As of 2025, there are just a few smartphone brands that care about creative design. Gone are the days of refreshing and outlandish Nokia feature phone and smartphone designs that never failed to amaze us with their weird and wacky shapes and form factors. What excited me back then were the new and experimental designs (N-gage, Nokia 7600), where the focus was more on the experience and just doing something differently. Lately, Apple has single-handedly managed to turn every smartphone into a slab with two sheets of glass.
Even the most expensive foldables from premium brands appear like boring glass slabs. Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android may have paved the way for what seems to be an ideal software ecosystem. But we are now stuck with a bunch of boring icons, predictable animations, and transitions that feel far too basic. Clearly, they aren’t built to amaze us anymore; they simply exist to deliver and serve a bunch of apps.
Nothing as a brand stands out in this sea of, well, nothings (at least from a design standpoint). With a product philosophy based on design, it takes those gutsy decisions that big-name brands are too afraid to take, paving a path for a refreshing series of products that not only dare to appear different (in a tasteful manner) but also strive to remain that way several years into the game. With the latest
In a recent update, Nothing even added the ability to create, share or import someone else’s custom preset (via cube files), which is unique and could become popular in the Nothing community.
Another intriguing feature I like is the presets that can be applied when shooting. These presets are not just colour, hue, or saturation adjustments; they also define which camera mode (even video) and what magnification can be used when selected. You can also add advanced settings, like keeping the flash on, image quality (binned or full resolution), and even turning the grid on or off, which is brilliant! You can pin these presets to your home screen as a widget and launch directly into a particular custom preset.
Nothing Phone 3a ultrawide camera samples (tap images to expand)
Coming to the cameras, the ultra-wide camera is the weakest one of the three, but it is by no means bad. It offers decent performance for its price point, producing photos that are a bit low on detail but pack good dynamic range, ensuring enough detail in the darker areas. Lens barrel distortion is under control as well. Of course, all of this mainly applies to daylight shooting, as the results captured at night appear soft and look like paintings.
Nothing Phone 3a primary camera samples (tap images to expand)
The primary camera is indeed the best and most capable of the three. Unlike the Nothing Phone 3a, it’s the only one with optical image stabilisation (OIS). Photographs captured in all shooting scenarios come out sharp and pack plenty of resolved detail. The primary camera also offers the best colour accuracy among the three, even though the photos appear a bit saturated compared to the actual scene.
Nothing Phone 3a 2X telephoto camera samples (tap images to expand)
The telephoto camera feeds on light. The colours it produces are a bit more saturated than the primary camera’s; it also adds a bit of sharpening to images, which can appear excessive when shooting portrait photos. Provided there’s good light, you get plenty of detail, and some crispy captures with good natural bokeh. The accuracy of edge detection varies depending on the complexity of your subject’s hairstyle.
You begin to notice a drop in image quality under artificial light or when shooting against a source of light. When using portrait mode, the camera tries its best, but the absence of OIS does not allow it to pick up enough details from faces. Your subjects will also need to be perfectly still in such lighting conditions.
The telephoto camera performs better when not using the dedicated Portrait mode. 4X lossless samples are usable, but you will notice a drop in detail when you pixel peep. Despite its daylight capabilities, those who plan to use Portrait Mode often are indeed better off with the Phone 3a Pro‘s 3X telephoto camera, which is optically stabilised.
Selfies pack good detail and accurate edge detection in daylight but come out average in low light (tap image to expand)
Video recordings are indeed an area that Nothing needs to work on. For a low-end, mid-range smartphone, it meets expectations by offering good stabilisation and decent detail when shooting video at 1080p and 4K. However, this only applies when shooting in broad daylight, as low-light video capture is quite poor.
Consistency in terms of colour reproduction between the three cameras is something Nothing still needs to work on. Of course, we’re discussing a Rs. 25,000 phone, but it would be great if Nothing could figure it out with future updates. All camera samples were clicked with the Auto-tone feature turned off, as it just added unnecessary colour saturation.
Nothing Phone 3a Battery:
- Battery capacity – 5,000mAh
- Wired charging – 50W
- Charger in the box – No
Despite having a slightly smaller battery than most competing smartphones, nothing has managed to squeeze the most out of it, thanks to good software optimisation. While the phone lasted me a whole day and a bit longer with heavy usage (calls, messaging, camera usage, and a bit of gaming), it managed a good score of 28 hours and 37 minutes, which is better than what the Realme P3 Pro’ manages with a higher-capacity battery.
Our PCMark Work battery test, which replicates regular smartphone usage scenarios, running the battery down to 20 percent, lasted a solid 17 hours and 40 minutes of continuous usage. Again, the figure is a bit surprising, as the Realme P3 Pro, with the same chipset, an AMOLED display, and a larger 6,000mAh battery, managed 10 minutes less.
Charging speeds are relatively slow at 50W, given that most phones in this segment offer better. In our testing, we managed to charge the Nothing Phone 3a to 46 percent in 30 minutes and complete the charging process in 1 hour and 26 minutes when plugged into a 100W GaN charger. For comparison, Realme’s P3 Pro charged a bigger 6,000mAh battery in 1 hour and 6 minutes.
Nothing Phone 3a Verdict
With its focus on design and balanced hardware choices, Nothing certainly has come up with a winner in the mid-range (budget in global markets). It beautifully combines hardware, cosmetic design, and software. And it’s even more applause-worthy, given that so much effort has been put into a low-end mid-ranger!
That said, the new camera hardware is an upgrade over the previous model. While it works alright, Nothing should work on delivering more camera updates to improve its performance even further.
Indeed, there are better performance-oriented alternatives like the Poco F6 (Review), and spec-heavy options like the OnePlus Nord CE 4 (Review) and the recently launched “flagship killer” iQOO Neo 10R (First Impressions) in India. But when it comes to design and software execution, Nothing’s Phone 3a is a phone I can pick up and use when I get bored of other smartphones. It has the software that I want to use on every Android smartphone.
