Nothing Phone (3a) – The Rapid Review

Reading Time: 10 minutes

I’ve reviewed smartphones from many manufacturers over the years, ranging from Apple to Xiaomi and I’m always on the lookout for new and exciting products to review.

One phone company that I’ve been following since they first launched is Nothing and I’ve been super impressed with the design and functionality of their products. Therefore, I was so excited when I reached out to Nothing and they agreed to send me their brand new Nothing Phone (3a) to review.

After watching Carl Pei’s reaction video to the more well known reviewers, think Marques Brownlee, Linus at ShortCircuit and the like, reviewing the Phone (3a), it struck me when he said;

“Reviewers should try to step out of your personal day to day and try to put yourself in the shoes of the person that might buy the product and try and deliver a review based on how that person might experience it. Because I think when people watch a review for a product they definitely are interested in that product and would potentially buy that product and then see if it fits their needs”

With this in mind, I decided to take on this challenge and write my review in exactly that way. Meaning this review will not be at all “techy”. This review will be written entirely from the POV of an everyday smartphone user, with a focus on the design of the product and if it provides value for money at this price point.

Just like the others?

Let’s be honest, the first thing that people consider when choosing a new phone is how it looks. Walking into any phone shop, you will see a display of phones, and from the front, most phones look exactly the same. They’re usually a slab of glass with rounded edges, no physical buttons, some sort of notch and a front facing camera. At first glance, the Nothing Phone (3a) looks pretty much the same.

However, it’s from the back that this phone stands out and absolutely looks nothing (excuse the pun, there will be lots throughout this review) like anything else on the market, apart from other Nothing Phones of course.

If I saw the Nothing Phone (3a) in a shop, it would definitely catch my eye and make me want to look closer. The design is certainly a conversation starter and I’ve had several people come up to me and ask what phone I’m using, which is something that Nothing would be happy to learn I’m sure.

Nothing Compares to it…

As for the design itself, I love the blue colour that my review model came in and the transparent glass panel (an upgrade from the plastic of the Phone (2a) with what looks to me like a futuristic robot with huge eyes (the cameras), leaning up against a bar with a glass of something in its hand. I also love the fact that you can see some ribbons and cables and several screws.

You’ll also find the little square, in my case red in colour, which is something found on all other Nothing Phones to date. It’s the little attention to detail like this that makes Nothing stand out from the crowd for me. Rest assured, this phone feels as good as it looks. It feels solid in hand and not at all cheap and plasticky which some phones in this price range are prone to being.

A glyph (/ɡlɪf/ GLIF) is any kind of purposeful mark

I can’t talk about the back of the Nothing Phone (3a) without talking about the stars of the show, which are the strips of LED lights known as the Glyph Interface.

Aside from the transparent design, the most unique aspect of the Nothing Phone (3a) is the Glyph Interface. The Glyph Interface uses LED light strips that can light up in unique patterns to give visual notifications at a glance.

Whilst some people have called the Glyphs a gimmick, I believe that there are several ways in which the Glyphs can bring some fun and purpose to the Nothing Phone (3a). Each ringtone has a matching unique set of flashing lights, as do notifications. Talking of ringtones, you can choose different ringtones for contacts. This means you can see who is calling without needing to pick the phone up.

For those who want to customise their experience further, you can create your very own ringtones, notifications and light show using the Glyph Composer. The Glyph Composer comprises different soundboards that respond to your touch. Each tap corresponds to a different effect on the Glyph LED lights. Again, this is a very cool and unique feature of the Nothing Phones. You can here one of my awful attempts below.

You can even set notifications for chosen apps as essential which makes the right LED strip glow when you get a new notification for the app that you selected. I found this particularly useful during a working day as I was able to see the notification at a glance and decide for myself if I needed to interact with it.

My personal favourite ways to use the Glyph Interface are Flip to Glyph and Glyph Timer. Flip to Glyph allows you to put the phone in silent mode, simply by flipping the phone over. 

Glyph Timer gives you a visual countdown meaning that when you’ve chosen the length of time, an LED stripe lights up and then slowly dims to show the passing of time.

As useful as I found the Glyphs to be, I do think that more third party app support would increase the functionality of them. I was also disappointed to learn that seeing the battery charging status using the Glyphs is no longer available.

Nothing OS 3.1

You can have the best looking phone in the world with the best cameras and the fastest processor, but if the software is bloated and hard to use, it will fail. Almost instantly, you can feel that Nothing has kept this in mind when developing Nothing OS 3.1. Built on Android 14, Nothing OS 3.1 is fluid and doesn’t feel like simply a skin on top of Android 14. I love the font, the layout, the quirky dot matrix style icons. Everything has a purpose and there is zero bloatware, something you cannot say with other Android phones.

Widgets can be used to customise the lock screen and home screen. As with the rest of the UI, they are well designed and all have the same, consistent design language and aesthetics. My favourite widgets were the media widget, which lets you pause and play any audio and shows the cover art too, the weather app and the snake game which is so nostalgic for those of us who grew up in the 90s and early 00s.

The stock wallpapers are all pretty cool, and you can create your own ones using the AI wallpaper option. Other ways to customise the look of the phone is Icon Pack. You can have the installed Apps displayed in their usual bright colours or you can use the Nothing monochrome icons, which I used. You can further customise the icons by deciding if you want to have only monochrome app icons on the homescreen, or the App Drawer too.

Speaking of the App Drawer, you can choose to have the Apps displayed in a long alphabetical list, with the option to pin your favourite Apps to the top, or you can create Smart Folders which groups your installed Apps into categories. While Smart Folders is still in Beta, I found that it worked extremely well. I would however, like the option to drag Apps to other folders if they are in the wrong category.

Another useful feature of Nothing OS 3.1 is Essential Space. Using the dedicated Essential Key that sits just below the power button, you can capture and record any content on your screen. You can also record your voice to make notes about the content that you’ve recorded. Using some AI wizardry, it combines your screenshots, voice and notes and gives you suggestions and actions to take. This feature is still in preview and I need to spend some more time with it, but I can see it being useful.

Performance, Power and Photos

Anyone who purchases a smartphone wants to know a few things:

Is the battery life any good? 

Can I take nice photos and videos with it? 

Does listening to music sound good?

Am I able to play my favourite games and use my favourite apps?

The answer to all of the above is yes.

In my testing, with moderate use, think scrolling, listening to music, watching some YouTube videos and playing some games, the battery easily lasted all day.

You can see in the slideshow below that the Nothing Phone (3a) is capable of taking photos that most people would be more than happy with.

Music, podcasts, games and films sound great thanks to the dual stereo speakers that are loud. Although I did find the sound to be a little “tinny” at max volume.

I was able to use all of my favourite apps and games thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. I will say though, you’re not going to be able to play graphically intensive games like COD Warzone of Genshin Impact at the highest settings, but at this price point you shouldn’t expect to.

I have Nothing negative to say…

Honestly? I found it very difficult to find anything negative about the Nothing Phone (3a). I’ve mentioned a few small gripes throughout this review, and that’s all I have really. For £329, or £379 for the model with more RAM and more storage, I can’t find any big issues. At the price point, you’ll be hard pushed to find better.

It’s almost hard to believe that you’re getting a capable rear triple camera system, a 32 MP Front Camera, 6.77” 120 Hz AMOLED display with 3000 nits of brightness and a 5000 mAh battery which lasts all day, and charges from zero to full in under an hour.

I know I said that I wouldn’t get too techy, but it’s important to point out that you don’t see some of these specs on some of the latest flagship smartphones that cost more than double.

Nothing more to say…

What else can I say? When I started this review, I said that I’d answer the question of “Is this phone value for money at this price point?”. For me, the resounding answer is a huge yes. You’re getting a product that performs amazingly well and looks original, quirky and unique.

Does the Phone (3a) have the best cameras? No. Are the cameras perfectly capable and will you be happy with the photos you take? Yes! Does the Phone (3a) have the fastest processor? No. Is it fast enough to do all daily tasks and run your favourite games and apps? Heck Yes! Will you have fun using this phone and smile every time you look at it? 100%.

I wanted to find something that summarises my thoughts when it comes to the Nothing Phone (3a) and this quote I found is perfect.

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” – Cecil Beaton

5 out of 5

5

You can visit the Nothing website to learn more about the Phone (3a) Series.

If you liked this Rapid Review of the Nothing Phone (3a), why not check out our other tech reviews here?

As a bit of fun, I’ve used Google NotebookLM to turn this review into a podcast! Have a listen below. I’d love to know your thoughts!!