What makes the Phone 3a cool isn’t just any single feature but the cohesive vision behind it. It’s genuinely interesting, capable, and fun to use. From hardware to software, Nothing has created a device with a clear identity and purpose in a market where many phones feel interchangeable.
The Nothing Phone 3a dares to be different with its signature transparent back and refined Glyph Interface. It brings meaningful upgrades, from a glass-backed design for enhanced durability to a versatile triple-camera system and a well-optimized Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset. When paired with Nothing OS 3.1, you get a minimal yet feature-rich Android experience. But does it do enough to stand out in the competitive sub-₹25K segment?
Design: First Impressions Matter
In a world where most phones look basically identical, the Nothing Phone 3a stands out like nothing else on the shelves. The packaging is minimal and 100% plastic-free. That transparent back showing off the internals isn’t just a gimmick anymore. The design has become synonymous with the brand across its entire product lineup.
The Phone 3a continues Nothing’s trademark aesthetic but with a meaningful upgrade as they’ve switched from polycarbonate to glass for the back panel, making it more durable but less slippery than the 2a. It also gets an improved IP64 rating, making it dust-proof and resistant to water splashes. Though it is not entirely water-proof, it can handle daily life better than previous models.
The Phone 3a series has a substantial presence in the hand. At 201g for the standard model and 211g for the Pro, these aren’t lightweight devices, but the weight is well-distributed, at least on the non-Pro model. Both models measure 163.52mm tall and 77.5mm wide, with the Pro being marginally thicker at 8.39mm compared to the 3a’s 8.35mm.
The build quality feels impressive, which is a definite upgrade from previous Nothing phones. While the phone feels premium with its glass back, the chassis is actually made of polycarbonate + 20% glass fibre. It feels good in the hand, but it’s definitely prone to damage, especially if it falls on a hard surface. In my case, it fell on the concrete and immediately chipped the mid-frame.
The slightly taller display with less rounded corners shows a more mature, confident design language for Nothing’s second-generation of mid-range phones.
The star of the show remains the Glyph Interface, which is comprised of three distinctive LED light strips on the back. On the 3a, they frame the new triple camera system beautifully. The Phone 3a extends the camera module we saw on the 2a into a row of three cameras.
A standout feature during setup is introducing you to the Essential Key, which is a dedicated physical button on the right side that integrates with Nothing’s new AI-powered hub called Essential Space. We’ll talk more about that later, but it’s clear that Nothing wants this to be an essential part of the user experience.
Display: Bright, Bold, and Almost Perfect
The 6.77-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate is immediately striking. It’s got that AMOLED pop we all love with super vibrant colours, and the bezels are thin enough that the content looks really immersive.
In our display tests using Calman and Spectracal C6 Colorimeter, the screen on the 3a went up to 2300 nits of peak brightness in the adaptive mode, which means you get great sunlight legibility.
When it comes to colour accuracy, the 3a has an average delta E of 1.4 in the Standard colour profile, meaning you can expect brilliant colours across YouTube, OTT apps and more. The 3a’s display covers 98.4% of the sRGB colour space and perfectly balances the blue, red and green colours.
This is one of the best screens you get on a phone in the sub-25K segment, the only thing missing now is a version with a matte screen, which I feel will go very well with the Nothing OS aesthetics.
Performance, Nothing OS & The Essential Key
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 isn’t the absolute top chip out there but is a significant upgrade from the Phone 2a, with the CPU being up to 33% faster.
In daily use, this translates to snappy app launches and smooth multitasking. Nothing OS has been optimised for over 440 typical mobile tasks, and it shows when apps launch quickly and stay ready in the background for faster switching.
On average, the CPU throttles only 7% while performing intensive tasks, which highlights the tight synergy between the hardware and software.
For gamers, frame rates remain stable even in more demanding titles like BGMI and Genshin Impact, and the 120Hz refresh rate with 1000Hz touch sampling in gaming mode gives you a responsive experience.
What’s particularly interesting is that in a time where most brands go bananas highlighting the AI smartness of their phones, Nothing stands out by not giving into all of those rarely used features like AI summary, proofreading, editing, etc. Instead, you get the Essential Key. It takes you to the Essential Space, which is essentially an AI-powered hub for notes, ideas and inspiration. Look at it like an extension of your to-do list: single-press to save something you want to remember, long-press to record a voice note and double-tap to access the Essential Space. While many of its most interesting features like on-device voice-to-text transcription are still in early access, the concept is promising and could genuinely change how you interact with your phone.
This is my first encounter with the Nothing OS and I have to say, there’s nothing like it on the shelves. It is refreshingly different from other Android skins without being weird or confusing.
Nothing OS 3.1 is the company’s most refined software experience to date. It’s clean, minimal, and distinctly Nothing with those dot-matrix animations, custom icons and 51 distinct sounds that give a unique character to the Phone 3a. There’s no bloatware, and the customization options let you make it as simple or feature-rich as you want.
The Smart Drawer that automatically organizes your apps by category is genuinely useful, not just eye candy. If you’re tired of cluttered, ad-filled interfaces, the Nothing OS is a breath of fresh air. The company has improved its update cadence over time, and the Phone 3a also gets 3 years of Android updates and 6 years of security patches, which is solid for this price range.
Cameras: How Good Are the Photos?
The camera system represents perhaps the biggest upgrade in the 3a series. Both models feature triple rear cameras but with some key differences. The standard Phone 3a includes a 50MP main camera with OIS and EIS, a 50MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom and up to 4x lossless in-sensor zoom, an 8MP ultra-wide with a 120° field of view and a 32MP front camera. The Pro model steps things up with a 50MP main camera with a larger sensor, a 50MP periscope telephoto with 3x optical zoom, OIS, and up to 6x lossless zoom, the same 8MP ultra-wide and an upgraded 50MP front camera capable of 4K video recording.
Nothing’s image processing system that it calls TrueLens Engine 3.0, which combines AI tone mapping and scene detection to provide more natural and balanced photos. The Ultra XDR feature takes 8 RAW images at different exposures and combines them for excellent dynamic range. The addition of presets gives you a lot of ground to experiment with different colour tones and effects like soft focus and lenticular. Video capabilities are solid too, with 4K/30fps recording, combined OIS (only on the main camera) and EIS stabilization.
The camera on the 3a captures true-to-life colours in daylight, however, in some images, there is a significant colour difference between the output from all three lenses. Low light performance is greatly improved, but Nothing will need more computational photography wizardry to make it consistent on all days. These little issues can of course be fixed via an OTA update and I hope the camera improves in the coming months.
Battery Life & Charging
The Phone 3a has a 5000mAh battery, the same as the 2a and 2a Plus. Nothing claims up to 2 days of use on a full charge and our testing largely backs this up in casual use. But if you are a heavy user, you can expect a day’s worth of heavy use and still end up with around 10% battery.
The Nothing OS, along with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, is efficiently optimised to use less power for small tasks, which in turn gives you better battery life.
In mixed-use, the Phone 3a was able to power through tasks involving browsing, photo-video editing, document editing, watching videos, etc, for 12 hours in our battery drain test.
Plus, the 50W charging isn’t the absolute fastest, but it’ll still get you from 1% to 100% in about 56 minutes, and 1 to 50% in 20 minutes. But sadly, the charging adapter is sold separately.
Nothing claims the phone can maintain over 90% maximum capacity after 1,200 charging cycles, roughly 3 years and 4 months of daily charging.
Verdict: For the Bold and the Bored
What makes the Phone 3a cool isn’t just any single feature but the cohesive vision behind it. It’s genuinely interesting, capable, and fun to use. From hardware to software, Nothing has created a device with a clear identity and purpose in a market where many phones feel interchangeable.
The Phone 3a is for those who want a phone that feels different without sacrificing the essentials. In its price range, the Phone 3a series faces stiff competition but fewer competitors offer anything as distinctive as the transparent back and Glyph Interface, and Nothing OS, which provides one of the cleanest Android experiences. Battery life is strong across the board, and the display quality is one of the best in this segment.
Some competitors offer slightly better raw performance. For most people, the difference won’t be noticeable in day-to-day use, but if you’re the type who needs the absolute maximum processing power, there might be better options out there specifically for gaming like the Poco F6 or the X7 Pro.
Nothing Phone 3a Key Specs, Price and Launch Date
| Release Date: | 11 Mar, 2025 |
| Market Status: | Upcoming |
Key Specifications
Storage
256 GB
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Battery capacity (mAh)
5000
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Rear Camera Megapixel
50 + 50 + 8
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Screen size (in inches)
6.77
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Siddharth Chauhan
Siddharth reports on gadgets, technology and you will occasionally find him testing the latest smartphones at Digit. However, his love affair with tech and futurism extends way beyond, at the intersection of technology and culture. View Full Profile
