Smartphone review
Is the Nothing Phone 3a the best mid-range phone of the year?
A stylish design, AI-powered features, and solid specs make it a strong contender.
Top Line
The Nothing 3a is a highly successful mid-range device that competes with slightly more expensive models. Its price gives it a significant advantage: it starts at around $350 for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and goes up to $430 for a model with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Some competing devices with similar specifications cost over $500 and often come preloaded with numerous unnecessary apps.
Despite its competitive pricing, the 3a doesn’t feel cheap—whether in terms of build quality, durability, or performance. The Nothing 3a continues the company’s trend of offering strong mid-range devices with unique design elements. It delivers excellent value with competitive pricing, solid performance, and an improved camera system. While its AI features and new shortcut button may take time to prove their usefulness, the overall package makes it a compelling choice in the mid-range market.
Details
The smartphone market is highly competitive. While Samsung and Apple dominate, several other manufacturers continue to compete, though some have withdrawn after failing to gain a foothold or finding the market uneconomical.
Amidst this landscape, a new player, Nothing, entered the market two and a half years ago. At least from the outside, it appears to be holding its own in this intense competition. The British company, founded by Carl Pei (one of the co-founders of OnePlus), didn’t start entirely from scratch. Still, it’s impressive to see how it has established a brand with distinctive characteristics and successful products.
After a relatively quiet year—with only minor updates to a previous device—Nothing has recently introduced two new models: the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro. The primary difference between them is in the camera lenses. The previous model, the 2a, impressed with its value for money and set a new standard for mid-range devices. We tested its successor, the 3a, to see what’s new.
Design and build: Staying unconventional
The Nothing 3a retains the company’s signature non-traditional design, featuring a transparent back that exposes some of the phone’s internal components. The glyph interface, a system of LED lights that flash for notifications, is also present. Different light patterns indicate an incoming call, a WhatsApp message, app updates, and more.
The rear camera layout has changed slightly. Instead of two lenses, there are now three—a contrast to Apple’s approach with its budget-friendly iPhone 16e, which has only one. Previously, the two-lens setup resembled a pair of eyes, but now the new arrangement, with two cameras separated from the third, gives the back of the device a look somewhat reminiscent of a robot’s head—though perhaps that’s just my imagination.
On the front, the design is standard: a large, flat 6.77-inch screen, slightly larger than the previous model. As a result, the weight has also increased slightly, now reaching approximately 200 grams—about 10 grams more than its predecessor. Despite this, the device does not feel heavy.
As with last year’s model, the power button is on the right side, while the volume buttons are on the left—a layout similar to the iPhone but different from most Android devices. Below the power button, Nothing has introduced an additional button, which serves as a shortcut to a new AI tool integrated into this model. However, this button can be confusing; in many instances, I found myself pressing it instead of the power button, making it somewhat cumbersome and unnecessary.
Screen protection has been upgraded, with the 3a meeting the IP64 standard, ensuring good protection against dust and splashes of water—though not submersion. Instead of the widely used Gorilla Glass, Nothing has equipped the screen with Panda Glass, a product of the Chinese company Dongxu rather than the American Corning. There are online debates about the quality differences, but in terms of everyday use, I didn’t notice any significant difference. However, I didn’t conduct specific durability tests.
Hardware: Strong specs for a mid-range device
The 3a is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor, designed for mid-range smartphones. The model we tested featured 12GB of RAM (with an additional 2GB of virtual RAM) and 256GB of storage—impressive specifications for this category. A lower-tier model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage is also available.
Performance is excellent: everything runs smoothly and quickly, including graphics-intensive games. The device handles heavy loads without overheating.
The display is vibrant and colorful, with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, ensuring usability even in direct sunlight—though it does suffer somewhat from reflections. The speakers, which were a pleasant surprise in the previous model, remain impressive, though no longer unexpected.
One drawback that remains unchanged from last year is the lack of eSIM support, which is disappointing.
The device houses a 5,000mAh battery, which easily lasts between a full day and a day and a half. The package includes a USB cable but no charging adapter. Using a 65W charger, the battery charged from 15% to 50% in about 20 minutes and reached full capacity in approximately an hour.
Software: AI-assisted organization
The phone runs Android 15 with the Nothing OS 3.1 interface, which offers a nearly stock Android experience with minimal pre-installed apps. The default navigation method uses gesture controls instead of buttons, though this can be adjusted in the settings.
Nothing’s signature monochrome UI and dot-matrix-style font—previously the default—are now optional. Many users, myself included, found this design inconvenient for extended use. During setup, the default is now a standard color display, but the monochrome mode remains available in settings.
Instead of a traditional app drawer, apps are categorized similarly to iOS, with sections like Entertainment, Games, and Multimedia.
AI is an increasingly integral part of smartphones, and Nothing has introduced a new app called Essential Space to help users organize their content. This app allows users to save screenshots, written notes, and voice memos. It is accessible from the home screen and via the newly added shortcut button.
The AI functionality analyzes saved screenshots and extracts key points, similar to Google’s Pixel screenshot tool. It also transcribes recorded voice memos—including in Hebrew.
A short press of the dedicated key captures the screen and allows users to annotate it, while a long press starts voice recording.
How useful is this feature? It could be handy for planning trips, collecting hotel and flight details, or organizing study materials. Nothing has hinted at future updates that will automatically group similar screenshots into collections. For now, however, the feature feels more like a nice-to-have rather than a must-have.
Cameras: More lenses, but not necessarily a game-changer
As mentioned, the Nothing 3a is equipped with three rear cameras: two 50MP sensors (one wide-angle and one telephoto with 2x optical zoom) and an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera. This marks an improvement over last year’s model, which lacked optical zoom. The front-facing camera is a 32MP shooter for selfies.
Daylight photography is impressive, though zooming in reveals some blurriness in details. Low-light performance is also solid.
Previously, Nothing relied on Google Photos for image management, but it now offers its own photo app. While functional, it doesn’t introduce anything groundbreaking. Standard editing options include automatic enhancements, color adjustments, sky replacements, manual contrast and brightness controls, and object removal. In short, it provides the basics but doesn’t stand out from other smartphone photo apps.
