The Nothing Phone 2A: A Balanced Blend of Hardware and Software

The Nothing Phone 2A is a phone that has generated significant interest among tech enthusiasts, particularly those in the Gen Z and Gen Alpha crowd. With its unique design and features, it's an attractive option for those looking for something new and different. But does it live up to the hype? In this review, we'll take a closer look at the phone's performance, camera capabilities, battery life, charging speed, and overall value.

Performance: The Diamond City 7200 Chipset

One of the key aspects of the Nothing Phone 2A is its diamond city 7200 chipset. While it may not be the fastest processor on the market, it still provides a decent level of performance for everyday use. However, we found that the phone's performance was initially slow, taking time to open apps and navigate through the UI. This was due in part to the heavy weight of the phone's software, which can put a strain on the processor. Nothing has since pushed out two updates that have improved the performance to some extent, but it still lags behind other phones at this price point.

Gaming Performance: Not Ideal for Gamers

If you're a gamer, the Nothing Phone 2A may not be the best choice for you. We found that the phone's gaming performance was inconsistent, with frame rates often dropping below 99% in popular games like PUBG and Genshin Impact. While recent updates have improved stability, it still doesn't compare to other phones at this price point, such as the NC E4 and Poco X6 Pro, which offer better performance and more FPS.

Battery Life: Exceptional

However, one area where the Nothing Phone 2A truly shines is in its battery life. We easily get 7-7.5 hours of screen time on heavy usage patterns, which is impressive for a phone at this price point. This is thanks to the phone's efficient hardware and software optimization.

Charging Speed: Not Impressive

One area where the Nothing Phone 2A falls short is in its charging speed. The phone comes with a 45W charger, but it's also quite expensive. We used our own 65W charger from UG Green, which gets the phone from 0 to 100% in about an hour.

Camera Performance: Disappointing

The Nothing Phone 2A's camera performance was another area where we were disappointed. The primary and ultra-wide-angle lenses use a 50-megapixel Samsung ISO cell sensor, but despite recent updates, we found that the photos often lacked true color processing and looked overprocessed. The dynamic range and details were also compromised in some shots. The ultra-wide-angle lens was particularly disappointing, with poor autofocus and limited dynamic range.

Selfie Camera: A Nice Touch

However, the selfie camera did perform well, using a Sony sensor to produce nice skin tones and adequate dynamic range. We found that the blur was fairly decent, especially when using the 2X option. Selfies were also a pleasure to take, with the phone's camera app providing a smooth and responsive experience.

Video Recording: Limited Options

The Nothing Phone 2A can record videos in full HD from both the primary and ultra-wide-angle lenses, but there is no 4K video recording option available. We found that the quality of these videos was decent, but not exceptional.

Conclusion: A Balanced Blend of Hardware and Software

Overall, the Nothing Phone 2A is a phone that gets a lot right. It provides a balanced blend of hardware and software, with some impressive features like its battery life and camera performance. However, it also has some limitations, such as its slow initial performance and disappointing camera capabilities. If you're looking for a unique phone to show off, the Nothing Phone 2A may be worth considering. But if you're a gamer or need a phone with exceptional camera performance, there are other options available at this price point that may offer better value.

Competition: The Poco X6 Pro and OnePlus NC E4

The biggest hurdle for the Nothing Phone 2A is its competition from other phones in the same price segment. The Poco X6 Pro and OnePlus NC E4 are two phones that offer better performance, more FPS, and exceptional camera capabilities at this price point. While the Nothing Phone 2A may have some unique features, it's hard to recommend it when there are other options available that offer better value.

Recommendation: For Gen Z and Gen Alpha

If you're a member of Gen Z or Gen Alpha, the Nothing Phone 2A may be worth considering. Its unique design and features make it an attractive option for those looking for something new and different. However, if you're not part of this age group, there are other options available that may offer better value and performance.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, the Nothing Phone 2A is a phone that gets a lot right, but also has some limitations. While it provides a balanced blend of hardware and software, its slow initial performance, disappointing camera capabilities, and limited video recording options make it hard to recommend at this price point. If you're looking for a unique phone to show off, the Nothing Phone 2A may be worth considering. But if you need a phone with exceptional performance and features, there are other options available that may offer better value.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso the nothing phone 2A has been out for about a month now and since then we have been testing this phone so far nothing has already pushed two updates improving mainly the cameras and the performance so I think this is the right time to share my experiences with it now if you look at all the smartphones under 25,000 price segment there are a lot of good phones such as the real Mi 12 Pro which offers a nice design and a dedicated to export rate lens then there is the redmi note 13 Pro which comes with a big 200 map camera there's the PO X6 Pro with the best performance that you can have on a mid-range phone and recently OnePlus also launched the OnePlus n C4 which seems to be a balanced mid-range offering so yeah quite a lot of competition right but I think the nothing phone 2A is quite different from these phones hold on it's different but not the best I still think the best phones under 25,000 right now are the Poco X6 Pro and the nc4 but the nothing phone 2A does get a lot of things right and the first differentiating factor is of course the design itself this iconic nothing see-through look with LED lights is always unique and refreshing to have but what I like here is that it has a solid grip to it and feels good in the hands the back and the frames are made of plastic but it does not look and feel that cheap the gentle curves on the back offer a good resting position and it's not a heavy phone as well unlike the more expensive nothing phone 2 that has a dozen LED strips it only has three but I don't mind that a lot these three LED strips do serve the purpose for me the two LED features that I use regularly are number one ringtones it just looks so amazing when I get a call and second is for the timer that uses the lights as a countdown indicator but I still think nothing has a lot to do here they need to collaborate more for instance the glyph progress that is supposed to track the progress of third party apps it's just limited to two apps for now Uber and zato likewise there are just two presets for ringtones in the nothing library and I don't see a lot of ringtones in the nothing Community as well I would have loved it if it had say the IPL Ringtone or the Champions League Anthem that would have been super cool now as for the display it's a solid a panel you get slightly thicker bezels here but the core quality of this display is commendable it's fairly bright too so outdoor visibility has not been an issue for me the touch is also superb it xais vibration feedback is nice all the apps run at 120 HZ hence interacting and scrolling on this phone feels fast and responsive um I have set the colors to Alive mode and I found the display does not go overboard in terms of saturation and has just the right amount of vibrancy and white balance to it the speakers are also pretty decent I found that thumpy base to be missing but for the price I don't want to complain that much so overall you will get a very good experience for multimedia consumption like uh watching movies TV shows scrolling through Instagram reals Etc the fingerprint sensor also works pretty well here it's fast and accurate but I would have loved it if it was placed slightly above but once you unlock the phone the software experience here is topnotch and that's probably one of the reasons why you should consider this phone over say the likes of real me redmi and even Pogo nothing is also promising 3 years of major Android updates and four years of security updates so that's sorted too but I have to tell you initially I found the nothing phone 2A to be quite slow be8 while opening an app navigating through the UI or just opening the camera app it just was not performing that fast but like I said earlier nothing has pushed two updates that have improved the performance to some extent um still I think the diamond City 7200 chipset that this phone is equipped with must be able to perform slightly better maybe it's because of how heavy the UI is I don't know this is just not the best performing phone at this price that's for sure in terms of gaming before the update the 99 percentile in games like pubg and genin impact was not very good but right now it's much better stability wise still if you game a lot this is not the best choice for you for that you might want to consider the n c E4 and the Poco X6 Pro which will let you push more FPS and Graphics battery on the other hand is exceptional on this phone I have I'm easily getting like 7 to 7.5 hours of screen on time on heavy usage pattern here which is better than any other phone in this particular price bracket for charging nothing still does not ship a charger inside the box and it's 45 W charger is also quite pricey in my opinion so I used my 65 W Gan charger from ug green which gets the phone from 0 to 100% in about 1 hour I do think nothing should drop the price of its official charger or they should have just given one inside the Box itself okay lastly cameras and despite the updates the camera performance of the nothing phone 2A is still not as reliable as I expected it to be uh it uses the 50 megapix Samsung ISO cell sensor for both primary and Ultra wide angle lenses and in this aspect I think maybe nothing could have gone with the Sony sensor here to get the best optimization as you can see from these samples the photos don't have a true color processing it is slightly overprocessed and not look natural don't get me wrong it can pull off some good photos with plenty of details and pleasing color sometimes but the primary camera was indeed a little inconsistent likewise I also had high expectations from its highrise 50 megapixel Ultra wideangle camera but its performance is quite ordinary first of all you will notice it to be more darker versus the main camera and the dynamic range and details are also really compromised this Ultra wide angle lens lacks aut of focus so I missed clicking some closeup macro shots here using the primary camera I also noticed some focusing issues here the background blur is also not done perfectly at times I like the portraits though and nothing also provides a 2X option with which I was able to get some good results the blur is fairly decent and the skin tone is not half bad I like it selfies too it uses a Sony sensor unlike the back cameras and the processing is done nicely with good skin tone and adequate dynamic range however the selfie camera can only record videos in full HD there is no 4K video recording option and I found the quality to just be okay from the back cameras you can shoot up to 4K 30 FPS from both the primary as well as the ultra wide angle lens and you can get usable footage for sharing it with friends on social media but one frustrating thing about the camera app on the nothing phone 2A is that it takes like 3 to 4 seconds to process the photos which could get frustrating at times so overall although the nothing phone 2A may not have the best display in its class or may not be the best performing phone or the fact that its cameras are just ordinary it still is the phone that I can easily recommend especially for the Gen Z and the Gen Alpha out there who want something unique to show off for me the nothing phone 28 does get a lot of things right and provides a balanced blend between hardware and software everything here is like B+ and there are no glaring issues as it's usually asso associated with a lot of other phones at this very price segment but like I said in the beginning this phone has got a lot of competition the biggest hurle for the nothing phone 2A is that you can get the Poco X6 Pro and the OnePlus n C4 for the same price but with a much better performance and definitely better value so everybody that was my sort of long-term review of the nothing phone 2A uh I hope you found it useful to make a purchase decision and if you did don't forget to subscribe to our Channel till then I'm PR and thank you so much for watchingso the nothing phone 2A has been out for about a month now and since then we have been testing this phone so far nothing has already pushed two updates improving mainly the cameras and the performance so I think this is the right time to share my experiences with it now if you look at all the smartphones under 25,000 price segment there are a lot of good phones such as the real Mi 12 Pro which offers a nice design and a dedicated to export rate lens then there is the redmi note 13 Pro which comes with a big 200 map camera there's the PO X6 Pro with the best performance that you can have on a mid-range phone and recently OnePlus also launched the OnePlus n C4 which seems to be a balanced mid-range offering so yeah quite a lot of competition right but I think the nothing phone 2A is quite different from these phones hold on it's different but not the best I still think the best phones under 25,000 right now are the Poco X6 Pro and the nc4 but the nothing phone 2A does get a lot of things right and the first differentiating factor is of course the design itself this iconic nothing see-through look with LED lights is always unique and refreshing to have but what I like here is that it has a solid grip to it and feels good in the hands the back and the frames are made of plastic but it does not look and feel that cheap the gentle curves on the back offer a good resting position and it's not a heavy phone as well unlike the more expensive nothing phone 2 that has a dozen LED strips it only has three but I don't mind that a lot these three LED strips do serve the purpose for me the two LED features that I use regularly are number one ringtones it just looks so amazing when I get a call and second is for the timer that uses the lights as a countdown indicator but I still think nothing has a lot to do here they need to collaborate more for instance the glyph progress that is supposed to track the progress of third party apps it's just limited to two apps for now Uber and zato likewise there are just two presets for ringtones in the nothing library and I don't see a lot of ringtones in the nothing Community as well I would have loved it if it had say the IPL Ringtone or the Champions League Anthem that would have been super cool now as for the display it's a solid a panel you get slightly thicker bezels here but the core quality of this display is commendable it's fairly bright too so outdoor visibility has not been an issue for me the touch is also superb it xais vibration feedback is nice all the apps run at 120 HZ hence interacting and scrolling on this phone feels fast and responsive um I have set the colors to Alive mode and I found the display does not go overboard in terms of saturation and has just the right amount of vibrancy and white balance to it the speakers are also pretty decent I found that thumpy base to be missing but for the price I don't want to complain that much so overall you will get a very good experience for multimedia consumption like uh watching movies TV shows scrolling through Instagram reals Etc the fingerprint sensor also works pretty well here it's fast and accurate but I would have loved it if it was placed slightly above but once you unlock the phone the software experience here is topnotch and that's probably one of the reasons why you should consider this phone over say the likes of real me redmi and even Pogo nothing is also promising 3 years of major Android updates and four years of security updates so that's sorted too but I have to tell you initially I found the nothing phone 2A to be quite slow be8 while opening an app navigating through the UI or just opening the camera app it just was not performing that fast but like I said earlier nothing has pushed two updates that have improved the performance to some extent um still I think the diamond City 7200 chipset that this phone is equipped with must be able to perform slightly better maybe it's because of how heavy the UI is I don't know this is just not the best performing phone at this price that's for sure in terms of gaming before the update the 99 percentile in games like pubg and genin impact was not very good but right now it's much better stability wise still if you game a lot this is not the best choice for you for that you might want to consider the n c E4 and the Poco X6 Pro which will let you push more FPS and Graphics battery on the other hand is exceptional on this phone I have I'm easily getting like 7 to 7.5 hours of screen on time on heavy usage pattern here which is better than any other phone in this particular price bracket for charging nothing still does not ship a charger inside the box and it's 45 W charger is also quite pricey in my opinion so I used my 65 W Gan charger from ug green which gets the phone from 0 to 100% in about 1 hour I do think nothing should drop the price of its official charger or they should have just given one inside the Box itself okay lastly cameras and despite the updates the camera performance of the nothing phone 2A is still not as reliable as I expected it to be uh it uses the 50 megapix Samsung ISO cell sensor for both primary and Ultra wide angle lenses and in this aspect I think maybe nothing could have gone with the Sony sensor here to get the best optimization as you can see from these samples the photos don't have a true color processing it is slightly overprocessed and not look natural don't get me wrong it can pull off some good photos with plenty of details and pleasing color sometimes but the primary camera was indeed a little inconsistent likewise I also had high expectations from its highrise 50 megapixel Ultra wideangle camera but its performance is quite ordinary first of all you will notice it to be more darker versus the main camera and the dynamic range and details are also really compromised this Ultra wide angle lens lacks aut of focus so I missed clicking some closeup macro shots here using the primary camera I also noticed some focusing issues here the background blur is also not done perfectly at times I like the portraits though and nothing also provides a 2X option with which I was able to get some good results the blur is fairly decent and the skin tone is not half bad I like it selfies too it uses a Sony sensor unlike the back cameras and the processing is done nicely with good skin tone and adequate dynamic range however the selfie camera can only record videos in full HD there is no 4K video recording option and I found the quality to just be okay from the back cameras you can shoot up to 4K 30 FPS from both the primary as well as the ultra wide angle lens and you can get usable footage for sharing it with friends on social media but one frustrating thing about the camera app on the nothing phone 2A is that it takes like 3 to 4 seconds to process the photos which could get frustrating at times so overall although the nothing phone 2A may not have the best display in its class or may not be the best performing phone or the fact that its cameras are just ordinary it still is the phone that I can easily recommend especially for the Gen Z and the Gen Alpha out there who want something unique to show off for me the nothing phone 28 does get a lot of things right and provides a balanced blend between hardware and software everything here is like B+ and there are no glaring issues as it's usually asso associated with a lot of other phones at this very price segment but like I said in the beginning this phone has got a lot of competition the biggest hurle for the nothing phone 2A is that you can get the Poco X6 Pro and the OnePlus n C4 for the same price but with a much better performance and definitely better value so everybody that was my sort of long-term review of the nothing phone 2A uh I hope you found it useful to make a purchase decision and if you did don't forget to subscribe to our Channel till then I'm PR and thank you so much for watching\n"