Summary
The Nothing Phone 2a is a respectable low-cost gadget with a distinctive design, which is typical of Nothing. The 2a from Nothing has an attractive appearance, a decent display, a long battery life, and more than enough performance at around $350.
However, it also has less-than-ideal material constraints, is difficult to get in the US, and has cameras that produce more misses than successes. Although it’s an intriguing phone from an intriguing startup, I don’t believe it will have much of an impact on the low-cost phone industry, at least not in the United States, given its limitations and restricted availability.
Network and availability of Phone 2a
The Phone 2a isn’t accessible everywhere.
You may get the Phone 2a via the company’s developer program, but it isn’t available for purchase on Amazon in the US. Nothing is selling the Phone 2a at retail. The $350 version, which is accessible via the developer program, has 256 gigabytes of storage and 12 gigabytes of RAM. It is available in black and “Milk” (off-white) hues.
The phone, which comes in milk, white, and black hues, will be more extensively accessible in Asian and European regions. In the UK, the basic model with eight gigabytes of RAM and 128GB of storage costs £319; the 12/256 version costs £349. Prices vary depending on the area. The identical SKUs are priced at €329/€379 in a large portion of Europe. It begins at ₹23,999 in India and ¥49,800 in Japan. (It’s available in more markets than this; see Nothing’s website if I missed your nation.)
It’s not ideal to be compatible with US networks either. Numerous 5G and 4G bands that are used by major US carriers are absent from the Phone 2a: regarding 5G, it is not compatible with the N2, N60, N71, N260, N261, and N262 bands, which are utilized by one or more of the Big Three carriers (and, by extension, any MVNOs that utilize their networks).
The Phone 2a is devoid of bands 2, 12, 13, 14, 17, 29, and 30 on LTE, all of which are used in some way throughout the United States. Make sure you know which bands you’ll need to get dependable service where you need it if you want to use a Nothing Phone 2a in the United States. Anecdotally, I tried the phone on Google Fi, which connects to T-Mobile’s network, and found no discernible differences between it and Samsung and Google phones. Your mileage, however, will undoubtedly vary.
Specifications
What makes the Nothing Phone 2a superior?
Strong performance, eye-catching design, and lovely display
Completely and utterly a Nothing phone, the Nothing Phone 2a has all the features we’ve become used to. Its unique design has a translucent back made of plastic instead of glass, concealing ostentatious internals.
The Glyph lights, which are the company’s signature feature, are returned. Three LED strips encircle the twin camera bulge, giving the phone an almost eye-like appearance. When you get notifications, the Glyphs light up. You may designate Essential notifications, which cause one of the Glyph lights to remain on until you respond to it, like to a traditional notification LED.
The most helpful aspect of Nothing’s Glyph lights, in my opinion, are the Essential notifications. If you configure this feature to highlight alerts that you will really need to respond to, you can leave your phone facing down when you need to concentrate without worrying that you’ll miss anything crucial. I constantly use it while working.
Nothing OS, the Android skin, is also excellent. While it doesn’t provide as many exclusive features or system applications as Samsung’s One UI, it is still able to distinguish itself from plain Android without being ostentatious or intrusive.
Nothing has a collection of uniquely designed widgets in the dot-matrix style that complement some subtle visual personalization throughout system menus. The notification tones and system noises of Even Nothing are soothing and appropriate. I really like how well-polished and unified the software experience is on Nothing phones—something I wouldn’t necessarily anticipate from a smaller manufacturer. It’s a good touch that you can use the phone with stock Android if you don’t like it.The Phone 2a’s 1080p, 120Hz AMOLED display is better than what I would anticipate for a device at this price range. Although it’s not LTPO, the panel seems uniform even in low light and the colors are vivid.
My experience with the Phone 2a’s battery life has been excellent; on one very busy day, I managed to spend a full 24 hours without using the charger with six hours and 56 minutes of screen time. This included 2.5 hours of cloud gaming on Xbox Game Pass (over Wi-Fi) and around 30 minutes of GPS navigation. Additionally, the phone has 45-watt charging, so recharging is speedy. It takes around 20 minutes to go from empty to 50% with a suitable charger, and more than an hour to fully charge.
Also, performance has been strong. My review unit’s MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro processor and 12 gigabytes of RAM have allowed it to easily handle anything I’ve wanted to do, including light gaming and multitasking. Even if the phone’s basic model only has eight gigabytes of RAM, that’s still more than enough for the majority of mobile workloads.
What drawbacks does the Nothing Phone 2a have?
Poor camera performance and dubious selection of materials
The Nothing Phone 2a has many positive aspects, but it also has several very significant drawbacks. For me and the majority of AP readers, this is very important: unlike the Nothing Phone 2, the Phone 2a is not available for purchase in the United States.
Yes, you can, but neither Amazon nor any physical retailers carry it. To get the phone, you must sign up for Nothing’s development program. It should be noted that Nothing explicitly rules out the prospect of a future retail release in the US, but a representative offered me the typical “nothing to share” reaction when I pushed for details. As previously said, the current version has questionable compatibility with several US networks, so if you’re eager to get one, make sure you do your research beforehand.
It seems that the black variant in particular was designed with fingerprint collection in mind. The rear panel is made of very glossy plastic that reflects grease from your hands and scratches quickly because to its lower hardness than glass. After just a few weeks of being in and out of my pocket, the top edge of the rear of my review unit is already beginning to show wear. Although the lighter versions won’t show scuffs and smudges as easily, they will wear just as hard.
The 2a’s poor cameras may not come as a surprise for a $350 phone. It has two lenses: an ultrawide and a regular one, both covering 50-megapixel Samsung sensors with 12.5% pixel density. Though the phone’s performance is extremely inconsistent and the cameras often seem sluggish and struggle with dynamic range, I have shot some nice pictures with it.
This device supports Ultra HDR, so on compatible displays, your images will have wider dynamic range and the highlights will really seem brighter than the rest of the image. However, nothing’s HDR processing appears to be very good—shadows are almost often too bright, and sometimes I get a notification instructing me to keep my phone steady as the cameras take daytime HDR pictures. That’s simply hitting the shutter button on full auto; there’s no special setting used.
Since the Pixel 8 series introduced Ultra HDR photography, there has been a problem with file size in these photographs on Android. The Pixel 8 series can produce 12-megapixel JPGs at large file sizes of up to 6 gigabytes. The Nothing Phone 2a goes one step further: at 3072 x 4080 resolution, the largest picture I’ve ever shot uses up 10 megabytes of cloud storage.
Although that particular image is an exception, images in the five to seven megabyte range are relatively uncommon. That’s a lot of room to set aside for images, HDR or not, that resemble the ones taken with this phone.
Is it wise to get the Nothing Phone 2a?
Perhaps if you can just purchase one
The Nothing Phone 2a is an affordable, sleek, and quick-to-use phone. Its glossy plastic finish is easily soiled and will not hold up well without a cover; also, it is not completely reliable on US networks and produces unremarkable photographs. For your specific requirements, the Phone 2a will probably be an excellent choice if the positives (software, design, display, battery life) exceed the negatives. That is, if you can get your hands on one.
