Nothing Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro Launched: What’s New

After much anticipation and hype around Nothing’s upcoming smartphones, the brand is kicking this year off with not the Phone (3) but the mid-range (3a) series instead. The firm has launched two new smartphones — the Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro. While the former brings improvements over its predecessor Phone (2a) (review), the latter is a completely new device in the series. Here’s everything you need to know about the Phone (3a) series.

Nothing Phone (3a) Specifications

Starting with the display, it is a 6.77-inch 1080 x 2412, 120Hz AMOLED panel with 3,000 nits of peak brightness. It’s a 20:9 ratio 10-bit unit with an 88.4% screen-to-body ratio. The back is made of glass and houses Nothing’s signature Glyph interface alongside a Nothing Phone (2a)-esque bump, housing the three cameras, which we’ll get to in a bit.

Performance-wise, the Nothing Phone (3a) is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, a 4nm octa-core SoC with Adreno 710 GPU. With 1 × 2.5 GHz Cortex-A720 prime core, 3 × 2.4 GHz Cortex-A720 performance cores, and 4 x 1.8 GHz Cortex-A520 efficiency cores, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 performs 10% better than the Dimensity 7300 and around 3% better than the Dimensity 7200 Pro in the Nothing Phone (2a).

The Phone (3a) now boasts an extra 50MP 2x Telephoto lens, alongside 50MP wide and 8MP Ultrawide cameras. This essentially solves one of the major complaints of Nothing Phone (2a) where users wanted a Telephoto instead of an ultrawide camera. The front camera is a 32 MP unit. The rear camera design is more reminiscent of the Phone (2a).

Powering the device is a 5,000 mAh battery that can charge at 50W. Unfortunately, there’s still no wireless charging. The (3a) Pro runs Nothing OS 3.1 based on Android 15 out-of-the-box and will get three years of Android updates. Now, that isn’t awful, but considering the industry has moved to four, five, and seven years of major update promise, it is a bit on the lower side. The storage used is UFS 3.1 and LPDDR5X, since Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 doesn’t support UFS 4.0.

The power and volume button location remains unchanged, but there’s now an additional button, which Nothing’s calling the Essential Key. It’s an AI-powered hub to store content like screenshots, recordings, voice notes, and other photos. Consider it a supercharged version of the Pixel Screenshots. When pressed once, it takes and stores a screenshot and when held down, records a voice note with it.

Nothing Phone (3a) Pro Specifications

The Phone (3a) also features the same 6.77-inch display as the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro. It equips the same Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC, and a 5,000 mAh battery that can be charged at 50W.

However, one of the departments where it differs is the cameras. The (3a) Pro also sports a 50 MP + 50 MP + 8 MP setup, with the secondary 50 MP shooter using a 3x periscope lens. Nothing also claims the sensor can do 6x “lossless” zoom, and 60x digital zoom. The Pro also gets a better 50 MP front camera. The rear camera design is completely different from the Phone (3a) with a pronounced outward circular ring and a quirky camera layout.

Connectivity-wise, both phones feature Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, and USB 2.0 Type-C. There’s an in-display optical fingerprint scanner.

Colors, Pricing, and Availability

The Phone (3a) comes in three colors — White, Black, and Blue, whereas the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro comes in two colorways — Black and Gray. Both the devices will go on sale from March 11.

As for the pricing, the base variant of the Phone (3a) starts at Rs 24,999 and Indian buyers can score it for Rs 22,999 with bank offers. In the US, the Phone (3a) costs $329 for the base variant and $379 for the 12 GB + 256 GB variant.

The Phone (3a) Pro will set you back Rs 29,999 for the base 8 GB + 128 GB variant. It’ll be priced $459 in the US for the 12 GB + 256 GB variant.

What are your thoughts on the Nothing Phone (3a) series launch? Let us know in the comments below.