a Cool Cellphone for Folks Who Wish to Save Cash

It’s been some time since we’ve had our palms on a Nothing system. The final time was the Nothing Phone (2a). It was simply as cool-looking, however left me feeling tepid over its middling digital camera. Based mostly on the specification sheets alone, the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional are an enchancment. This yr, they each run Qualcomm chips and have telephoto lenses, a pleasant contact at this sub-$500 worth level.

The Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional are the identical dimension; the one distinction is their digital camera {hardware}. They each characteristic the signature see-through casing. The parts are all coated by expertly positioned slabs of assorted grays all through, which helps distinction when the lights—or the glyphs—pop in. There’s additionally a black variant if you happen to desire. These lights come once you obtain a flurry of notifications, whether or not alarms or pings from oft-used purposes. You possibly can customise them to your liking, all the way down to the sunshine sample.

A more in-depth have a look at the Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional

The show is an identical on the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional. It’s a 6.7-inch AMOLED with a variable refresh price as much as 120Hz. The colour replica is as vivid as Samsung’s Tremendous AMOLED, a powerful feat for a tool on this worth class, although the whites are a lot brighter on the Samsung Galaxy S25, which prices about twice as a lot. The bigger display screen dimension means the Nothing Cellphone (3a)/(3a) Professional is broad. If you need a smaller telephone, you would possibly maintain out for the shorter, thinner Google Pixel 9a, nevertheless it’s a little bit additional cash than the Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional.

The backs of the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional are distinctly completely different, since they home two completely different digital camera programs. An rectangular rear-facing digital camera system distinguishes the Nothing Cellphone (3a). It homes a 50-MP major digital camera, an 8-MP ultrawide digital camera, and a 50-MP telephoto digital camera with 2x optical zoom. The Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional is ready aside by its round bottom, which homes a 50MP major digital camera, an 8-MP ultrawide digital camera, and a 50MP periscopic digital camera with 3x optical zoom.

A more in-depth have a look at the Nothing Cellphone (3a) 

The gadgets run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, a mid-range chip architected to deal with on-device AI processing natively, just like the chips in a Pixel or Samsung system. Artificial benchmarking suites like Geekbench 6 are hardly the end-all, be-all of how a smartphone features, however the Nothing Cellphone (3a)/(3a) Professional numbers rank above most gadgets with this identical specification set, with assist from the 12GB of RAM stuffed inside. There’s a further choice for as much as 20GB of RAM with a RAM Booster, which allocates extra digital system assets if you happen to’re gaming or one thing akin. The additional RAM received’t make apps load sooner on this chip, however it’ll make for a smoother expertise as you progress from one resource-heavy app to a different, like Pokémon Go to Spotify. It additionally permits for enjoying widespread video games like Asphalt Legends with out feeling woefully left behind.

The battery life on the Nothing Cellphone (3a) is substantial in your on a regular basis smartphone life. The 5,000 mAh pack lasts lengthy sufficient into the day to get you to the charger by the night time’s finish. We nonetheless need to put the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional via our grueling streaming battery take a look at to see how they evaluate to different gadgets. Nonetheless, all through my week of testing, each telephones maintained sufficient battery after a day of streaming Spotify and periodic social media check-ins.

The Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional’s stereo audio system are bass-forward, making blasting music at a excessive quantity nearly as immersive as doing it from a full-stack Bluetooth speaker—it’s adequate for jamming out whereas getting your make-up performed. In case you admire trendy safety, each gadgets provide Face Unlock and an in-screen Fingerprint Unlock as biometric safety choices. The Nothing Cellphone (3a)/(3a) Professional remains to be solely IP64 rated, so preserve this suave little light-up system away from components like water and mud.

Above I discussed that the Nothing Cellphone (3a)/(3a) Professional chirps when it sends a notification. That’s on by default, as these are the alert sounds that include the Nothing OS software program, which runs on prime of Android 15. They are often piercing and annoying after they go off one after the opposite, and I’m saying this as an individual who surrounds herself with beeping virtual pets. You don’t have to make use of the alert sounds if you happen to don’t like them, nevertheless it’s one other instance of how Nothing infused its type into all aspects of the system.

That type extends to even the incorporation of AI. One of many fundamental options of Important House, the place all of the AI tidbits are, is the Important Key, which is a bodily button on the precise facet of the system beneath the ability button. After you set it up, you should utilize this button to snap a screenshot or long-press it to document a voice notice that AI will then transcribe within the Nothing Important notes utility. I like this characteristic. It’s fairly just like what the Google Pixel lineup can do already. The truth that it’s built-in into its personal button and out there the place I do know to fetch it makes it all of the extra intriguing. The one dubiousness comes from the information that Essential Space could be a paid feature sooner or later and that there’s no straightforward approach to remap it as a shortcut to do one thing else.

However let’s get all the way down to what actually issues for lots of you. The digital camera. The standard of the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional’s cameras has improved. Photos are sharper and extra according to the efficiency of different mid-range smartphones, just like the Google Pixel 8a and even the iPhone 16. The algorithms aren’t too heavy-handed, both, and you’ll see there’s much less post-production on photos than, say, the grainy after results you’d see on a photograph snapped with the Pixel’s AI-infused magic. The Cellphone (3a) Professional provided a dramatic depth-of-field for close-up pictures of small objects. Each telephones are significantly better at night-time images than the Cellphone (2a), although the algorithms typically over-brighten to spice up the f/1.9 aperture. For comparability, most high-end telephones shoot with a minimal of f/1.6 aperture.

The zoom is spectacular on the Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional, although it’s not a substitute for the glass you’d get paying double the money for a Professional-level flagship. It’s at the least a aid to see sharpness at this worth level with out it being too apparent that there was software program assist to zoom in. There aren’t too many artifacts like jagged edges till you exceed 6x.

 

The Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional at 1x, 3x, and 6x. 

The Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional are a very good deal if you happen to’re not in search of probably the most highly effective smartphone on the planet. The Cellphone (3a) begins at $380, and the Cellphone (3a) Professional begins at $460. Each gadgets include 256GB of storage. You’re after one thing completely different if you happen to’re even studying this and these are the telephones for you. Not due to the capabilities of its insides, however since you’re uninterested in the established order. Nothing is without doubt one of the few firms nonetheless holding out for some semblance of the Android platform previous, when it was about nerding out over the system in hand.

The Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional may additionally be a welcome respite from how Google and Samsung have joined forces to pursue Gemini AI. There is no such thing as a Gemini compelled onto these telephones, although Nothing seems to be toying with some thought of built-in synthetic intelligence. On the very least, this newest era of see-through smartphones isn’t asking you to make big sacrifices in pursuit of one thing else.