Review: Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro - Affordable and Charismatic

Nothing is a British mobile manufacturer founded by Carl Pei, who was previously involved in starting OnePlus. From OnePlus, you can clearly recognise the attitude and focus on marketing, but Nothing aims even more to stand out aesthetically, in the design of the products and in the user interface of the phones. At a time when phones are becoming more uniform in appearance and it is becoming harder to compete with features, it seems like a reasonable priority.

The first phones in British Nothing's third generation are the mid-range phones Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro, with a recommended price between 4290 and 5790 SEK. The two models are so similar that we test them together. 

Whichever model you choose, you get a 6.77-inch large and bright OLED screen. The screen can shine with up to 1300 nits in direct sunlight and 3000 nits when displaying HDR film. It also has a refresh rate of 120 hertz that responds quickly and smoothly in most apps even when set to dynamic updating. It is an excellent screen worthy of a significantly more expensive phone, and my only objection is that the automatic brightness sets itself a bit too dark for my taste in indoor lighting, so I constantly turn it up a bit.

Big but fun

A large screen also means a large phone. This is especially true for the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, which has a significantly protruding round camera island on the back. The camera setup is the main difference between the two models, and the regular Nothing Phone 3a has a considerably smaller and less protruding camera island. Other differences include different colour combinations, the fact that the Nothing Phone 3a is sold with 8/128 or 12/256 GB memory while the 3a Pro is only sold with 12/256 GB, and that only the Pro model supports esim. Both the price and the format speak in favour of the cheaper 3a, while the Pro model has the camera setup to its advantage.

It is the appearance that more than anything else distinguishes Nothing's phones from the competition. The Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro have a grip-friendly frame that is said to be aluminium but in that case covered with grip-friendly plastic paint, and a transparent glass back where you can see screws and some of the electronics inside. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro we borrowed is in grey with silver details, while the Nothing Phone 3a has a white frame with black lacquered buttons, which is actually really effective. Both models are also available in black, and the 3a additionally in blue.

The predecessor Nothing Phone 2a had a plastic back and an S-shaped pattern that was more decorative, but on the Nothing Phone 3a, we see actual wiring through the glass, laid out in an aesthetically pleasing pattern. It's really cool and gives the phone character. 

Under the glass, there is also the Glyph interface, three curved LEDs placed around the camera island. Glyph has been around since the first Nothing Phone and, besides being aesthetically pleasing, is intended to function as a form of notification light. You can have different flashing patterns for different apps and incoming calls, and if you, for example, set a timer, one of the LEDs lights up partially, and the countdown is shown as a shrinking bar. You can compose your own glyph flashes and let the lights blink in time with the music. 

This is a bit fun on paper, but it's the front of the mobile you use daily; when you look at the screen, you don't see either the stylish back or the Glyph lights. 

Nothing has the idea that you should place the mobile with the screen facing down when you're not using it. If you want, silent mode can then be activated so that the glyph interface becomes the only way notifications are noticed. However, it has other drawbacks. Nothing Phone comes with a pre-installed screen protector, but it starts to get a bit scratched after just a couple of days of use when you place the mobile with the screen facing down.

The chipset in the phones is Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, a chipset that delivers performance that feels reasonable for the price tag. You notice that it's not a top model as the phones sometimes need a moment to load new apps or web pages, but for most uses, the phones never feel sluggish.

Monochrome Interface

The focus on appearance is reflected in the user interface of Nothing OS 3.1 with its minimalist and monochrome design. You can influence how the home screens look, but if you use the system as Nothing envisions it, you get monochrome icons for the apps without text underneath. It's surprisingly difficult sometimes to determine which app is which without either colour or text, but it certainly looks cool. This is complemented by various widgets in a retro monochrome LED style for things like weather, screen time, battery, and more. Nothing OS 3.1 has received several widgets, and there are now a total of 18 to choose from in the system, in addition to those belonging to various apps.

It wouldn't be a new mobile phone in 2025 if it didn't have some form of innovation in artificial intelligence. Below the on/off button is a new button linked to the AI function Essential Space. Pressing the button once takes a screenshot, to which you can add a text or audio note. Long-pressing starts a dictation function. What you save in this way ends up in the Essential Space app, which will analyse text, audio, and images with AI to summarise what it was all about. For example, if you screenshot a movie advertisement and say book tickets, the app will be able to understand that you want to book tickets for that movie and create a reminder about it. 

To begin with, we can note that the button's placement next to the on/off button is not entirely successful. Despite Nothing's efforts to give the button a different appearance and shape that feels distinct, there are many accidental screenshots when you just want to turn the phone's screen on or off.

Nothing calls the function a beta version, which can excuse some teething problems. Swedish is not supported as a language, but at least once my English is interpreted as French. When I tell the phone (in English) to remind me tomorrow to shop and do laundry, a checklist is indeed created in Essential space for the tasks, and the app also notes that I need a shopping list for what to buy as well. But having this among various screenshots gives a somewhat confused impression. So far in the beta stage, I would call the function promising rather than useful here and now.

Another AI function is what is called a smart app drawer, which means that apps can be identified by category and sorted. I find it both visually cluttered and the categories can feel quite uninspiring, like tools, productivity, business, and lifestyle.

Both Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro have three cameras on the back; main camera, wide-angle camera, and telephoto camera, but only the 8-megapixel wide-angle camera is the same between the two models. The main camera on both models is 50 megapixels, but Nothing Phone 3a Pro has a camera sensor with twice the so-called “full well capacity,” which means better resolution on the light scale and potentially better low-light images. The telephoto camera is also 50 megapixels on both, but the regular model has two times optical zoom while the 3a Pro has periscope zoom with 3 times optical zoom. Both models are supposed to use the telephoto camera's high resolution to provide 4 and 6 times zoom with maintained sharpness, and at higher zoom, AI is used to further sharpen the images.

Ambitious Cameras

On paper, the camera setup in the Nothing Phone 3a Pro is one of the most ambitious we've seen in a mid-range mobile. In practice, however, I strangely find it difficult to enjoy the better cameras in the Pro model. In my camera comparison, the main camera performs well in most situations for both the Pro model and the regular 3a. Sometimes one is better, sometimes the other. However, the Pro model sometimes has a slightly overexposed feel with pale images, something that feels like a calibration issue that may be addressed in a future software update. In the dark, the Pro model is better, sometimes but not always.

When it comes to zoom, there is a range of 3-6 times zoom where the Nothing Phone 3a Pro is noticeably better, but the difference is not dramatic. In return, the Nothing Phone 3a takes better pictures with two times zoom. I don't think I notice the utilisation of the higher sensor resolution; an image taken with 6 times zoom with the Nothing Phone 3a doesn't look sharper than an image taken with three times magnification that I've zoomed in to 200 percent in an image editing program. In practice, I think the Nothing Phone 3a takes usable pictures up to 10 times zoom and the 3a Pro up to 20 times.

With all that said, both models have really good camera setups for the price tag. Comparing with a Samsung Galaxy S25, Samsung is slightly better in daylight but worse in darkness and with zoom, and then I'm comparing with a phone that costs nearly double. 

The battery is 5000 mAh in both versions and they can be charged with up to 50 watts charging speed, which should give 50 percent in 19 minutes. However, a charger is not included and must be purchased separately. According to Nothing, the phones should have noticeably better battery life than their predecessor thanks to the new chipset, and we also get excellent results in our test of the phones' screen time. I also find the standby time to be good.

The price is therefore 4290 for Nothing Phone 3a with 8 gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of storage. It's an excellent price but lacks a memory card slot, so you might need to spend an additional 500 kronor to get 12/256 GB. Even at this price, the phone offers excellent value for money. If you then pay an additional thousand kronor, you get the Pro variant, but I can't really see that the gain with the cameras is worth it, and in addition, the phone becomes bulkier.

Questions and Answers

Do the phones have wireless charging? No, that has been omitted, which is quite normal for the price range. 

Are they waterproof? Not quite, the protection class is IP64 which means they can withstand rain and splashes but not being submerged in water.

How is the speaker sound? The phone has well-balanced speakers with clear sound but with almost non-existent bass reproduction.

An alternative

Galaxy A56 is Samsung's equivalent model. The price is about the same and you get Samsung's system version but no telephoto camera.

Camera example

The cameras are good on both phones and in fact, I find it hard to see the advantage of the cameras in the more expensive model, sometimes the pictures turn out faded instead. Nothing Phone 3a on the left 3a Pro on the right.