Nothing Phone 2a Review: Setting the bar high for budget smartphones in 2024

Pros:
- Premium design for its price
- Strong build overall quality
- Bright and vibrant display
- Tons of customisation option
- No Bloatware
- Solid performance
- Great battery life
- Glyph interface is just as exciting now as it was with Phone 1
- One of the best smartphones at its price point

Cons:
- Plastic back is slippery.
- Rear panel is prone to smudges and scratches
- HDR performance in the camera can be better
- Uses UFS 2.2 storage
- No charger in the box.

Rating: 4.25/5
Price: Rs 23,999 for the base 8GB+128GB variant

One major gripe against the Nothing Phone 2 was its high price tag, despite offering solid technology, great performance, a quality display, numerous software features, and an appealing design. People felt it was overpriced.

Having learnt their lesson, Nothing’s latest release, the Phone 2a, comes with a much more competitive price tag. However, what truly makes it stand out isn’t just its affordability. The Phone 2a impresses with its premium design that catches attention and a user-focused software experience, adding value beyond its price point.

The Phone 2a carries on the legacy of its predecessors, the Nothing Phone 1 and the Nothing Phone 2, by keeping things interesting, and truly quirky and not engaging in a battle of specs.

Yet, there are some notable compromises, like the use of USF 2.2 storage and the compromise made to offer a transparent rear panel at this price range. The question, therefore, that we have do deal with is this: do these compromises overshadow an otherwise excellent device, or are they minor enough to overlook?

Nothing Phone 2a Review: Design
Nothing has managed to achieve something truly remarkable with its latest release, the Nothing Phone 2a. Despite its budget-friendly price point, this device still manages to give off a very premium feel.

While the Phone 2a looks a lot different than the Phone 2, it still has the same characteristic that made the Phone 2, one of the best-looking smartphones from last year. The Phone 2a continues with a very sleek design, complete with a transparent rear panel which gives users a peek inside the device and appreciate the several intricate details such as the wrapped NFC coils, a few labels here and there, and the numerous micro-sized screws.

And yes, you still get the glorified Glyph interface.

However, to keep costs down, Nothing has had to make some compromises. For instance, the Glyph Interface on the back has been simplified, and you get only three LED strips with the Phone 2a. Also gone are the wireless charging coils. The good news though is that the phone does offer IP54 dust and water resistance.

Even though the number of LED strips in the Glyph Interface has been reduced, they have the same functionality as their elder siblings. The LED lights still intimate users of notifications from various apps, countdown timers, timers from delivery and ride-hailing apps etc, all of which can be customised.

The back panel’s glossy surface gets smudgy very easily, even if you don’t have oily hands. And because it’s not as hard as glass, it scratches easily. In the darker colour, all those scratches and smudgy fingerprints are easily visible; in the white-coloured devices, though, these scratches and smudges will be far less discernible.

Like previous devices from the London-based outfit, the Nothing Phone 2a uses a transparent rear panel – however, instead of transparent glass, we get a polycarbonate sheet. Although the rear panel still looks like glass and quite premium if we are honest, it isn’t as durable as glass.

We also get a different layout and placement for the dual camera array. camera setup is now placed at the centre of the upper half of the phone, right in the middle of the NFC coil. And instead of a hard cutout for the camera bump, we see the polycarbonate panel, wrap itself around with just a slight slant.

In terms of button and port layout, we get the power button on the right, and the volume rockers on the left, both of which are easy to reach even when using the device with one hand. We get a USB Type-C port at the bottom, along with the speaker grilles and the SIM slot.

Coming to the front, we have a 6.7-inch display with evenly sized bezels all around which are much thinner than Nothing’s previous phones. This gives the Nothing Phone 2a, a much more premium aesthetic.

Nothing emphasises its commitment to sustainability and has used 100 per cent recycled aluminium for the mid-frame along with tin, copper foil, steel, and plastic throughout the phone’s construction. This results in a device that feels sturdy and substantial.

Nothing Phone 2a Review: Display
Normally, we don’t get to see good displays on smartphones at this price point. The viewing angles and the colour reproduction, especially are usually at the sub-Rs 25,000 pricepoint. However, the Nothing Phone 2a differs in this regard.

With the Phone 2a, we get a pretty sizeable 6.7-inch Full-HD+ AMOLED display with a resolution of 1084X2412. The display comes with symmetrical bezels all around, which looks awesome. Add to that, we also get a 30-120Hz adaptive refresh rate that helps the display look sharp as a tack whether you are scrolling through pages with a lot of text, or watching video content on your OTT platform. It also works brilliantly well in mobile games.

Nothing’s Phone 2a boasts a remarkable peak brightness of 1300 nits, which truly shines when you enable the HDR video option in the display settings. Brightness remains just as impressive, even under direct sunlight.

Within these settings, users can easily switch between the vivid “Alive” and more standard “Standard” colour tone modes, and fine-tune the colour temperature to their liking. However, do note that the display doesn’t offer DCI-P3 coverage.

The HDR mode is activated by default, which renders incredibly vibrant colours and makes the display pop out, enhancing the visual experience significantly. Even when you switch to “Standard” mode, colours maintain their vibrance and ensure a captivating viewing experience. We particularly were impressed by the crushing rich deep blacks and how well they were maintained at odd-viewing angles.

Furthermore, the display is protected using Corning Gorilla Glass 5, which provides robust protection against accidental drops and scratches. The Nothing Phone 2a impresses with its deep blacks, dynamic colours, and expansive viewing angles, delivering a visually immersive experience.

You also get a fingerprint scanner underneath the display, which is pretty quick and responsive.

Overall, the display of the Nothing Phone 2a stands out for its vibrant colours, immersive visuals, and durable design, and earns our praise without any reservations.

Nothing Phone 2a Review: Camera
The Nothing Phone 2a features a dual-camera system, a common theme at this price point. We get a 50MP camera with OIS and an f/1.88 aperture, alongside another 50MP sensor with an ultra-wide lens, which offers a wide 114-degree field of view. At the front, we get the same 32MP front camera, that we saw in the Phone 2.

Nothing’s camera app is straightforward and user-friendly. You get all the modes right at your fingertips, and you can access the most frequently changed settings with a simple swiping gesture. You’ll also find a tone of different camera modes like Slo-mo, Time-lapse, Portrait, Night mode, Motion capture, Panorama mode, etc. You also get an Expert Mode, in case you want truly granular control. You also get the option to shoot raw if you want to edit your photos properly.

Another aspect where the cameras shine is HDR. Nothing has introduced an advanced HDR software called Ultra HDR, which they’ve developed in collaboration with Google.

In bright daylight, the main camera does a pretty good job and produces vibrant colours, sharp and plenty of sharp details, as long as you underexpose your photos correctly when shooting in HDR more. This becomes especially true when you’re shooting right into the sun, or any other bright source of light, as it tends to blow the highlights at times.

The ultra-wide camera, on the other hand, handled most situations better, even if they were extremely challenging. It consistently was able to get the correct exposure, without needing much intervention from us, mainly because of its superb dynamic range.

In low light, the main camera still performed well, with plenty of details, and good, clean colours, as it exposes your shots accurately without oversaturating the images. As for the ultra-wide camera, it also performed decently in both daylight and low-light situations, although its colour representation differed slightly from the main camera.

When it comes to recording videos, the Nothing Phone 2a supports shooting in 1080p resolution at both 30 and 60fps, while 4K recording is limited to 30 fps. Videos captured at 1080p/60fps are impressively sharp and accurate, even in low-light conditions, and they remain stable, making them perfect for active situations like walking or recording while in a vehicle.

While 4K/30fps videos still maintain good quality, they might seem a bit shaky. Notably, the phone provides a special mode called “action mode” to enhance stability, but it’s only available for 1080p/30fps recording.

Moreover, users can choose between standard H.264 and H.265 video encoding.

Although the Nothing Phone 2a’s camera isn’t the top-of-the-line choice in its price range, it’s better than what most other manufacturers are offering at this price point. If you mostly take photos during the day, you’ll probably be happy with the quality it provides.

To check out some photo samples taken from the Phone 2a, click here .

Nothing Phone 2a Review: Performance, software experience and UI
The Nothing Phone 2a comes with a pretty capable processor for its price. Nothing has partnered with MediaTek to tweak the Dimensity 7200, calling it the Dimensity 7200 Pro.

Although it maintains the same maximum clock speed of 2.8 GHz, the tuning appears to prioritize efficiency. Paired with up to 12GB LPDDR4X RAM and up to 256 GBUFS 2.2 storage, the phone’s performance is quite good overall, with the only downside being the storage speed.

The chipset’s performance is pretty solid for the segment it is in. While the benchmark scores may not top the charts, the Nothing Phone 2a proves to be a capable device for everyday use. Throughout the review period, I didn’t encounter any significant lag or stuttering while using the phone. Overall, it offers a smooth experience, partly thanks to its display.

During our tests, the Phone 2a showed very little thermal throttling, even during demanding games like Call of Duty: Mobile and BGMI. Plus, it stayed pretty cool even after gaming for about half an hour.

What makes the Nothing Phone 2a special is its OS, the Nothing OS 2.5, which is based on Android 14. Over the past few years, the Nothing operating system has seen some major improvements since it was first introduced. It is one of the best Android interfaces out there. It’s minimalist yet packed with features. The animations are quick, daily tasks run without a hitch, and there are some neat extras like AI Wallpaper Generator and Glyph Composer. Then of course, we have the countless widgets that Nothing has designed.

One big plus is the absence of bloatware – you won’t find any third-party apps or annoying ads cluttering up your phone. You’ll only see a few Nothing apps along with the standard Google ones, which is pretty rare, especially in the mid-range category.

Update-wise, Nothing is seriously going all guns blazing with the Phone 2a. During our review, we received two updates which improved the camera performance. Nothing is also promising three years of OS updates and four years of security updates for the Phone 2a.

Nothing Phone 2a Review: Battery
We get to see a 5000 mAh battery in the Phone 2a, the largest that Nothing has fitted to a phone. The battery life, as a result, is great. We were consistently getting about two days out of the device, even with our heavy usage, which involved watching a lot of content, playing some games and taking a ton of photos.

While it’s possible to drain the Nothing Phone 2a’s battery in a single day, you’d have to push and make an effort to do so. For casual users, the device should easily last you a full day.

What’s not impressive is the fact that Nothing, in order to cut costs, has not provided a charger in the box. Moreover, you also don’t get wireless charging.

The device supports 45W charging, which is average at best when you consider that other devices offer much faster charging speeds. With a 60W charging brick, we were able to charge the device from 0 to 100 per cent in just about an hour. Although this is fine for most users, some people will be disappointed by the fact there are no super quick charging solutions at play here.

Nothing Phone 2a Review: Verdict
Nothing has a cracker of a product on their hands. The Phone 2a genuinely sets a new benchmark for what a budget smartphone should be. In that process, it also exposes a great number of smartphone manufacturers who are competing in this market.

The Nothing Phone 2a provides outstanding value for its price, especially if you manage to get it for Rs 19,999. It delivers a potent mix of solid, bankable performance, some awesome features, and a stunning design. It performs well in everyday use, as well as in gaming.

Plus, you get a clean and bloatware-free user interface, which just improves the overall experience of using the phone. Moreover, that gorgeous AMOLED display is a neat little bow that ties everything up.

If you’re in the market for a smartphone right now and are willing to spend up to Rs 25,000 for it, you will be missing out on a lot if you don’t consider the Nothing Phone 2a as an option. Sure, there are other options out there, that perform a lot better. But are they the complete package that the Nothing Phone 2a shapes up to be? I doubt so.