I have been using this device for 28 days now, testing everything about the phone to see how the device performs in Real World Scenarios.
This device is a review unit provided by Nothing India as part of the community review program. However, they have had no input on my impressions or views—everything shared here is entirely based on my experience with the device.
Here’s the detailed review about the Phone (3a) to find out is it worth or not?
📦Unboxing Experience:
The unboxing experience of the Nothing Phone (3a) feels premium and thoughtfully designed. Unlike my previous Nothing Phone (2), which was unboxed by the delivery agent, this time I had the opportunity to unbox the device myself— making the experience more personal and memorable. The packaging stands out with its minimalist aesthetic and clean, presentation, giving a sense of uniqueness and attention to detail. Overall, the unboxing felt fresh, well-crafted, and aligned with the brand’s signature design language.
Here's what's in the box:-
A phone,
A cable and,
A sim ejector tool.
Again, no charger in the box
💪Build Quality:
The build quality of the phone feels premium in-hand and stands out. This phone features a
glass back with Panda Glass Protection and plastic frames. They could have opted for Gorilla Glass,
which is more durable than Panda Glass. While the phone is on the heavier side
with 208g of weight, the weight distribution is spot-on, so it feels very comfortable in hand.
This phone offers an IP64 dust and splash resistance rating. This phone is 8.44mm slim, which makes
it easy to grip. The position of the buttons is also spot-on and doesn’t feel awkward.
✨Display:
The Nothing Phone (3a) sports a 6.77-inch AMOLED LTPS flexible display offering excellent
viewing angles. It supports a 120Hz refresh rate, delivering a smooth and responsive
experience whether you’re scrolling, gaming, or watching videos. In terms of brightness, the
display reaches up to 1300 nits in High Brightness Mode for solid visibility in outdoor
conditions. For HDR content and peak scenarios, it can go as high as 3000 nits, which is
great at this price point.
Overall, this display makes the content consumption experience great.
👆Haptics:
The Nothing Phone (3a) uses an X-axis linear motor, which delivers sharp and precise haptic
vibrations. It feels premium during typing and system interactions.
The haptics could be better integrated throughout the software — for example,
feedback on the volume slider, brightness adjustment, or certain UI gestures would enhance the
overall user experience.
⚙️Software Experience:
Nothing OS offers clean and bloatware-free experience with no lags across the UI, which is
rare in this market. The device feels fluid and responsive. Additionally, Nothing promises
3 years of Android updates and 6 years of security updates, delivered every 2 months. The
device comes with Nothing OS 3.1 and Android 15 out of the box, providing a great, lag-free
experience with new features such as Camera Presets and Essential Space, which allows users
to store any quote, memory, etc., simply by clicking the Essential Key button.
🚀Performance and Gaming:
The Phone (3a) comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, which is a powerful processor and can handle all the tasks on the software smoothly
and is well integrated with the system offering a clean and smooth user experience. It works great and can handle games as well, like BGMI and Call of Duty Mobile. While BGMI with Smooth and Extreme+ graphics settings supports 120 FPS, it consistently stays between 100 FPS to 115 FPS, which is great and smooth. During heavy gaming sessions, the phone would heat up, but that would not reduce the smoothness of the games nor drop the FPS.
📸Camera:
Now let’s talk about one of the most important aspects of a phone, the camera. The camera of the Phone (3a) offers a triple camera setup of a 50 MP Main Camera + an 8 MP Ultra Wide + a 50 MP Telephoto. The main camera offers f/1.88 aperture with 24mm of focal length and OIS and EIS stabilization with the Samsung GN9 sensor. The Ultra-Wide offers f/2.2 aperture with 15mm of focal length and EIS stabilization with the Sony IMX 366 sensor. The telephoto lens in the Phone (3a) offers f/2.0 aperture with focal length of 50mm and optical zoom of 2x with EIS image stabilization and digital zoom of 30x with the Samsung J95 sensor. It also features a selfie camera of 32 MP with a Samsung KD1 lens.
Wide Angle Camera:
In daylight The camera manages to maintain the exposure well in wide-angle shots. The colors in the images are natural, vibrant and accurate. Details and sharpness are impressive across the scene. In daylight the camera handles the dynamic range well, ensuring that the shadow areas remain visible.
Main Camera:
The camera manages to maintain good exposure control in various daylight conditions and effectively manages scenes with bright skies. The colors appear natural, vibrant and accurate. Details throughout the frame are well-preserved. The camera handles dynamic range well, ensuring crucial details in the shadows are well maintained. The highlights in the bright sky are also not blown out and well maintained. In low light, the image quality is quite underwhelming. It struggles with artificial lights, often creating a flare effect. The overall image appears dark, noisy, soft, and lacks detail. The edges of the photo also look noticeably soft.
2x telephoto lens:
The telephoto lens performs well under various daylight light conditions. It maintains the exposure well throughout the scene, ensuring both bright sky(highlights) and shadows are properly exposed. Colors remain natural and accurate, but sometimes it captures warmer tone compared to the main camera. It manages to retain excellent details and sharpness in the overall image. It effectively handles the dynamic range, balancing the bright areas and shaded portions, preventing any loss of detail. The telephoto lens also provides good versatility for capturing distant subjects. Shots at different focal length from this lens have well-managed exposure, color reproduction and details. But when zoomed in to its maximum 30x zoom, the camera’s performance shows some limitations. The overall image at 30x have high noise levels, lacks fine details and the overall photo looks significantly degraded. Till 20x the phone provides usable photos with well maintained Dynamic range and decent details. In low light, the camera handles exposure well in areas lit by artificial lights. It controls bright lights nicely, without too much bloom or overexposure. But in darker areas, shadows are deep, some details are missing, and the dynamic range isn’t great. The telephoto lens also isn’t as sharp as the main camera in low lighting situations
Selfie Camera Performance:
Morning/Daylight:
The selfie camera handles exposure well, keeping the subject clear even with bright backgrounds. Skin tones look natural and vibrant, with sharp details and good background separation.
Low Light:
The camera keeps the subject visible but struggles with details and sharpness. The images overall looks soft and have high noise levels.
🎥 Video Recording:
Morning/Daylight: The camera performs well in keeping the subject brightly lit and well-exposed, even when the sunlight is behind or to the side. There is no underexposure on the subject, and direct sunlight in the background doesn’t cause harsh flaring or overexposure. Colors and skin tones appear balanced, natural, and vibrant, giving the video a realistic look without being overly saturated. There is a good level of detail in the background, and the camera handles dynamic range and shadow transitions well. Dynamic range control is generally decent. The EIS stabilization effectively smooths out minor handshakes and minor shakes do not result in too much jitter. The camera locks onto the subject quickly and maintains focus even when moving slightly. When the lighting shifts suddenly, there is minor exposure adjustment which alters the brightness, but it quickly recovers. At times, the video can appear oversharpened, and background objects or textures might appear softer compared to sharp subjects. Additionally, shadows on the subject can sometimes get darker than ideal.
Lowlight: The camera manages to keep the subject visible in low-light scenarios and does well in controlling strong light sources without too much bloom. Colors remain natural, without an unnatural warm or cold tint. Stabilization continues to work effectively at night, preventing excessive video shake. However, the camera loses fine detail and sharpness, and there is visible noise in the video. Shadow areas are often completely black and lack some details, compromising overall clarity and depth.
📸 Selfie Video Performance:
Morning/Daylight (Selfie Video): The front camera excels at keeping the subject visible and balancing the exposure, even with bright backgrounds. It effectively maintains the skin lit when lighting conditions change slightly. Skin tones appear natural and realistic, with no unnatural tint, resulting in clear video. The background retains good sharpness and details. The camera manages light contrasts well, handling brighter backgrounds without blowing them out. Details on the subject are maintained even in partially shadowed areas. Stabilization works well, handling minor shakes or jerks effectively. While fast shifting in lighting can result in brief exposure shifts, the camera recovers very quickly. At times, there might be a lack of depth in the video.
Lowlight (Selfie Video): The camera attempts to keep the subject lit in poor lighting conditions, making the subject visible despite the darkness. Bright streetlights or nearby light sources are controlled well and do not blow out the frame. In areas with some ambient lighting, skin tones are still distinguishable without extreme color shifting. However, noise levels are high in the background, compromising overall image clarity. Subject details are also reduced, and areas not directly lit by lights appear completely black, which makes the video lack depth.
🔊Speakers:
The speakers in this device are stereo, offering clear and sufficiently loud sound. The speakers deliver impressive clarity across various genres and playback platforms. While the speakers tend to deliver clear sound in low to moderate levels, the clarity might fluctuate at high volume levels depending on the genres and the platform being used.
⚡Battery:
This device comes with a 5000 mAh battery with 50W fast charging. The battery is fabulous, consistently giving 10 hours of Screen-on-Time and an impressive 8 hours of Screen-on-Time in heavy usage and gaming, which is exceptional. For charging, I used Nothing’s original 45W charger with the transparent cable. It charged 5-50% with that charger and took approximately 30 minutes, and 5-100% took around 1 hour and 10 minutes.
📶Network and Connectivity:
I have been using this device for 4 weeks and have been testing calling, Bluetooth connection, hotspot and other connectivity features. There are no complaints regarding network connectivity or Bluetooth connection. For calling, there have been no issues like call disconnections, zero call drops, or no issues with 5G connectivity. For most of the time, it consistently maintained a 5G connection, which is very impressive. Regarding Bluetooth, I also have no complaints. It quickly connects to my TWS earbuds and maintains a stable connection without disconnections.
👍👎Now talking about the Pros and cons of the device:
➕Pros:
✅Great unboxing experience.
✅Premium and eye catching design
✅Nice build quality
✅Display performance is nice
✅Clean, lag-free, and bloatware-free software
✅Strong battery life with fast charging
✅Great speakers
✅Solid haptic feedback
✅Glyph Interface
❌Cons:
⚠️Degraded 8MP Ultra-Wide camera.
⚠️UFS 2.2.
⚠️Panda Glass Protection.
⚠️Color inconsistency in camera.
⚠️Selfie camera could be improved.
⚠️Lacks details and has noise when capturing 30x photos.
⭐Final Verdict - Is the Phone (3a) worth it?
The Nothing Phone (3a) has a bold and unique design and stands out. It is an all-round segment midrange device. It offers solid build quality, unboxing experience, clean, lag-free and bloatware-free software with a great User Experience. Despite of the cons in the device, the device is very stable and performs well. So, the overall performance is solid and well optimized. Battery life is great, gameplay is good and performance is excellent for casual gamers. The audio and the haptics are also great. So, if you are someone who prefers long battery life, casual gaming, clean and bloatware-free experience and wants a phone that stands out, the Nothing Phone (3a) could be a good option and worth considering.
