Nothing Phone 3a Review
Pros
- Distinctive, attractive design
- Cohesive software experience with useful widgets
- Strong battery life
- Vibrant, colour-rich and bright display with smooth refresh rates
Cons
- Only IP64 water-resistance
- Ultrawide camera is quite poor
- Only 3 years of major software updates
Key Features
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Review Price: £329
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Essential Key This handy button makes AI something useful
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Three rears cameras Triple camera setup doesn't include a wasted macro camera
Introduction
The Nothing Phone 3a is a phone that has made me think – when a device this affordable is so good, is there any need to spend more?
It’s a question I always ask myself when I test Nothing’s devices, which have been some of the best mid-range phones on the market over the past few years. They’re so thoughtfully designed, perform well and have great software features married in a way which seems really cohesive with the hardware.
The Nothing 3a is a continuation of that mantra. In a smartphone market where many of the best phones often feel stagnant, Nothing offers a rare glimmer of fun. Maybe even something worth being excited by.
Design
- The design stands out
- LEDs on the back
- Strong connection between the design and software
Sometimes, the reason for adding design features is “just because we can” or “because it’s cool”. And, for me, that’s a reason that’s more than justified. Especially when you look across the smartphone landscape and see nothing but a bunch of very samey-looking rectangles.
So, why not add a transparent back and some flash LED strip lights and accents under the glass to give your phone a very clear visual identity? It’s an approach that’s worked well for Nothing before, and it continues with the 3a. This time also available in a rather striking Blue colour.
Exposed screws and micro-textured dots, lines and dimples cover the surface underneath the transparent back, with that classic red square accent there to add a splash of colour. And, rather than using plastic on this affordable phone’s back panel, Nothing swapped it out for glass, giving it a more premium feel than before.
It all combines to give the phone a playful character. Like last year, the top third looks like a head with camera lenses for eyes, and the bottom third forms the body.
Now what I like about Nothing is how the design elements marry up with the software design and features. Most prominently, that’s been shown in the Glyph lights on the back, which can flash and pulse when you get notifications, or be used as a torch, or even to marry up with music or video playing through the speakers as a sort of visualiser. And, you can use it as a torch.
This year, that marrying of software and hardware has also been added to in the form of a dedicated button on the side, which launches something called an Essential Space. The only problem I’ve found while testing it, is that because it sits on the right side, right under the wake/sleep key, I usually press it accidentally.
It’s a bit of a pain, and arguably would be better in a different position, because I’m far more likely to lock my phone and unlock it using the wake button than I am to want to get into the Essential Space.
Otherwise, the phone is your usual large rectangular slab with flat edges, generously rounded corners and a flat front surface. It’s splash resistant to IP64 levels, so don’t drop it in any water; it won’t like it, but it should be okay if it gets caught in some light rain.
Screen
- 120Hz refresh rate
- OLED panel
- Strong peak brightness
Just like so much of this phone, the display is another area where the Phone 3a outperforms its price tag.
The combination of 120Hz adaptive refresh rates and a peak brightness of 3000 nits means it’s smooth and sharp under motion but also great for watching all manner of content, including HDR shows.
Perhaps more impressive than the 3000 nit HDR peak, is that when it’s set to auto brightness, it can crank the entire panel up to 1300 nits when outdoors under bright daylight. So it’s visible in most situations, even those which could be troubling to similarly affordable phones.
When the brightness does auto-adjust, it ramps up and down smoothly, not in steps, so you don’t particularly notice it happening.
Cameras
- Triple camera system
- Reliable in various conditions
- No useless macro lens
Otherwise, it’s hard to be overly critical of the Nothing Phone 3a’s cameras. Especially in well-lit scenes, it takes photos that are more than good enough for sharing on social media, or with friends and family. And it’s reliable too.
Now, just a couple of years ago, buying an affordable phone with a triple camera system usually meant you’d get one decent camera, and two potatoes.
There was Usually a low resolution macro lens thrown in the mix alongside a pretty bad ultra wide. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case.
Nothing’s phone has three pretty solid cameras which perform well. Granted, again, this isn’t the best camera phone, but at the same time, it’s a versatile and capable enough system that it’ll suit most buyers in many different scenarios.
The exact makeup here is a 50MP main sensor, with both optical and electronic stabilisation, then a 50MP telephoto zoom with a 2x optical range and 4x in-sensor zoom plus an 8MP ultra wide.
Now, while those specs may make it seem like it’s similar to the best Android phones, it is worth noting that these sensors are smaller than the really expensive devices. And that means that as good as they are for this price point, they don’t compete with the really expensive phones in terms of light and colour capture, or low light performance.
The primary and zoom cameras are particular strengths, though. In daytime, with good light, you’ll get well balanced pictures captured quickly with good levels of detail and – while slightly oversaturated – colours that don’t veer too much into the realm of hyperreal Samsung Galaxy S25 colours.
Even in bright situations, however, it’s clear that the ultra wide camera is the poorest of the bunch. Struggling often to retail details, resulting in overly soft pictures that are also a little dark and lacking in balance between highlights and shadows.
The 2x zoom camera is strong in well-lit scenes. It offers sharp, well balanced images which look decent even up to 4x zoom thanks to the in-sensor cropping. Try pushing it any further and it comes up quite short, with blurry, dark and soft images lacking sharpness and dynamic range. One to use for closeup shots of flowers, plants and portraits of animals and people. But not one to use to zoom in close to objects and scenes that are some distance away.
It’s in low light situations that the ultra wide and zoom cameras show more clearly they’re not quite in the same leagues as the expensive phones. Despite the night mode algorithms designed to clean up any motion blur from shooting handheld, neither reliably produces sharp, in focus shots.
So if you’re someone who takes a lot of shots in poorly-lit environments like pubs, clubs and the like, the primary camera is the one to stick with. Or you have the option to spend a bit extra and buy the Nothing Phone 3a Pro instead, which has a better periscope zoom camera which also has both optical and electronic stabilisation.
Performance
- Holds its own in terms of price
- Powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3
- Adequate for gaming
It’s clear when you’re looking at a phone in the bottom third of the market, you’re not getting a top-tier powerhouse that can crunch through highly intense games and AAA titles without breaking a sweat.
So the Nothing Phone 3a clearly won’t compete with the likes of the Galaxy S25 or OnePlus 13 in pure performance stakes, but against products of a similar price, it holds its own really well. In fact, I’d argue it outperforms its price point.
Inside you’ll find the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, which is sort of towards the top end of those lower series chipsets. It means the phone has the engine to outperform phones like the Honor Magic 7 Lite, and is slightly more capable than the Moto Edge 50 Neo. You can see the benchmark scores below.
For casual use-cases, it’s got more than enough speed and fluidity to handle your everyday casual games. My own particular vice is Mario Kart Tour, and while levels or stages take a little longer to load than they would on a top-tier £1000/$1000 smartphone, the actual gameplay is smooth and responsive.
Software
- It has a very distinctive Android skin
- Essential Space
- Only three years of updates
The overall interface has that retro charm Nothing phones have always had, with the stylised fonts and monochrome theming with splashes of red. It permeates the entire interface, with new useful widgets and icons added with every software update.
Now Essential Space – think of this as a tool to help you remember stuff. That’s probably too basic a description, but the idea is that you press the Essential Button on the side while you’re looking at something. It could be something on social media that triggers a thought that you need to check something out, or an add showing some cool sneakers or a nice top that you want to go back and look at later properly.
When you press and hold the Essential button, it screen grabs whatever is on the screen, and while holding the button, you record a voice note or ask your phone to remind you of something. A quick double press of the button accesses the space, while a single press take an initial screen grab, which you can then add to your space without a voice note by pressing the Essential button again.
What happens next is pretty clever. Using AI, it goes on a bit of a research trip around the web to determine what’s in the picture, and then eventually adds it to your Essential Space with a description and tags a reminder to it, with the option to cross it off when you’re done.
Think of it as a digital cork board to pin ideas, thoughts and reminders to throughout your day. Genuinely, while some might not find use in it, for those of us who regularly forget, or change thought patterns, or get distracted easily, it’s actually quite handy. It’s like having a space that remembers the stuff you’d be sure to forget.
Nothing OS 3 comes with some genuinely useful – and others just delightful – widgets too. Like the music playback widget for playing and pausing whatever music is playing on the phone, and also shows the album/cover art for that specific song. Or, the calendar widget that shows the date, but every new day lets you flip over a new leaf to the current date.
It’s not necessary, but it’s an example of the playful nature of Nothing’s Android skin that makes it so nice to use.
Where it lacks a little is in major update commitments. Nothing will offer major Android updates for just three years, with a further three years of security patches.
Battery Life
- Big battery
- Multi-day endurance is possible
- 50w charging speeds, although no charger is included
Battery life is strong, thanks to the 5000mAh cell.
It’s worth noting here that my own pattern of use is definitely on the lighter end of the scale when I settle into my usual daily use. It’d be surprising to go over three hours of screen time in a day.
Even on my heaviest days, where I watched an hour of Netflix, played half an hour of Mario Kart, did camera testing and 30-60 minutes of web browsing plus a smattering of social media and reading sports news, I’d still struggle to drain half the battery in a full day.
For someone like me, it can quite comfortably be a two day battery. If you’re a heavier user, I think you’d struggle to completely drain it in one day, unless you’re staring at the screen for 10 hours a day.
What I really appreciated was that even though there’s no charger in the box, it can charge at 50W speeds. In real terms, that means it can fully refill in under an hour, or do a 50% charge in under 20 minutes.
It’s not blazing fast like some manage, but it’s fast enough to be really convenient, and it meant I didn’t have to settle into a pattern of charging it every night.
Should you buy it?
You want an Android phone that stands out
The design here, with an array of LEDs, helps the Nothing Phone 3a stand out among of crowd of similar devices.
You want great camera zoom
Go for the Nothing Phone 3a Pro if you’re after improved zoom, as that has a proper periscope camera.
Final Thoughts
If you don’t want to spend a lot on a phone, of all the phones on the market – it’s the Nothing Phone 3a I’d recommend, pretty much without any hesitation. Simply put, if you want an affordable Android phone that doesn’t have any glaring issues then this is thr one to buy in 2025.
It does everything you need a phone to do, does it well, and looks great in the process. With so many of the best cheap phones and best Android phones following a similar design blueprint, Nothing has really done something to stand out here.
However, if you are after some improved zoom camera performance, the slightly pricier Nothing Phone 3a Pro packs in a telephoto camera. There’s also the Nothing Phone 2, however at this stage there’s little reason to plump for that model,
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
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- Thorough camera testing in well-lit and low-light conditions
- Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests
FAQs
No charging is included, although it does support charging speeds up to 50w.
Test Data
| Nothing Phone 3a Review |
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Full Specs
| Nothing Phone 3a Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £329 |
| Manufacturer | Nothing |
| Screen Size | 6.77 inches |
| Storage Capacity | 128GB, 256GB |
| Rear Camera | 50 MP, f/1.9, 24mm (wide); 50 MP, f/2.0, 50mm (telephoto); 8 MP (ultrawide) |
| Front Camera | 32MP |
| Video Recording | No |
| IP rating | IP57 |
| Battery | 5000 mAh |
| Fast Charging | No |
| Size (Dimensions) | 77.5 x 8.4 x 163.5 MM |
| Weight | 201 G |
| Operating System | Android 15 |
| Release Date | 2025 |
| First Reviewed Date | 04/03/2025 |
| Resolution | 2392 x 1080 |
| HDR | No |
| Refresh Rate | 120 Hz |
| Ports | USB-C |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 |
| RAM | 12GB, 8GB |
| Colours | Blue, White |
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