I found this review quite hard to write. On the one hand, this phone is pretty much everything I would expect or want from a budget Nothing phone, with the odd controversial exception. On the other, though, why do we have a Nothing budget phone? In reviewing this phone, I need to cover some of the controversy and provide my opinion on the niche it is meant to fit as that's the only honest way I can write this. I do not want comments about the controversy to take over, however, as this is meant to be a review of the phone and there are other threads for bloat feedback.
As such, I'm going to split this review into two sections. Initially, I'll cover my thoughts on the very existence of this phone and some of the controversy. Then, I'll wrap up by accepting that it does indeed exist, that these OS compromises have been made, and that I need to cover the phone itself in the second section of my post.
If you've had enough of reading about this bloat debacle on socials and on Nothing.Community, feel free to skip it; I've made it collapsed so just move straight to my review of the phone itself. If you do want my opinion about it, expand and read. I feel it adds context, but it's not essential to read with my review if you just want to know how the device holds up.
You might want to go get yourself a cup of tea for this.
Why does this phone exist?
Who is the target audience?
To me, the Nothing (3a) Lite exists in a very strange niche. In fact, that niche almost overlaps with the CMF range, including the CMF Phone 2 Pro, which this phone is clearly based on and is currently the cheaper option. I will get into this relationship more later on.
When CMF was launched, one of the main purposes was to protect the Nothing image as a 'premium' smartphone brand, with CMF catering to the more affordable market. Then came the 'a' series phones, which cover the middle ground—the mid-rangers—between premium and budget. Since that's not covered by CMF, fine. It does multiply the number of phones being released every year, which goes against the initial impressions Carl gave everyone when Nothing first started releasing phones, but times change and things evolve. I myself use a Nothing (2a+) as my main phone as I find it a good balance between performance and efficiency. I prefer the plastic material of the 'a' series over the main series because I can use it without a case more confidently, which shaves off a bit of the bulk. Plus, the camera layout lets me lay the phone down flat without it wobbling.
Budget phones do not have a big margin. In fact, it’s incredibly small. To compensate, quantity has to make up the difference. So even though the profit is small per phone, enough sales balance it out. This is the exact argument Nothing has used in the past, and the example that springs to mind is about compact phones—the margins are too small and the sales would not be enough to offset that, so it’s not worth it to make a compact phone even though it’s highly requested by the community.
So this begs the question: if budget phones aren't worth it unless sales do great, why commit to R&D and push out a second budget phone in a single year aimed at almost the same audience you targeted for the first? If people wanted this device, they likely would have got the CMF Phone 2 Pro a few months ago, leaving only a niche group who want a budget phone and didn’t buy the CMF Phone 2 Pro purely because they want a more Nothing-esque design. Is that group large enough to warrant this device and large enough to offset margins? Honestly, I don't think so. But only Nothing will be able to tell in hindsight, so let's see what strategy they opt for for budget phones in future, if it's worth it to put out two different but incredibly similar phones in the space of a single year.
Bloat
One of the ways Nothing has explored to try and make this phone viable is by introducing bloatware in return for a constant revenue stream beyond just the initial profits from the sale. Currently, the bloat is minimal, but the very fact that it’s there in the first place is something I find concerning. It was also something we as reviewers weren’t informed about prior to getting our units, so I found it pretty confusing that I suddenly had these apps installed. I set up without porting my apps over, so the presence of Instagram and Facebook was quite obvious. I was able to uninstall these apps, thankfully. As long as these pre-installed apps stay within reason and I can remove them easily then it doesn't really affect me much. To be honest, most of the controversy here is purely from what Carl & team have claimed before, that Instagram being pre-installed is bloat for example. And now they are adding that same bloat. It's just a poor message. Without those earlier claims, this would be less controversial.
Now, an observation I have to make here: Nothing apps. Are these bloat? Starting with a fresh phone, I noticed that the number of Nothing apps is steadily building. In my opinion, we are still at a good level, and I use some of them, but over time with more development, the Nothing suite of apps could also expand into bloat. If two pre-installed apps count as bloat, then don't these also count as bloat?
My mind goes to Samsung, who I am not a fan of because they come preinstalled with loads of apps and have their own versions of so many apps that Google just does better and also come preinstalled (at least the last time I got a Samsung phone). If I’m just a general user, do I care about Nothing apps, especially if I was using Google apps on my previous Android phone and am used to how those work? Am I going to use the Nothing Weather app when it gets info from Accuweather, with Accuweather providing bonus features like MinuteCast? Or if I don’t own any Nothing audio devices, would I want Nothing X? Probably not—those would just be unnecessary clutter on top of the Google/source versions I’d use every day. Controversial take I know, and the Nothing design language in these apps will appeal to a lot of people who will use them every day. But it also won't appeal to many others, and to them these slowly expanding pre-installed Nothing apps might be bloat, especially if it gets to Samsung levels. To be honest, one of the Nothing apps that would genuinely be the most useful to come pre-installed would be the Nothing icon pack, since without it your app icons look half-baked, with only some being proper monochrome and others being default. Yet, I still have to search for that pack on the Play Store and install it. Anyway, this observation may not be relevant for now, but the pre-installed apps did prompt this comparison in my mind. Food for thought.
Lock Glimpse
The other, even more controversial addition to NOS is the Lock Glimpse feature. While this isn’t on by default, during setup and in the patch notes, Nothing has tried to tempt users and sell this feature as a positive thing that people would want by claiming it provides beautiful rotating background images. It’s really not. Some of the images are nice, granted, but there’s an ever-present clickbait link on the screen with the feature enabled, which takes you to a page filled with ads should you click it. There are plenty of other posts on this feature so I won’t go into the backend of it much, but I just want to say that there are so many ads on the linked pages, with at least two in view at all times. And one of the things NOS has tried to do in the past is to try and not distract you by keeping said distractions to a minimum, which is the opposite of what this feature does. Not only does it try to catch your attention by changing frequently, but the links scream clickbait, the linked page is an endless scroll of doom with stacked articles one on top of the other, and there are more ads than articles. Not what I expect from NOS. This is the main thing here that I actively dislike.
And what concerns me more is that I can't understand why someone would want this feature on. And if it doesn't get turned on voluntarily, will Nothing take a step further and make it on by default in future? Or make it unable to be turned off? Because I don't see how they will make money from the third parties if no one turns the feature on, and why would anyone turn this feature on as it is at the moment? We are fine for now, but this is a thought for the future. Hopefully it is a needless worry.
Wrapping up the section on this existential crisis
Anyway, if budget phones are not worth making, and the only way to make them viable is to compromise on the image you’ve built up over the past several years and get yourself into another scandal, why even bother in the first place? I could spiral into another rant here about where this might go in the future, but that would be baseless thought. In any case, one of the most controversial things here is that there has been a lot of backtracking on previous comments and statements Nothing has made in the past when they’ve slated other brands, but they have yet to actually follow in the footsteps of those brands.
All this being said, I am still very much pro-Nothing. A lot of my concern is about the direction this leads, and not where Nothing are right now. They deliver excellent products, and as things stand now I can see them going from strength to strength. There is always the occasional misstep, and we all know Nothing have made a few over the years, but that hasn’t stopped them and they are always moving forwards for the better. Nothing has to make a profit of course, and after five years they’re probably due some profit, so they need to explore sustainable avenues of revenue. That’s what I see this as. Is it the right avenue? Only time will tell. Where will Nothing actually move towards? I have no clue, I can only trust that they can find a healthy balance between profit and the community. And Nothing has certainly heard the community’s voice in this instance.
Nothing (3a) Lite – Is It Any Good?
Okay, the phone’s existence aside, how does it hold up?
Now, this is a budget phone, the going price being £249 at launch. The CMF Phone 2 Pro is about £219 at the moment for reference, and the two are eerily similar. Almost like the Phone (3a) Lite was designed using the CMF Phone 2 Pro as the base. As such, my review is in the context of a budget phone, not expecting a premium feel or powerful processing. And on the whole, I have been pleasantly surprised. This phone ticks a lot of boxes.
Design
Starting with the design though, the design is pretty boring to be honest. Very simple, with a single rectangle of textured plastic which may trick you into thinking there’s a removable battery slot that’s locked behind the clear plastic exterior. There are various indentations and screws on display and a red square that’s part of the Nothing design language. It looks like a low-effort and discrete Nothing skin on the CMF Phone 2 Pro. This may work for some people, though, who don’t want their phone to stand out as much or who aren't fans of Nothing designs. But those people normally just whack a case on to cover up the Nothing-style appearance, leaving them with a very solid and very normal-looking phone. Or something that looks like the CMF Phone 2 Pro.
Glyph
In line with this, the glyph light is also very discrete now, just a single dot on the back instead of being spread across whole panels. And honestly, this bit I like. It reminds me of the notification dots we used to have on the front of our phones. I loved those and miss them dearly. The Glyph lights and Essential Notifications have been the closest equivalent in recent years, and my favourite use of the Glyph. So this is a Chris-approved Glyph design, and something that bumps it up over the CMF Phone 2 Pro.
Essential
Another noticable feature is the Essential Key on the side. This unlocks some Essential features like Essential Space, which is a nice feature if you want to store and annotate screenshots in a central location. Have I used this much? Not really, though I’m not much of a talker/person who likes to add voice commentary to be transcribed. To me, this is just a button to get confused with the power button, like the Samsung Bixby button or the button on the Phone (3), which I have made identical comments about previously. I would rather Essential Space just optionally activate on screenshot capture or something. This phone is also missing some of the Essential AI features like the Essential AI search in the app drawer since this phone only has a basic search feature in the app drawer. This button seems to be here to stay though so I'll stop mentioning it and just hope I find more use for it in future!
Size
This phone is also pretty massive, among the biggest to date. As a lite phone and as someone who prefers more compact phones because they are far more comfortable and ergonomic in hand, this was a big disappointment. With a budget phone, you might think that it’s easier to make it smaller since there doesn't need to be as much power, but that’s not the route they’ve taken here. There's a pretty good screen on it for a budget phone, and they're definitely trying to cater to people who want to scroll through Instagram or Facebook (those preinstalled apps) or watch videos on a nice big screen. But that's not me. To me, this is just the next phone in a line of phones gradually getting bigger and bigger until it's practically a tablet.
Bonus extras
And on a related note, a hit-or-miss addition to the package is an included case. Some might see this as a welcome bonus as they don't need to purchase one separately. Personally, because I don't want to use a case since the phone is already big enough as it is in the first place, this is an unnecessary extra. I'd rather not have to pay for that bundled into the phone price; a phone case on nothing.tech costs £25 for example, and I'd rather the phone be £25 cheaper (or even £10 cheaper) without the case that I'm not going to use. Or to include a glass screen protector with the box instead, as that is something I will use since you can't trust the phone glass not to scratch. Just a personal perspective—your opinion may differ. For what it's worth, it seems a decent case and fits well.
The final thing I can comment on before even booting the phone up is the microSD slot, which is a very welcome addition. You can't store apps and app data on the microSD slot like you used to, but phone memory has come a long way since then, and the phone's internal memory is usually more than sufficient even for offline map apps or offline music apps, which can require dozens of GB of space. What this extra space is used for is photo and video storage. Because photos and videos have also come a long way since 10 years ago, and with that progress in quality comes a large leap in data footprint, too. Prolific photographers who don’t delete their pics will appreciate the storage space provided here. It takes the space of a second SIM card, but that’s the normal strategy these days and is still a nice bit of bonus storage.
The 'feel' of the phone
Booting up the phone, the first thing you notice is that the haptic feedback is pretty great. It's not premium by any means and can be a bit light/tinny (if I can describe haptics that way), but it's solid and gives a satisfying feel. Surprisingly good quality for this end of the market. Unfortunately the speaker lets the side down here. It sounds like a mono speaker, and the top/bottom speakers are quite unbalanced and sound quite low quality/quiet.
Cameras
Unfortunately, I haven't had much chance to play with the cameras. From some quick shoots, the main camera seems good when the subject is well lit, vastly exceeding my expectations for this price point. I wish I could spend more time on this section.
But my few attempts with the macro camera have produced some terrible shots, which seems to be common among people providing their feedback. The quality is just terrible. The choice was apparently between a bad macro camera and nothing, so Nothing went with the bad macro. I wish they hadn’t, because then I wouldn't have to add this negative section in my review when I've barely had a chance to test the cameras. No camera would have been the better option if I were to pick between those options, because that would have likely made the phone a tad bit cheaper. They claim that it is possible to get good pics with it, but if you can’t get good pics by pointing and shooting, then can you really claim that? If you need to take it to a studio to get good photos with it, what's the point? If you have/can take it to a studio, you will also have the choice of other phones/cameras which take better macros overall, making your life much easier. And honestly, I'd rather they had kept the tele camera of the CMF Phone 2 Pro; the 3a Lite is a recycled version of the CMF Phone 2 Pro overall, so I don't understand why they couldn't leave the tele camera in.
UI
With regards to the user interface, I don't think much needs to be said. It runs Nothing OS, and is every bit as smooth and minimal as you would expect. Of the various Android operating systems, NOS stands at the top on my list, followed by Pixel. Yes, there are still some bugs, but every year NOS is maturing and those bugs are getting squashed. And even when it was fairly bug-laden, the OS still felt satisfying to use, let alone now when it’s faster, more reliable, more intuitive, has better animations, and is smarter. I wouldn't expect anything else, really, and even with the current bloatware (which is still unnoticeable if you uninstall/disable them) it still provides a top-tier Android experience.
Performance
Overall, the phone's performance is really quite good. Apps open up a bit slower than more expensive phones, and things do close in the background if you leave them more than a few minutes, but unless you're trying to do a lot of multitasking, everything is within reasonable expectations. This thing will take anything you throw at it, even if it doesn't do things lightning fast or have insane FPS. If you need to do lots of quick, reliable multitasking, you need apps to open milliseconds faster, or you need every single frame you can get your hands on in a game, you’re not looking for a phone in this price range anyway. The performance is excellent for the price, and everything feels smooth with NOS, which says as much for NOS as it does for this phone.
Battery
And the natural transition here is into the battery life, as the better the performance, the worse the battery, and vice versa. But I can reveal that this phone definitely sits more towards the better battery life side of the spectrum. While I did praise the performance, that was in the context of a budget phone. It's actually got a really good battery, easily getting over a day from one charge. And the charging is what I would expect: no wireless charging and 33W fast charging, which charges it up fast enough for my needs. I typically only charge to 80%, and I end the day on about 20-30% with a bit more draining overnight. Charging to 100% would likely give me 1.5 days of use off of a single charge. For context, I use my phone mainly for messaging, reading, navigation, wireless Android Auto, audio playing (via Bluetooth), and exercise tracking. I usually finish the day on ~10-20% on my 2a+. This exceeds my expectations from a budget phone.
Pros
Nothing OS
Smooth feel
Good haptics
Lasting battery life
Fast charging
Affordable
Solid main camera
Expandable storage
Glyph dot
Nothing design
Cons for me but may be pros for you
Cons
Conclusion
I’ve compared this phone to the CMF Phone 2 Pro throughout my review, so the natural way to wrap this up would be by making myself choose between the two phones. Which would I buy? Honestly, I would go for the CMF Phone 2 Pro. It has a better choice of cameras and is cheaper. While the glyph light is a nice addition, and a Nothing-style design is present, neither would warrant the loss of the tele camera, the bloatware, or the more expensive price over the CMF Phone 2 Pro to me.
That being said, while the overall tone of my review may not suggest this, the Phone (3a) Lite is a really good phone for the price, and there is a target audience out there who will prefer the Phone (3a) Lite. The pros outnumber and outweigh the cons; I’ve just spent a lot more time discussing the cons to try and provide context. The most important aspects are performance, battery, feel, user experience, and cameras. Barring the macro camera, the phone does really well in all five areas. It's just let down by the bloatware controversy and the speakers, while also featuring several aspects that may appeal to some audiences but are not for me personally.
