Nothing kicked off March by unveiling its newest ‘a’ phone, the Nothing Phone 3a, at MWC 2025. Here’s how the affordable smartphone compares to last year’s Nothing Phone 2a.
The Nothing Phone 2a impressed us with its stylish design, smooth performance and long battery life. On top of this, users benefited from a strong build quality, great display and solid camera. That isn’t even to mention the unique Glyph system on the rear of the phone. More importantly, all of this came at a budget-friendly starting price of $349/£319.
Now, Nothing has announced its successor, the Nothing Phone 3a. We’ve compiled the biggest upgrades and changes in this guide to help you decide whether it’s worth picking up the newer model.
If you’re interested in learning how the Nothing Phone 3a compares to the higher-specced Phone 3a Pro, check out our guide to the Nothing Phone 3a Pro vs 3a, or for more great phones, head over to our guides to the best smartphones and best cheap phones.
Price
The Nothing Phone 3a was announced alongside the Phone 3a Pro on March 2 at MWC 2025. The Nothing Phone 3a starts at $399 / £329 for 8/128GB and goes up to $459 / £379 for 12/256GB.
Free £89 Ear(a) earbuds with Nothing Phone (3a) pre-orders
There’s a free set of Nothing Ear(a), with 40% off accessories and a 10% saving on audio products with the new Nothing Phone (3a).
The Nothing Phone 2a was released on March 12 2024 with a starting price of $349/£319 for the 8/128GB model or $379/£349 for the larger 12/256GB configuration.
Both models have since been discounted on Amazon, however, meaning you can pick the 8/128GB model up from $324/£247 and the 12/256GB version from just $360/£279 today.
The Nothing Phone 3a is more durable
The Nothing Phone 3a has seen a couple of subtle design improvements, including a more durable design and a brighter display.
Where the Nothing Phone 2a has an IP rating of IP54 to protect it from dust and water, the Nothing Phone 3a upgrades this protection level to IP64 by switching out the polycarbonate back panel for a glass one.
The display, meanwhile, is slightly taller with less rounded corners. It’s brighter too, with a typical brightness of 800 nits, an outdoor brightness of 1300 nits and a peak brightness of 3000 nits with HDR. The Nothing Phone 2a offered 700 nits of typical brightness, 1100 nits of outdoor brightness and 1300 nits of peak brightness.
The Nothing Phone 3a has a telephoto camera
One of the biggest upgrades arriving on the Nothing Phone 3a comes in the form of a new telephoto camera.
Where the Nothing Phone 2a included two cameras – a 50-megapixel main camera with OIS and EIS and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide shooter – the Nothing Phone 3a comes with three. These include a 50-megapixel main sensor with OIS and EIS, a smaller 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a new 50-megapixel telephoto lens with support for 2x optical zoom.
Both phones also feature 32-megapixel front cameras, along with support for 4K/30fps video recording.
We found the cameras on the Nothing Phone 3a to be decent, though we had to rely on cropping from the main sensor to achieve 2x shots. The inclusion of optical zoom this time around should ensure there’ll be no loss in quality when shooting subjects at a distance.
You’ll have to wait for our full review of the phone to see how these two camera phones compare in our experience.
The Nothing Phone 3a is 92% better at handling AI tasks
The Nothing Phone 3a has an edge when it comes to performance thanks to its upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset.
The Nothing Phone 2a was powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro, which we found offered very solid performance for its price. The chipset delivered strong CPU and GPU performance — especially compared to other phones below the $400/£400 mark and felt smooth and snappy in the hand.
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3-powered Nothing Phone 3a is packed with performance improvements, with Nothing claiming a 33% uptick in CPU performance, 11% better graphics and a whopping 92% improvement in AI task processing. That said, you’ll have to wait for our full review to learn how these two processors compare in our benchmark tests.
The Nothing Phone 3a has a longer battery life
While both the Nothing Phone 3a and the Nothing Phone 2a pack large 5000 mAh batteries, the newer Nothing Phone 3a establishes an edge when it comes to battery life.
This is thanks to the aforementioned Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 combined with Nothing OS that requires 8% less power for typical tasks. This translates to another 30 minutes of battery at the end of each day, giving you another half hour before you need to go and get your charger.
The Nothing Phone 3a also supports slightly faster 50W charging, which Nothing claims should provide 50% power in 19 minutes and 100% in 56 minutes. The Nothing Phone 2a, comparatively, brought along 45W charging for 50% battery in 23 minutes and a full charge in 59 minutes. Though, again, this is something we plan to test for ourselves.
Early verdict
The Nothing Phone 3a improves upon the Nothing Phone 2a across the board – at least on paper. However, you’ll want to wait for our full review to see how noticeable these upgrades are in real-world use and our benchmarking tests.
