Nothing Phone 2a Plus Review: Well, That Doesn’t Add Up

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus has launched to squeeze in as the middle ground between the vanilla Phone 2a and the top-of-the-line Phone 2. But, surprisingly, the Phone 2a Plus looks more or less like its younger sibling, with a couple of changes and a price tag of Rs 27,999 (which is Rs 4,000 more than Phone 2a’s base variant). So, is it a worthy upgrade or just a glorified Phone 2a? So, I got my hands on the device a week ahead of its launch, and here’s a detailed review of Nothing Phone 2a Plus to answer this very question!

Nothing Phone 2a Plus Specs at a Glance

Before getting into the review, here’s a look at the Phone 2a Plus’ specs for your reference:

Design and Build

Going in, I knew that the Phone 2a Plus’ box contents wouldn’t be anything spectacular. You get the usual transparent SIM ejector, Type C to Type C cable and some booklets alongside the unit itself. So, again, no charger in the box. Sigh.

Now, I have with me the Grey variant of the phone and it’s quite good looking. Although it borrows 95% of the Phone 2a’s design wizardry, it’s the remaining shining 5% that makes all the difference here.

The internal coiling is now metal-like glossier and the textures are more evident now, giving it this sophistication that the Phone 2a lacked. Now, this very metallic finish makes the coiling appear brownish from most angles. It’s only when light directly falls on the coiling at certain angles that it unveils the true silver shade. Pretty cool, actually.

So, while the back and frame are still plastic, the subtle yet important changes in design made me look past that (a bit). I also liked that the Phone 2a Plus retained the matte texture at the frame to keep it as grippy as ever.

But, in all honesty, a glass back with a metal frame would have certainly been more appreciated, especially since the Phone 1 had launched around the same price back in the day. Most importantly, competing phones like the Motorola Edge 50 Pro arrive with a metal frame as well. Besides, the buttons are made out of aluminum as well, so just might add a metal frame to the design recipe.

And, as expected, it keeps the device from wobbling on a desk. When holding it in landscape mode as well, your fingers don’t hit the cameras, and I have big hands. So, that’s good to see.

Now, the classic Black variant is pretty good-looking too, but just like with the Phone 2a, it masks the internal components a bit, keeping the transparency from truly blossoming.

Display and Speakers

Sadly, the Phone 2a Plus doesn’t arrive with any upgrades in terms of display. You see the same 6.7-inch flexible AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. The peak brightness remains the same as well, hitting 1750 nits or so, which is more than the company’s claim of 1300 nits. There are no visible differences either, indoors or outdoors.

But, since the competition is offering curved 1.5K displays, the expectation was honestly a bit high there. Moreover, while there’s Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on top, Victus would have made more sense. This is because, one – this is an upgrade over the 2a, and two – phones like the Realme GT 6T offer even Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection.

As for the overall multimedia experience, it’s exactly the same as its younger sibling. So, for a comprehensive understanding, you can check out my Nothing Phone 2a Review.

Software Experience

Out of the box, the Phone 2a Plus runs on Android 14-based Nothing OS 2.6, and there’s nothing new here. The Nothing OS 2.6 had arrived with the CMF Phone 1 and we got to see some pretty nice additions like a dedicated Game Mode, a pop-up view for apps (finally), an AI Vivid Mode, and more.

However, with the Phone 2a Plus, all you get is a new AI news reporter widget that offers you AI-generated 1-minute story summaries from across 8 different genres. Also, there’s an 8-story-per-day summary cap on this, so yep, not going to be using it, are we?

As for the software experience, it’s much of a muchness as the conventional Nothing OS experience on the CMF Phone 1 (Review) and Phone 2a – squeaky clean and super fluid. From opening and closing apps to multitasking, the UI is very satisfying to browse through, thanks to the seamless animations.

However, again, you don’t see any haptic integration with the UI actions, which we’ll hopefully get to see someday on this skin. Overall, it’s good to see Nothing stick to its bloatware-free promise.

Performance

First things first, Nothing Phone 2a Plus offers 256GB in the base variant, as compared to 128GB in the Phone 2a.

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro chipset, which is a slight upgrade. In comparison to the Phone 2a’s Dimensity 7200 Pro, this chipset is roughly 10% faster, thanks to clock speeds of up to 3GHz over 2.8GHz. We’ve compared Dimensity 7350 Pro vs Dimensity 7200 Pro to give you an idea of the performance increment over the predecessor.

In addition, the processor is paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. I’d have liked to see UFS 3.1 at least in this segment, for that’s the most this processor can support anyway. Bit of a bummer there. But anyway, how does it perform during daily usage as well as in benchmarks and games? Take a look:

Day-to-Day Usage

Nothing OS has always been a pleasure to use, be it on the Phone 2a or even the more budget CMF Phone 1. So, ultimately, thanks to a good software experience, my daily usage went by pretty smoothly too.

However, initially, with the Phone 2a, I noticed quite a few stutters, lags, and UI optimization issues, which are not visible on its elder sibling. The processor is also capable enough to get you through some extensive multitasking.

To test it out, I had exactly 20 apps open in the background, which also included Genshin Impact, Asphalt Legends Unite as well as Chrome with 25 tabs open and displaying webpages. Despite that, 18 of those apps reloaded from where I had left them, including both games. So, RAM management is still pretty good in my books.

Benchmarks

Moving on to benchmarks, I ran AnTuTu, Geekbench, 3DMark, and all those tests to give you a technical understanding of how the phone performs. Here’s a look at the numbers:

Gaming

In terms of gaming, it translates into offering the same experience in terms of graphics settings and FPS as the Phone 2a. I tried Genshin Impact, Asphalt Legends Unite, Warzone Mobile, and CoD Mobile on the Phone 2a Plus, and here’s a look at the kind of settings you get out of it:

Cameras

The camera performance has also not changed, for the rear camera sensors remain the same. The primary 50MP Samsung JN9 sensor and 50MP JN1 ultra-wide do a good job of capturing details and dynamic range both during the day and at night.

Color accuracy is also pretty good, with the primary sensor mostly capturing natural shades and hues. However, just like on the Phone 2a, there’s an evident color disparity between the primary and ultra-wide shots, with the latter coming off as slightly more saturated. For more details, again, refer to my Phone 2a review.

Selfies are a different story. While it does arrive with a better 50MP Samsung JN1 selfie shooter over the Phone 2a’s 32MP, it’s not as optimized. From strangely washed-out and blown-out shots to selfies getting easily blurry, the consistency and stability are all over the place right now. From the looks of it, it’s certainly not as good as the Phone 2a’s shooter. But, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a software update.

Talking about videos, nothing has changed on this front either. It can capture at up to 4K 30FPS, as well as at 1080p 60FPS. The front shooter is limited to 1080p 60FPS, same as the Phone 2a.

Battery and Charging

While the battery capacity remains the same on the Phone 2a Plus packing a 5000mAh unit, there has been a slight upgrade in the charging speeds. You now get 50W wired charging instead of the 45W cap on the Phone 2a.

There’s also support for 5W reverse wired charging this time around, which can be useful in certain scenarios like charging your earbuds, smartwatch, or even other phones. That’s a nice touch, but that’s about it.

The screen-on-time is similar to the 2a though, that is, around 7 hours. The 5W increase in charging speeds is not a big upgrade either, just being around 5 or so minutes faster. It still takes around an hour to fully charge.

Verdict

The lack of a better display, build quality or bigger battery is a big letdown with the Phone 2a Plus. I was also expecting a better processor in this price segment, especially since Nothing has been taking gaming seriously with the addition of a dedicated Game Mode with Nothing OS 2.6.

With better phones like the Motorola Edge 50 Pro, OnePlus Nord 4, and Realme GT 6T, that offer a better display, cameras, battery backup, and performance, it’s nearly impossible to recommend the Phone 2a Plus over them.

While the software experience argument can still be won by the Phone 2a Plus, to experience just Nothing OS, you don’t even need to spend as much. The budget CMF Phone 1 offers the exact same experience.

Want something a bit more premium? Get the Phone 2a instead, and you won’t miss a thing. Besides, other skins like Motorola’s Hello UI, Xiaomi’s HyperOS, and OnePlus’ OxygenOS are much more feature-rich. No charger in the box is also a dealbreaker, whilst the competition is throwing in a good quality case as well alongside the charger.

While the Nothing Phone 2a Plus is far from being a bad phone, it doesn’t justify its existence as an upgrade of Rs 4,000 over the Phone 2a. Even the 256GB variant of the Phone 2a costs Rs 2,000 less. Ultimately, the Phone 2a Plus is just a mere DLC to the Phone 2a that you can choose to easily skip out on without remorse.