Nothing Phone 3a Impressions: $379 Phones Shouldn’t Be This Good, But I’m Glad It Is

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

• US Availability
• Nothing Link
• About The Author

Nothing has a couple of new phones this month and after having played with one of them for the past week, I feel moved to talk about how good it is. Priced at only $379, Nothing Phone 3a is ridiculously impressive for such an inexpensive phone. It reminds me very much of when OnePlus was a new company, releasing phones with premium specs and performance at an affordable price. These days, with sky-high prices from all OEMs, that seems like such a novelty concept.

For specs, Nothing Phone 3a features a 6.77″ FHD+ AMOLED display (120Hz refresh rate), Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, triple rear cameras (dual 50MP shooters from Samsung + 8MP ultra-wide from Sony), 5,000mAh battery with 50W charging speeds, IP64 rating, and Android 15 (Nothing OS 3.1) out of the box with 3 years of Android OS upgrades and 6 years of security updates.

I think anyone can throw some fancy specs into a phone and say that’s fine, but after having actually used the phone, Nothing really dialed it in on this $379 device. It performs very smoothly, which I didn’t quite expect. I expected a little bit of jank, to be completely honest, but no, it’s butter and handles my usage wonderfully.

Nothing OS has came a long way, too. When first released, they had a few skinned apps and that dot UI they use was cute enough, but now things have become very matured. Android 15 likely helps, as it’s a great build of Android, but Nothing has a bunch of custom apps and widgets on the phone that help build out that Nothing OS experience. I will always use Google Photos, but the Gallery app on this phone is actually pretty sweet. The ability to apply different themes and icon packs is a good addition, plus Nothing’s wallpaper pack is solid. For software at $379, I doubt many would complain.

One new piece on these phones is a dedicated button for Essential Space, which is an AI-powered dumping ground for your life. You can take notes, make lists and things like that, all organized by AI. I haven’t found it to be overly helpful yet, but I think with some tweaks it could be very useful. Here’s what Kellen wrote about it earlier this week.

You add to it by clicking this new dedicated button on the right side of the phone that sits just under the power button. You can click it whenever you want to take a screenshot of whatever you are looking at, which you can then add notes to either by voice or typing. You can also hold-in this new button to record audio at any moment, with reminders or notes about life. You can even open the camera, point it at something, and then hold that button in to keep track of stuff through your lens. This all gets added to the Essential Space, which tries to organize everything you’ve saved. You can create projects to keep track of, wait for the Space to turn your audio notes into actionable things like reminders, etc.

We’re still testing it and playing with it, so we’ll get back to you with a true verdict down the road. So far, it’s not groundbreaking.

We also have to give necessary props to Nothing’s design team. They make exciting phones to look at and hold. I’m not sure why other companies don’t want to experiment with things like this, but I really appreciate Nothing for it. This phone features that popular see-thru backside, along with the Glyph lights that Nothing is well known for. Sure, I don’t use them as much as I could, but they’re a cool party trick.

Thanks to the 5,000mAh battery, this thing has had some impressive battery life for me, too. I’m still getting my typical daily usage, but I find myself having more battery leftover than what I’m used to. My Android phone usage in total has gone down over the year, but I can tell this phone would hold up very nicely if it was my absolute only daily driver.

US Availability

US functionality is finicky, which sucks. The phone should work fine if you’re on AT&T and T-Mobile networks, but Verizon service might be an issue. We have detailed information on what you need to know, but as of right now, the phone is for sale in the US, which means Nothing does expect some US-based buyers to get it. At $379, it’s something you should consider.

Again, these are just some impressions I’ve gotten after a week of limited usage. I don’t expect to do a true full review on the device, but I am hoping Kellen will give us one for the Nothing 3a Pro. Honestly, it’s just nice to have another option before Samsung and Google right now.

Nothing Link

Read the original post: Nothing Phone 3a Impressions: $379 Phones Shouldn’t Be This Good, But I’m Glad It Is

About The Author

artificialrace.com

See author's posts