-degree, 1/4.0-inch, 1.12µm
These images are clear and with good colour. However, there is obvious purple fringing on the leaves set against the sky in ultrawide and wide shots. The 6x telephoto also reveals the limits of detail, as the shrubbery looks blurry and the green begins to fade.
The same issues with detail and purple fringing persist in these sets of images. The sitting pavilion, however, remains vibrant and in good focus, clearly capturing the light bouncing off the black frames.
The wide and telephoto shots are vibrant and do not appear to lose detail. One can, however, make out some muddying of detail in the aquatic plants in the ultrawide shot.
I thought these sets of shots revealed the limitations of the camera sensor in capturing detail. It may not help that there was a small drizzle, but it’s not hard to make out the loss of detail on the vending machines in the background across the images.
The ultrawide images have jagged edges, struggle with detail and are a little overexposed. The main shooter and telephoto shots achieved what I thought were good brightness and contrast to retain detail, though they may seem a little “shadowy” at times. The 6x zoom shot here shows the limits of the telephoto sensor with detail.
The ultrawide shot here struggles with brightness and detail, while the wide shot still appears a bit muddy especially on the dark field. The telephoto turns out the best shot, likely because most of the picture is focused on the lit atrium.
The jaggedness and noise on the glass facade of the building on the right are pretty obvious, especially where the staircases are. It is again the telephoto camera that turns out the most decent shot.
Conclusion
The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro is another good outing by the brand. My entire experience has been smooth and free of bugs, a reminder that top hardware is not always the biggest thing.
The new phone’s three-camera setup edges out midrange rivals. In particular, the telephoto camera, which is only on the (3a) Pro, can sometimes do better than the wide shooter.
Battery life is very good, a growing trend among midrange devices with less power-hungry processors. The camera bump is prominent, but probably something that can be fixed with the right case.
That said, I wished Nothing pushed the envelope even further. For instance, less muffled speakers, better speaker placement, or more water resistance would be great.
I’d gladly recommend the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro for folks on a budget. There are few devices at the S$600 price point that offer the same build and experience, especially if prices fall further over time.
