Nothing Phone (2a) Price, Specs, Features and Best Deals

Nothing Phone (2a) is the newest budget smartphone with style. It is more or less like a stripped-down variant of the company’s second affordable smartphone, the Nothing Phone (2) featuring a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with 120-Hz refresh rate, an all plastic design with LED stripe along the back, a 50MP dual rear camera with 32MP selfie camera, Wi-Fi 6 and a 5000-mAh battery. The Nothing Phone (2a) is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro and runs on its own OS Nothing OS 2.5 based on Android 14.

Design

The Nothing Phone (2a) is similar in size to the Nothing Phone (2) but slightly larger than the Nothing Phone (1). The Phone 2a showcases a unique design departure from its predecessors, with stripped-back glyph lighting and a relocated camera.

It measures a dimension of 161.7 x 76.3 x 8.6mm and weigh 190g. Despite the plastic build, the phone’s front and back are connected via an aluminum frame, made entirely of recycled aluminum, and coated with plastic for a better grip. Additionally, it has rounded edges, making it comfortable to hold.

The back of the Nothing Phone 2a features a clear polycarbonate plastic panel with a semi-transparent back that displays three Glyph LED lights and an intricate pattern inspired by the Vignelli subway map.

Unlike the original Nothing Phone 2’s off-center lights, the Phone (2a) has its LED lights placed in the middle surrounding the rear camera lens. This creates a more symmetrical design. It has a dual camera positioned at the center, encircled by the NFC copper coil, features three LED stripes for notifications. This design choice ensures the phone remains stable on flat surfaces without wobbling.

The unique Glyph system remains, though in a more minimal form, occupying only the top third of the phone with three LED elements surrounding the rear camera module. While providing soft fill lighting for the camera, it is less comprehensive than previous models. However, the Glyph system still offers visual cues and illuminate for notifications for calls, messages, and app notifications.

The design includes visible flexible circuits connecting the motherboard to the display, SIM card, and USB-C port. A tiny red square on the upper right is purely for aesthetic purposes. The transparent back panel, available in White and Black, reveals the phone’s internals, including flattened cables and the charging coil. However, the plastic material is slippery and prone to fingerprints.

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At the front, the Nothing Phone 2a features a large, immersive 6.7-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. It also has a thin, uniform bezels surrounding the screen, maximizing screen real estate and achieving an impressive screen-to-body ratio. For selfies, a discreet punch-hole camera sits in the top-center of the display, minimizing distractions. There is also an under-display fingerprint sensor responds quickly to inputs, and face unlock via the in-display selfie camera.

The left side houses discrete volume buttons, while the right side features a power button, both easily accessible without stretching but slightly stiff to press. Furthermore, the bottom of the phone houses the USB Type-C port, a speaker, a microphone, and the SIM card tray, while the top has a second microphone.

Display

The Nothing Phone (2a) features a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel with a resolution of 1080 x 2412 pixels, yielding a pixel density of around 394 ppi for sharp and detailed visuals. This display boasts an 87.6% screen-to-body ratio, providing an immersive viewing experience with minimal bezels. It supports 120Hz refresh rate, providing smooth scrolling and fluid animations.

In addition, this display also features 10-bit color depth that can render over 1 billion colors, thus allows for smoother gradients and transitions between colors.

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Meanwhile, with 10-bit color depth, the display can better utilize HDR content. HDR enhances the contrast and color range of the display, making bright areas brighter and dark areas darker, while maintaining more detail in both. This results in more vivid and lifelike images and videos.

The Nothing Phone (2a) offers three refresh rate modes: 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz, allowing users to balance performance and battery life according to their needs. These adjustable refresh rate options allow users to choose the setting that best suits their current needs, whether they prioritize battery conservation or the smoothest possible display performance.

The display is also capable of handling HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG formats, although it lacks Dolby Vision support. Additionally, the Nothing Phone 2a brightness levels are impressive, with typical brightness at 700 nits, high brightness mode (HBM) reaching 1100 nits, and peak brightness up to 1300 nits, ensuring good visibility even in bright outdoor conditions. Moreover, it features the Always-On Display feature allows users to view important information at a glance without fully waking the phone.

Camera

The Nothing Phone (2a) is equipped with an impressive camera setup, featuring two 50-megapixel sensors on the back and a 32-megapixel front-facing camera. The main rear camera boasts a 50 MP resolution with an f/1.88 aperture, allowing for excellent light capture and detailed images.

It is equipped with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), which minimizes blurriness from hand movements, ensuring sharper photos and more stable videos. Additionally, the sensor size of 1/1.56″ further enhances light capture, making it ideal for low-light photography.

The secondary rear camera is also a 50-megapixel sensor but with an f/2.2 aperture and a 114-degree field of view, designed for ultra-wide shots. This allows for capturing expansive scenes and group photos with ease.

The rear cameras are capable of recording 4K video at 30 frames per second and 1080p slow-motion video at up to 120 frames per second. They feature an Ultra XDR algorithm, a blend of Google’s Ultra HDR and Nothing’s Advanced HDR, which improves dynamic range and image quality.

The front-facing camera is a 32-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and a 1/2.74″ sensor size, ensuring high-quality selfies. It supports HDR for better color and detail in varying lighting conditions and can record video at 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second.

Hardware and Software

The Nothing Phone (2a) is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro chipset, a robust 4 nm processor that features an octa-core CPU. This CPU is composed of two high-performance Cortex-A715 cores clocked at 2.8 GHz and six efficient Cortex-A510 cores running at 2.0 GHz. The device also couples with the Mali-G610 MC4 GPU for handling graphics-intensive tasks.

In terms of memory and storage, the Phone 2a offers multiple configurations: 128GB with 8GB of RAM, 256GB with 8GB of RAM, and 256GB with 12GB of RAM. However, it does not support expandable storage via a memory card slot.

Furthermore, the Nothing Phone (2a) runs on Android 14 with Nothing OS 2.5.5, and it is backed by three years of software updates and four years of security updates, ensuring longevity and up-to-date performance. Nothing OS 2.5 provides a dedicated customization page for home and lock screens.

To maintain optimal performance and prevent overheating, the Phone 2a includes an “extra-large” 3,200 mm² vapor chamber for cooling. The vapor chamber is a cooling system that uses a liquid to absorb heat from the phone’s processor and then dissipate it throughout a larger area. This helps to prevent the phone from overheating, which can lead to throttling (performance slowdown) and even damage to the processor.

The battery capacity is 5000 mAh and is non-removable. It supports 45W wired charging, capable of charging the device to 50% in 23 minutes and fully charging it in 1 hour, as advertised.

Additionally, for connectivity, the Phone 2a supports Wi-Fi 6 with dual-band and Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 5.3 with A2DP and LE, and comprehensive positioning systems including GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS, and QZSS. Additionally, it includes NFC with 360˚ functionality for various contactless operations.

Meanwhile, a notable new feature in the Nothing Phone (2a) is NTFS optimization, which enhances file transfer speeds from a Windows PC to the Nothing Phone 2a, making data management more efficient.

Nothing Phone (2a) Price and Availability

Nothing Phone (2a) price starts at around $389.50 at leading retailers. The model offering 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM retails for $389.50 and 324.65 EUR on Amazon stores in the United States and Germany. If you prefer the model with 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM, Amazon lists it at a price of $418.90 and 379.00 EUR at their stores in the United States and Germany respectively. Nothing Phone (2a) price in Nigeria starts at around 600,000 Naira.