Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: design doubts aside, this might be the mid-ranger for me

Introduction

If you had any doubts that journeyman tech brand Nothing likes to tread its own path, the new Phone 3a Pro will undoubtedly change your tune. This is one of the most distinctive-looking affordable phones I’ve tested, with an asymmetric rear camera setup that’s sure to prove controversial.

This isn’t the full-fat Phone 3 flagship – that’s due later in 2025. It’s not a direct sequel to last year’s phenomenally good value Phone 2a, either; that’ll be the £329 Phone 3a, which you could call almost conventional in comparison to this. Think of the 3a Pro like a halfway house between the two, with the sort of snappers you’d expect from a far pricier phone. Nothing has also taken a different approach to AI than the rest of the phone world. Oh, and don’t worry: the signature glyph lights and widget-heavy version of Android haven’t gone anywhere.

Landing at £449, it undercuts the Google Pixel 8a and recently revealed Samsung Galaxy A56. But this is still hotly contested territory. Can it take on all comers – and is the periscope zoom lens that forced such a divisive styling shift worth the extra expense over the regular 3a?

Design & build: dashing or disaster?

Side-by-side with the vanilla Phone 3a, there’s really no ignoring the 3a Pro’s… unique rear camera bump. Instead of disguising the lenses with dark glass (a common trick among flagship handsets), Nothing has made their mismatched shapes, size and asymmetric placement into a design statement. The aluminium camera island itself properly protrudes out the back of the phone, too.

Now each to their own here, but personally this doesn’t look nearly as elegant as Nothing’s previous efforts. It’s also a bit more “me too” than I’ve come to expect from the firm. Big circular camera bumps have been all the range among flagship phones for a while now. This was likely the only way to make room for a periscope lens while keeping the rest of the phone unchanged from Phone 3a – the two phones otherwise have identical hardware – which would be essential for keeping the price in check.

Nothing phones are at their most distinctive in lighter colours, so I reckon my grey review unit is the one to go for; it’s harder to pick out the tiny details on the darker black version. And it’s not like it makes that rear lens hump any less polarising.

Cameras aside, it’s easy to spot the evolution from last year’s Phone 2a Plus. The glyph lights have shuffled a bit, but still light up to indicate incoming calls, notifications and timers. The circuit-inspired see through graphics have been tweaked a bit to be more reflective of the actual hardware lying underneath, and that’s real glass on top instead of plastic. it really does feel nicer to hold than the outgoing phone, with the flat polycarbonate frame giving plenty to grip onto and button placement that falls naturally under your fingers.

Speaking of buttons, there’s a new one on the right edge. It wakes the new AI-infused Essential Space – more on that in the Software section further down the page. I like how it stands out from the power and volume keys with a more bulbous shape and polished metal finish, so I never confused the two.

Nothing has managed to up its weather resistance slightly between generations, so you’re getting IP64 protection here instead of Phone 2a’s IP54. Better doesn’t mean best, though: the Galaxy A56 and Pixel 8a both have IP67, or enough to survive a complete dunking in shallow water.

Screen & sound: shining star

Slimming down the bezels ever so slightly has let Nothing squeeze a 6.77in screen into the Phone 3a Pro’s polycarbonate frame. That’s a small yet welcome boost over Phone 2a’s 6.7in display, and while the resolution hasn’t really changed, you’d need a microscope to notice. Photos and 1080P videos still look as sharp and detailed as I’d expect from a mid-ranger.

I do wish the under-display fingerprint sensor didn’t sit so uncomfortably close to the bottom edge, as it often meant repositioning my grip to unlock the phone. Still, it was speedy enough to detect my digits. The punch-hole selfie cam can handle basic face recognition, too.

Nothing has majorly cranked up the brightness on the underlying AMOLED panel, with a peak 3000 nits being more than double what the Phone 2a could manage. It’ll never hit that in everyday use, of course; just on a small part of the screen when showing HDR content. But I could definitely see an improvement when side-by-side with the old phone. It was as comfortable to use outdoors as any of its rivals, too.

This is a particularly vivid display, with punchy colours at contrast well with Nothing’s black and white colour scheme. You can dial things back in the Settings menu if you prefer a little less saturation, and force the dynamic refresh rate to a constant 120Hz if you like. I never bothered, because it was always quick to switch up from 60Hz when scrolling.

I can’t say I noticed much difference between old and new on the sound front. Phone 3a has the same down-firing main speaker and earpiece combo as Phone 2a, with enough volume for personal listening and a clear enough mid-range for spoken word podcasts. It still gets shrill when you max the volume, but that’s largely the case everywhere else too.

Cameras: justifies the new face

If the design differences didn’t already make it clear, photography is the reason to plump for the Pro over the normal Phone 3a. You’re getting a 50MP periscope telephoto here, good for 3x optical zoom and 6x ‘lossless’ cropped snaps, instead of the 3a’s lesser 2x setup. Both phones have a 50MP lead cam with optical image stabilisation, and an 8MP ultrawide bringing up the rear.

It’s the weakest of the three, with less overall definition (particularly at the edges of the frame) but not by a huge margin. Colours and exposure are consistent with the lead lens, and it doesn’t struggle with bright highlights like some ultrawide cameras do.

That’s true of the telephoto as well. Dynamic range is really rather good, while the high pixel count sensor is able to preserve plenty of detail. Noise is kept in check, even in darker scenes, and it doesn’t oversharpen in order to chase extra detail. Interestingly 6x shots help up a lot better under scrutiny than 2x ones taken using the main sensor, which looked much softer. You can invoke digital zoom all the way to 60x, but the quality drop off is pretty substantial.

Switching between both Phone 3a versions, you’re clearly getting sharper, more defined magnification on the Pro. It maintains the lead at night and indoors, so is the one to go for if zoom matters to you. The two other sensors show basically no difference in quality.

At 1x, the main camera can produce very pretty pictures that compare favourably with anything Google, Samsung and OnePlus are doing right now at this price range. There’s loads of detail on display, HDR balances highlights with shadows well, and colours have plenty of punch. Low light shots don’t let the side down, either.

Nothing’s image processing leans towards natural colours and plenty of contrast, which gives each shot real impact. You don’t have as much control over tone and temperature here, with just a handful of filters and an exposure slider, but I like how much more responsive the camera app feels now. The live view runs at 120Hz now, up from 60Hz, and it’s harder to catch the phone processing your pics on the fly when quickly swapping to the gallery app.

Software experience: not quite essential yet

NothingOS has been one of my favourite spins on Android for some time now. No-one else does design consistency quite like it, offers nearly as many customisation options, or has such an abundance of useful homescreen widgets. Version 3.1 continues that trend, with lockscreen-specific widgets and a home-grown gallery app.

The big new addition the Essential Space, which uses AI to organise, understand and add context to all your written reminders, voice notes and screenshots. Give the dedicated button at the side of the phone a squeeze and it’ll take a screengrab; holding it down records a voice memo; and a double-press takes you into the hub, where everything is sorted into categories. Voices are transcribed and text is summarised automatically, via the cloud.

I like that pictures are kept separate from your camera roll. Some of the features set to roll out over the coming months also sound promising, like being able to search for text inside of images. But it’s very early days right now. Maybe I just don’t make as many voice notes as Nothing’s target market, but there wasn’t really anything here that I could see myself giving up my scrappy Google Keep to-do lists for.

Otherwise, the UI felt as slick to navigate as ever. Some behind-the-scenes optimisations have made everything feel just that little bit snappier than before, with faster transitions and smoother animations. It sits on Android 15, and other than the handful of preinstalled Nothing apps, you’re left with Google’s defaults. And importantly, zero bloatware. More affordable phone brands should follow Nothing’s example, instead of preinstalling apps or games for a quick payday.

The firm is behind the major players on long term software support, though. Three new Android generations is half what you’ll get from Google or Samsung, but six years of security patches is at least very competitive.

Performance & battery life: back to snap

After one contingent of Nothing fans kicked up a stink about the now-retired Phone 2a using MediaTek silicon, it’s not a huge shock to see the firm return to Qualcomm power here. It’s not like the Snapdragon 7S Gen 3 is a rocketship – this is still very much a mid-tier CPU – but 2D benchmarks show a 25-30% performance hike, and graphics test scores are about 10% higher across the board.

That puts in on par with the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ and behind the OnePlus Nord 4 for raw numbers. There’s still plenty of pep here for a mid-ranger, though, with my day-to-day experience showing up no noticeable stutters or slowdown. I chalk some of that to my review unit being able to silo off. asmuch as 8GB of built-in storage for virtual memory, on top of its 12GB of RAM.

A larger vapor chamber also helps keep temperatures under control. An hour of a demanding game like Diablo Immortal would make it warm to the touch, but not to any noticeable degree. Most Play Store games run well enough, and better than they did on Phone 2a – just not quite enough to fully make use of the 120Hz screen.

It has the same 5000mAh battery as last year’s model, but the slightly more efficient CPU helped the Phone 3a Pro last a teensy bit longer between charges. I’m talking an hour more at best, so this is still an all-day phone. I needed nightly top-ups (or a refuel first thing) even with moderate use, while lots of gaming would drain it sooner. Nothing hasn’t adopted higher capacity silicon-carbon cells, so falls behind new class leaders Honor and OnePlus, but otherwise it compares favourably to Google and Samsung’s latest efforts.

I like that wired charging speeds have seen a small bump from Phone 2a, too. With the right USB-C adapter it’ll suck down 50W, which is more than twice what a Pixel 8a can manage. A full refuel takes less than an hour. Wireless charging doesn’t appear, though; I assume Nothing is saving that for the top-tier Phone 3.

Nothing Phone 3a Pro verdict

It’s a little ironic that a phone with flashing lights and see-through styling doesn’t do enough to stand out from its baby brother. If you rarely reach for the zoom button, I can’t see why you’d skip the standard Phone 3a for this: it’s on par everywhere else, has less divisive looks, and costs a whole lot less.

There’s no denying you’re getting the superior telephoto snapper here, though. Add in the very capable lead lens and the Phone 3a Pro can compete comfortably with the upper echelons of mid-range cameraphones. Personally, that makes it the one I’d pick of the pair. Performance and battery life are also what you’d expect for the cash, while Nothing’s spin on Android remains a joy to use – even if the Essential Space doesn’t truly feel essential just yet.

Moving out of true bargain territory means picking this over the more generic competition isn’t quite the no-brainer that last year’s effort was – but if you’re sold on the firm’s signature features and also want its best camera setup, the Phone 3a Pro still holds plenty of appeal.

Nothing Phone 3a Pro technical specifications