Nothing Phone (2a) Review: The Value Champion You Didn’t See Coming

At MySmartPrice, I’m the resident Nothing specialist. After all, I have reviewed both phones made by Carl Pei’s new venture over the last two years. So, when I heard the Nothing Phone (2a) was in the pipeline, I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. That’s because even till the start of this year, I was positive that the Phone (1) and (2) were enough to keep the brand’s smartphone division afloat till the Phone (3) arrived.

But having used the new Phone (2a) for the last two weeks, I’m truly surprised how far Nothing has come along. The Phone 2(a) has a polarising design, sure, but it’s memorable. It’s the first MediaTek-powered Nothing device; it’s stable, thermally and otherwise. So, it feels far more polished than the Nothing Phone (1) but isn’t a large compromise on the Phone (2).

Oh, and so far, I have received about four updates – the latest one this morning, on the day of its launch! And every update introduces major improvements, whether in performance, camera or user experience. That’s why I wish to revisit this phone in the coming weeks.

Alright, enough preamble! Let’s jump into my initial review.

Nothing Phone (2a) Review: Design

Before you form any preconceptions about the (2a), let me begin by saying the dual cameras on the rear panel are intentionally kept that way. Yes, you may think the phone’s squinting at you, but that’s part of the phone’s ‘anthropomorphic’ design philosophy.

Materials	Front: Gorilla Glass 5
	Back: Plastic
	Frame: Plastic
Dimensions	161.4mm x 76.32mm x 8.55mm (H x W x D)
Weight	190g
Colors	White & Black
IP Rating	IP54

It means the Phone (2a) wants to look part-machine-part-human. It’s a thought-provoking design, meant to challenge the conventional ‘feathery’ or ‘glowing’ rear designs. This is surrounded by a large circular NFC strip, making it look even more like a face.

The total area of glyph lights has been reduced, and the layout is now solely on the top half of the phone, around the camera. It still looks cool, though.

Remember the pillowed rear glass of the Phone (2)? That sort of makes a comeback here. While the Phone (2a) is as flat as the Phone (1), it utilises that curved glass design around the camera bulge. Nothing claims this improves drop resistance and makes for a nice in-hand feel – I can definitely vouch for the latter.

Nothing went wild with the squiggly strip on the rear panel’s bottom half this time. While it looks normal to me, resembling a perfect hairpin turn, I’d leave interpretation to the eyes of the beholder – it’s divisive, to say the least.

The colour offerings are the same, white and black, but there’s a twist here. The white variant uses black buttons to contrast the phone’s overall look. I prefer the white variant, but received the black one.

Nothing Phone (2a) Review: UI and software

Yes, I’m going to rave about the software before the hardware, because there’s so much new stuff here, and Nothing has not been stingy in including the latest UI and UX features.

The Phone (2a) runs Android 14 out of the box. It has a minimal yet functional layer of Nothing OS 2.5. What’s new, you ask? A lot!

• Nothing has toned down the latest wallpaper. Unlike the first few “Fresnel lens-inspired” wallpapers, it no longer makes widgets and icons unreadable. So now, you get clean streaks of dark red and white. Your eyes will thank you for this.
• Widgets – there are now 21 of them in the signature, quirky Nothing design. Four of these are new, including pedometer, screen usage, camera shortcut and media controls.
  Glyph progress is here! Because the Phone (1) did not have the ability to dim individual LEDs, it couldn’t take advantage of Glyph Progress, or the ability to see how long a Zomato rider or an Uber cab would take to reach you. But the Nothing Phone (2a) happily does that out of the box.
• Of course, all the goodness is carried forward from the Nothing Phone (1), including Flip to Glyph and a clean, smooth software with no pre-loaded third-party apps except those of Nothing.
• The one thing that doesn’t work: Glyph Composer. At the time of writing, I couldn’t download it from Google Play.

Nothing Phone (2a) Review: Camera

Here’s a hot take – I prefer the (2a)’s camera over the Nothing Phone 2’s, which is twice the price. There are no ‘short-sightedness’ issues with the (2a), and it can easily resolve stuff far, far away. Make sure you check out my review of the Phone (2) to know what I’m talking about.

Rear Camera	Dual camera system
	Main: 50-megapixel
	Ultrawide: 50-megapixel
Front Camera	32-megapixel (f/2.2)
Video Recording	4K@30fps (rear camera) 1080@60fps 1080@120fps(slo-mo)

I can’t talk much about the overall camera performance, because my experience changed every few days or so… But it’s been good so far.

Outdoor shots were crispy, skin textures were properly reproduced. Even in 2x zoom, the photos appeared sharp. The same was true for indoor, artificially lit shots.

The Phone (1), (2) and (2a) all share the same ultrawide camera, and their processing is also nearly identical.

In pitch-dark, the primary camera struggles a bit, but not as much as the Phone (1) initially did. They also improved the selfie processing, and the photos no longer look washed out at night.

I initially had issues with portrait cutouts, but they fixed it in updates. I’m looking forward to seeing how the phone fares in our revisit.

Nothing Phone (2a) Review: Hardware

Many of my tech-savvy friends were curious whether the new Dimensity 7200 Pro could do justice to the phone, and the short answer is – yes. It provides considerable performance headroom over the Phone (1).

SoC	MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro
RAM and storage variants	8/128GB, 8/256GB, 12/256GB
AnTuTu v10 Score	692449
Geekbench v6 Scores	1132 (Single-Core), 2601 (Multi-Core)

While it doesn’t cross the million mark on AnTuTu v10 (unlike the POCO X6 Pro), it beats the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ and Realme 12 Pro+, both priced higher.

We haven’t gamed seriously on the phone yet, but we did edit a bunch of videos on Vita, and it didn’t stutter while editing seven or so MP4 files shot on the Panasonic Lumix GH5. We also haven’t observed any heating issues so far – in general.

Nothing Phone (2a) Review: Display and battery

While there wasn’t much wrong with the Phone (1)’s display, Nothing has still improved the brightness figures. Typical peak brightness is about 200 nits higher this time, making for slightly better outdoor legibility.

Display Type	AMOLED
Colors	1 Billion
Refresh Rate	120Hz
Peak Brightness	1300 nits
Outdoor Brightness	1100 nits
Size	6.7 inches
Resolution	2418 x 1084

The display is AMOLED compared to Phone (1)’s OLED – the active matrix layer helps save battery and better picture quality. In the real world, you won’t notice a difference between the Phone (2a) and (1).

Here’s a fun fact: the Phone (2a) has the largest battery life ever on a Nothing smartphone. While it can last a full day, I have struggled to charge it at its peak 45W capacity due to the lack of a compatible charger.

Battery Capacity	5000mAh
Charging Speed	45W
Charging Time	0-50% in 23 minutes, 100% in 1 hour
Charger in the box	No

Anyway, I couldn’t achieve the claimed 23 minutes for a half charge and an hour for the full top-up.

Nothing Phone (2a): Verdict

Nothing’s proven that once you get the manufacturing in place, you can create a budget phone at an unbeatable price.

The Phone (2a) isn’t just for the hipsters or someone who just wants a clean UI – it’s for the masses. Its new Glyph lights are minimal and not in your face, it’s powerful enough to challenge some of the more expensive rivals, it’s got a decent pair of cameras, and it can last an entire day. But truth be told, I’d add a CMF charger worth two and a half grand to that starting price of around Rs 25,000 of the (2a).

It is a much better deal than the Phone (1) and Phone (2), and we’ve heard it might even drop its price to Rs 19,999 in the coming days for a limited period.