Introduction
Now it is going to add the Nothing Phone 2a Plus model very soon and as you know Nothing Company recently launched the Nothing CMF Phone 1 and Nothing Phone 2a. Carl Pei’s innovative new venture is now launching yet another new product into the market.
Based on the Nothing Phone 2a, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus is a new version of the smartphone with considerable similarities in build but the smartphone features new metallic color hues.
The Nothing phone has now been loaded with a new MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro 5G chip, switching out the older MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro chipset.
This upgrade will grant an improvement of up to 10% in CPU and 30% in GPU which is a good chance for tech racist to try out the new performance of their gadget.
Nothing Phone 2a Plus Specs at a Glance: Nothing Phone 2 Plus Specs at a Glance:
- Body: 161. 7×76. 3×8. 5mm, 190g; front glass (Gorilla Glass 5), plastic around the frame, and the back; Rated as IP54 for water and splash resistance; There is also 26 LED lights on the back, which work as notification lights and as fill light for the camera.
- Display: 6. 7. 70” AMOLED, 1 Billion colors, 120Hz, HDR 10 +, 700 nits (typ), 1100 nits (HBM), 1300 nits (peak), 1080x2412px, 20:9 aspect ratio, 395ppi; Always On.
- Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro (4 nm); Octa-core (2×3. 0 GHz Cortex-A715 & 6x 2. 0 GHz Cortex-A510); Mali-G610 MP4 at 1. 3GHz.
- Memory: Please see below for Samsung Galaxy A51 Specifications: CPU: Octa-core (2×2. 3 GHz Cortex-A53 & 6×1. 7 GHz Cortex-A55), Samsung Exynos 9611 (Global) or Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 (India). RAM: 256GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM.
- OS/Software: Android 14, Nothing OS 2. 6 for Nothing Phone 1; Up to 3 years of Android updates with the Phone 1.
- Rear Camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/ 1. 9, 24mm, 1/1. 57”, 1µm, Dual Pixel PDAF. 0µm, PDAF, OIS; Ultra wide angle: 50 MP f/2. 2, 114-degree, 1/2. 76″, 0. 64µm.
- Front Camera: 50 MP, f/2. 2, (wide), 1/2. 76”.
- Video Capture: Rear cam: 4K@30fps; 1080@60/120fps; gyro-EIS; Front cam: 4K@30fps.
- Battery: 5000mAh; 50W wired 50 % 21 min 100% 56 min (claimed).
- Connectivity: 5G; Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 6 connectivity; Bluetooth 5. 3; NFC.
- Misc: Fingerprint scanner (optical, under the display); audio: stereo speakers.
Another feature of the Nothing Phone 2a Plus is a solid and fast 50MP front-facing camera to record sharp 4K videos. Further, the charging aspect has been enhanced; it has 50W fast charging which is approximately 10% faster than the Nothing Phone 2a.
There are some people who might wonder why there is a need for creating a slightly better variant of a ‘mid-tier’ device, which may affect the sales of the normal Nothing Phone 2a. But, for CEO Carl Pei, this could not be any further from the truth. He observes that the Nothing Phone 2a has made it possible to work on a sequel and with the Nothing Phone (3) expected in 2025, it gives the enthusiasts hope of having a better gadget in the meantime.
Despite the higher price tag on the Nothing Phone 2a Plus, Nothing is not seeking to axe the Nothing Phone 2a altogether. This decision will make sure that consumers are able to have options to choose from, this is always a plus for anyone.
Unboxing
There is nothing that could be associated with a special look and feeling and a touch and vision when it comes to packaging and accessories. The packaging of the Nothing Phone 2a Plus is provided in a fascinating cardboard box with engravings of the device’s design. Outside of the box, there’s a sleeve bearing Nothing’s dot matrix font, and the entire novelty of the box, even the inner cradle to hold the phone is made out of robust and augmented cardboard.
As much as it may be minimal, this attentiveness is seen in the accessories as well used by the company. As for the last two items, the SIM ejector tool and the USB Type-C to Type-C cable, they both have a design that refers to the phone somehow. The new cable looks shiny and 7 connectors made from transparent plastic are added, yet it is a simple, non-specced eMarked cable that can deliver only up to 3A of power and 5Gbps of data. Although these limitations do not in any way affect the phone’s capacity, not bringing a charger in the box is easily noticeable.
Design, Build Quality, Handling
In the design aspect, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus goes in a similar direction to that of the Nothing Phone 2a. The provision of two entirely horizontal cameras is a rather antique-looking camera configuration, given the existing smartphones’ design. It does not have an anthropomorphic design; it meets its eyes in the two cameras accompanied by the large NFC coil, which seems like a ‘brain-like hub of intelligence and communication’ the press release says.
One of the key design concepts of the Nothing Phone 2a is the transparency of the back cover which is characteristic of Nothing products. This part is called the “90-degree infinity back cover” which is created through a unique method of “dual compression and injection. ” 2. 2:0. 8 thickness ratio from the thickest part of the external coverage of to the thinnest part of it.
For the main model, Nothing Phone 2a Plus, there are two new metallic trims: Grey and Black, which perfectly contrast the transparent glass at the back. As for the back panel, it’s a little less matt and has a somewhat plasticky feel, but at least it is more grippy. However, it is rather sensitive to fingerprints and dust because of the static charge, and it is recommended to use a protective case.
The Glyph Interface, consisting of three light strips on the rear camera, is still retained as part of the phone’s composition. It has 26 zones each of which can be controlled separately and it allows functions like Glyph Timer and Glyph Progress that can track the progress of some third-party applications such as delivery or rideshare applications. The Glyph lights are also used to signify notifications, the cameras’ ring light, and the volume and battery percentage.
No element emphasizes the Glyph Interface as their new method of interaction other than a mere aesthetic, with 15 marketed uses. Compared to the Nothing Phone (1) and the Nothing Phone (2), Nothing Phone 2a+ does not have a blinking red light for video recording as an icon but has a relatively simple design.
The Nothing Phone 2a Plus is akin to the Nothing Phone 2a in design where the frame is fairly round, likely made of plastic, and has a matte-like finish. For easy use of buttons, they are arranged well but the volume control buttons are shifted to left and the power buttons to the right side.
The front of the phone is covered by a flat piece of Gorilla Glass 5 and includes a generic, thick layer of clear plastic guard that needs to be peeled from the screen. The phone has an ingress protection rating of IP54, meaning that it is protected against ingress of water, and limited ingress of dust.
The frame that surrounds the display is smooth and thin and is equally on all sides making the phone to be gently proportional. The under-display optical fingerprint reader that comes with this smartphone is fast and accurate as well.
Concerning ergonomics of holding, there is good non-slip friction on the back surface and the philosophic curves of the sides allow a comfortable grip. Nevertheless, it has a giant 6. The Nothing Phone 2a Plus has a 7-inch screen alongside a 5,000 mAh battery, and is lighter than the Nothing Phone (2) and the Nothing Phone 2a both at 190 grams.
Display
As for the display, there are no changes between the Nothing Phone 2a Plus and the original Nothing Phone 2a, a 6. On the front side, it sports a waterdrop notch 7-inch screen with a 20:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1080 x 2412. Which is about 395ppi, hence good image quality and clarity is achieved. Its feature includes a higher refresh rate of up to 120 Hz a 10-bit color and HDR10+ coverage.
First of all, the display of Phone (1) doesn’t have LTPO technology which means that the switching between high refresh rate on Nothing Phone (2) is less dynamic. None of them boasts of a brightness of 1,100 nits full-screen and 1,300 nits peak. This is perfectly usable outdoors and is a smidgen better than the Nothing Phone 2a was capable of at 981 nits. Compared to the auto brightness setting, in the manual brightness setting the display was outputting around 736 nits.
The display supports three refresh rate modes: Of these, the most common frequencies are 60 Hz, 90 Hz, and 120 Hz. Dynamic allows users to set the update frequency ranging from Standard (60Hz) up to High (120Hz). Dynamic mode adapts the screen to variable 90 Hz and 120 Hz depending on the application to preserve the battery and speed.
Although supporting HDR10+, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus does not have Dolby Vision but has Widevine L1 DRM certification, thus allowing for Full HD streaming on Netflix.
Battery Life
Without the need for a battery of the largest capacity, Nothing Phone 2a Plus can provide excellent battery life, and in the test of Active Use Score, it reached 16:48 hours. It is superior to the Nothing Phone 2a for battery in call and web browsing performances.
Charging Speed
The Nothing Phone 2a Plus features 50W fast charging, slightly better than the 45W on the Nothing Phone 2a. Through the port, it is possible to charge through the Power Delivery 3. 0, but it supports Quick Charge partially but not at the maximum rate. For the most part, this is a simple and traditional retail box, and the charger is not included, which consumers have seen Nothing do with Ear (1) as well.
To charge the iPhone Xs with the help of a 65W PD charger and having a current of 5A.
Overview of Nothing Phone 2a Plus: OS and Software
The Nothing Phone 2a Plus runs Android 14, with the latest version of Nothing’s own OS skin, Nothing OS 2. 6. This version also does not impose heavy theming like other ROMs but retains the AOSP look and feel and allows users to lay on as much customization as they want. The dot matrix font is clearly seen and the look and feel of the overall user interface has this special look and feel about it.
Nothing OS 2. 6 holds 24 first third-party widgets, they start with clocks and calendars, contacts, and even weather, all of them having the Nothing style. The notification shade and quick toggles share some commonalities with the AOSP but have Nothing’s distinctive aesthetic. First of all, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the two first quick toggle areas are circles, but in Nothing OS 2 they are squares with rounded angles. 6.
Those who want to extend LineageOS’/personalize the aesthetic a little more can get a monochrome icon pack that ties into it, and the Always-on Display follows the same rule. Monochrome UI does not mean creating an application that is boring or making the user interface duller, but it is just an option that is not provided in OS, namely the Monochrome UI is a part of Do Not Disturb and Bedtime routines enabling customers to create their setups without changing the appearance of the UI captured in screenshots or photos.
That service is the only one that experiments with advanced features. For some reason, Nothing Phone (2) does not have the “Connect to Tesla” assist function, however experimental AirPods support and “Glyph Progress”, a feature for integration into third-party applications, such as Uber, are present. Nothing X application is compatible with multiple headphones like Ear (1), Ear (stick), Ear (2), CMF Buds, Neckband Pro, and Buds Pro.
Glyph Interface and Customization
Nothing Phone 2a Plus comes with the Glyph Interface whereby LED can be controlled on the back of the phone. This element has a setting of brightness and can be programmed to toggle at a user’s desired time. Among these, Brightness, Ringtones, Notifications, Flip to Glyph, Glyph Timer, Composer to custom Glyph ringtones, and Visual Feedback available for Volume control, Charging meter, Google Assistance, Music Visualizer and Uber, Zomato, and Google Calendar apps’ notifications.
Like its predecessor, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus does not come with any preloaded bunkware, although it does have necessary Google services. Camera, Weather, Recorder, and Nothing X apps are custom and have a similar design to each other trappings; however, Nothing X is either preloaded or can be downloaded from the Play Store.
Performance and Benchmarks
The biggest improvement on Nothing Phone 2a Plus is its processor. Among the elements made in cooperation with MediaTek and available only in Nothing, the Dimensity 7350 Pro 5G is significantly superior to the Dimensity 7200 in terms of performance. It is fabricated on TSMC’s 4nm process, the CPU composed of the two ARM Cortex-A715 cores operating from 3. 0 GHz and 6 ARM Cortex-A510 cores operating from 2. 3 GHz. The Nothing Phone 2a Plus boasts about the performance increase where CPU tasks are up to 9. 5% faster and GPU tasks up to 30% faster compared to the Nothing Phone 2a.
It has an in-built storage of 256 GB non-expandable UFS 2. While the base storage is 2TB, the RAM is either 8GB or 12GB LPDDR4X with up to 8GB RAM boost or virtual RAM.
Benchmark Results
When it comes to geekbench and CPU tests, Dimensity 7350 Pro is much ahead in performance as compared to Dimensity 7200 Pro GHz in Nothing Phone 2a. The single-core geometry has the same level as the Dimensity 8200, whereas the multi-core geometry has been seen to have a higher performance level than the 7200 Pro. Regarding the AnTuTu benchmark and the positioning of the Nothing Phone (1) it can be said that it is rather comparable with the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ with Dimensity 7200 Ultra and the original Nothing Phone (1) with Snapdragon 778G+.
An area where the Dimensity 7350 Pro is exceptional is the Graphics Processing Unit performance of the chipset in comparison to other phones of similar price. While the official performance results suggested, in some cases, even a score of 805,000 on AnTuTu in our tests, we failed to receive it.
Thermal Management
In the aspect of thermal for the Nothing Phone 2a Plus, it is extremely well managed because there is very little heat given off from the MediaTek 7350 Pro despite it being overclocked. Heat is not much of an issue in the phone the CPU is not throttled often or has performance drop and the surface of the phone is relatively cool.
Camera Features and Quality
Thus, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus retains the rear camera arrangement of the Nothing Phone 2a with some differences. It features two 50MP cameras: which include a main and an ultrawide lens. The ultrawide does not have autofocus, unlike the Nothing Phone (2), and there are sensor differences.
The primary lens is the Samsung ISOCELL GN9 while the front wide lens employs the Samsung ISOCELL JN1. The improved 50MP front camera makes use of the JN1 chip that records 4K@30fps videos as compared to the 32MP Sony IMX615 of the Nothing Phone 2a.
Main Camera
The main camera records at twelve. Mainly, the question is that the resolution is set at 5MP plus these updates can enhance the processing. The images show great detail with less intensification of the sharpening, but there is noise visible in the images. The built-in camera provides natural and bright colors; additionally, the image can be shot with a resolution of 50 MP if necessary. Digital zoom can take good 2x zoom shots, which are free of noise and portraits exhibit superb bokeh with pleasant blurred backgrounds.
Ultrawide Camera
The 50MP ultrawide camera manages to take an acceptable 12. 5MP images rich in detail and color though slightly noisy and soft at times.
Selfie Camera
The new 50MP selfie camera allows duplicating high-quality processings with good skin tones and resolution but there is no autofocus.
Low-Light Performance
Low light photography using the main camera is good with nice details and low noise level and colors are true to life. The ultrawide angle takes fairly good low-light photos but there is quite a lot of noise on the image. Low light photography is not the camera’s forte but the color reproduction along with detail is impressive.
Video Capture
This phone captures 4K@30fps videos using the main, ultrawide, and selfie cameras on the Nothing Phone 2a Plus. Main camera videos are very well detailed and free from any kind of noise and the ultrawide videos are equally sharp. Introduction The front selfie camera records high-quality 4k videos that are colorful. [EIS] is turned on by default, which brings some hunting of the main camera focus. All the cameras have good low-light video quality.
Competitive Landscape
Nothing Phone 2a Plus is available for £399 $399 for the 12GB RAM and 256GB inbuilt space, while Indian customers can buy 8GB RAM and 256GB ROM for INR 28,000 and the 12GB/ 256GB model costs INR 30,000. The Nothing Phone 2a is marginally cheaper at £350/$375/€330/INR 28,000 for the 12GB/256GB variant.
Realme provides attractive rates on the 8GB/256GB Realme GT 6T that is, ingress protection IP65, speakers stereo, display LTPO AMOLED, Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chip. With a sub-€400 build, the Samsung Galaxy A55 gives you an IP67 rating, an option for expandable storage, plus a competent set of cameras; comes with four OS updates and five years of security updates.
The two Xiaomi phones, namely Redmi Note 13 Pro+ and Poco X6 Pro, can be considered worthy competitors. Navigating to Redmi Note 13 Pro+, protective measures include IP68 which means the smartphone can be used in water up to a depth of 1. It supports the 67-inch Dolby Vision display, MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Ultra as a chipset, and comes with a 200MP main camera. The Poco X6 Pro differs from the previous model by having an improved processor, namely the MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra chip, but at the same time, the cameras are worse and the device does not have ingress protection.
Conclusion
Thus, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus offers a decent experience with a distinctive design and smart software integration. Thus, compared to the Nothing Phone 2a the refresh has better performance indicators only slightly but comes with a better display and selfie camera. However, there is a problem with setting the Nothing Phone 2a and (2a) Plus at similar prices as features offered by the two may be hard to distinguish.
Selecting the Nothing Phone 2a Plus for the enhancements makes sense if the price gap is small. The plus and minuses are evenly distributed between the two gadgets, however, other gadgets within the same price point may be more efficient, nonetheless, no device can rival the eccentricity of the Nothing Phone 2a Plus.
Pros:
- Among the novelties of the device, for which it can be rightfully distinguished, one can single out the versatility of its design and the presence of its own Glyph Interface.
- High-resolution screen with a brightness of 1000 nit and a contrast ratio of 1 000 000:1; the frequency of 120Hz; 10-bit colors; HDR support.
- Some of the key benefits of this product include the long-lasting battery and efficient charging system.
- Software design that makes the software components as integrated as possible with no fluff
- Powerful performance without the phenomenon of thermal throttling
- Camera with main features such as video stabilization and night mode
Cons:
- No charger included
- The posterior face of the USB pen drive is inclined to stain and dust accumulation
- A weak high refresh rate gaming compatibility
- No eSIM support