Maybe you ’all have seen and read all the reviews about Nothing Phone 2a so far, so I won’t get into the benchmark, camera samples, battery life, this and that, all the obvious stuff! it’s just a review about my personal usage and how I find 2a for my personal use. Stick around! Some things will change your mind! if you’re considering getting yourself Nothing 2a! I’ve been using the Nothing 2a as my primary device for the last few weeks!
Why Nothing 2a? What’s So Special?
honestly? I didn’t spend a dime buying this phone! I won the Nothing 2a Special edition in a giveaway that @nothingindia Hosted on X(formally Twitter), it was a pleasant surprise. I still can’t believe I won something by doing absolutely nothing! Did you get that? 😂 Okay no more nothing puns, let’s get into it! This is not at all biased Review; I’ll be mentioning how my experience has been so far!
Somethings to admire
Unboxing experience, attention to detail 👌🏼, the cable even comes with Nothing branding on the transparent connector end, like how cool is that?
Looks! Absolutely stunning! I love how this Special Edition looks, It’s BOLD, it’s pretty, it’s Unique, and feels good in hand. equal borders on all sides are exactly the kind of device that makes my heart feel at ease! The camera is placed in a great position, making it easier to hold! It’s a perfect device to be the center of attention! I Admire that Nothing has pulled out the whole Aesthetic uniform experience that makes it so fun to use.
Using Nothing OS feels Energized! You know when you used something long enough but suddenly you feel like it’s fresh, New, and Exciting! that’s what using nothing OS made me feel! it’s refreshing, it’s calming on the eyes! It’s consistent throughout, unlike any other Android skins! which is honestly that’s impressive on its own! It’s almost close to a stock-ish Android experience that it doesn’t seem too daunting, it just functions, and it functions pretty well. As someone who was an AOSP/pixel experience user for years and using heavy custom skins has always frustrated me in minutes of using it, nothing OS was a pleasant surprise for me. It made customization fun again, lock screen widgets, and some Nothing OS aesthetics, it’s cute!
The Glyph interface -
It’s absolutely worth trying! Some people buy Xiaomi phones for the IR blaster; the Glyph interface might have a similar appeal for Nothing users! People will buy nothing for the sake of being able to use glyph light when they need to put on a timer! or just used to having that phone set flat on screen! That Glyph timer is helpful for someone like me who needs to set 10-minute timers often throughout the day 😅 say I’m ranking jobs on Midjourney, boiling eggs for cats, cooking something for myself. This glyph has made those experiences a little better!
Somethings to worry about
Nothing takes’ its identity too seriously! it lacks basic features that end up adding more steps to users’ hands. for example - the camera doesn’t have presets for things like clicking pictures of documents, taking light trails, long exposures, or night photography. although one can argue these features are like nitpicking a normal user might not end up using them but when they do need to, they would end up looking for How to achieve those results. and it adds inconvenience to users’ brains!
Somethings that could be done better
The camera has been a hit-or-miss experience for me, it keeps on asking me to hold my phone steady for the stupidest clicks! I have a bit of essential tremor as is so seeing warnings to hold the phone steady for normal clicks was like pointing out – OH, maybe it’s getting worse? each time it made me feel a little more conscious of my hands! made my minor disability feel a bit much? So, I feel like the camera needs to be optimized a lot! As much as it has taken some amazing clicks for me, it has also taken some questionable clicks that would give me nightmares, No, for real! also, Camera processing does take more than 3 seconds!
The Nothing 2a that I have in hand, is suffering severely from black crush issues! and it’s killing me! - Black crush is when dark areas of a display lose detail, appearing as blobs, rather than showing visuals for what they’re like.
I’m not entirely sure if it’s software fault to some level it could be, but it could also be entirely hardware fault! My work involves dealing with images like a ton of images daily! and having black crush-like issues with the display just makes my work harder! I end up nuking a lot of images that could have been Amazing Wallpapers! and that kills the purpose of having DCI P3 support too!
Let’s talk about the ndot57 font - we need the option to turn off the ndot57 font throughout the UI! Sometimes my eyes are burning and randomly being thrown that ndot57 font into my eyes makes it feel heated! Can we have the option to change that? Please 🙁
also, for some reason, Google Wallet doesn’t have the option to add debit or credit cards to Tap to Pay with nothing 2a! That’s a bit weird!
MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro is pretty solid, and does a good job handling normal day-to-day usage! but sometimes UI lacks are fairly noticeable.
Somethings you need to spend on!
Charging adapter- it doesn’t come with one, so you need to get one! 45W PD3.0 charger.
Good Quality Tempered Glass - local ones have touch response issues, easily noticeable with typing, so you need to opt for Nothing Official or some good brands of Tempered Glass! if you don’t want to get minor scratches.
Cover/back screen guard or coating - it’s a plastic back and easily scratchable! So, if you want to protect its beauty to its pure form! you just have to get one!
Final thoughts!
Will I opt for Nothing phones in the future? - Absolutely! In fact, I loved my experience with Nothing OS and I would look for a nothing phone in my price range when I’m looking to buy one in the future!
The consistent experience with Nothing OS is fantastic, I’m Absolutely spoiled by the experience that we get with Nothing OS.
Soon, I’m likely to head back to my Xiaomi 11T Pro with custom ROMs. I’m going to miss the consistent approach of Nothing OS, like a lot! but I can’t go through the black crush issue all over again, I’ve had frustrating months dealing with it on My Mi 11 Lite NE, So I Just hope nothing fixes it somehow with updates, I have high hopes they will make it better somehow! but till then I have to stop using 2a as primary until black crush is resolved! as my day-to-day usage demands me to have a good display in my hand to rely on.
I know my review might make me sound like an Ungrateful bastard who doesn’t appreciate good things but that’s just not true 😅 I am super grateful for winning the giveaway and getting to experience Nothing Phone for the first time in my life and honestly speaking I always had a lot of FOMO regarding experience Nothing has to offer, So I’m blessed to have that experience that sooth my soul craving!
Thank you for reading my Review, I would love to know what you think, and what your experience with nothing has been like, also it would mean a lot to me to receive feedback on how I can do a better job at writing articles! Comment Down below 👇🏻
