Nothing Phone 2a Review: What’s New?

April 08, 2024, 04:31 PM
by Md. Mehedi Hasan

UNB News
Publish- April 08, 2024, 04:31 PM
Md. Mehedi Hasan
Update- April 08, 2024, 04:49 PM

Nothing Phone 2a

The London-based smartphone manufacturing company Nothing launched the Nothing Phone 2a on 5 March 2024. Unlike its successors, the Nothing Phone 2a appears as a mid-budget device. Let’s dive into the features and functionalities the company purports to bring to its latest device.

Specifications and Features of Nothing Phone 2a

In quality and capacities, the new Nothing Phone 2a is quite different from its ancestors. Several negative traits and claims of bad experience pressed against the prior Nothing phones. Some of these limitations have been improved in the Nothing Phone 2a.

Design

For a mid-budget smartphone, the Nothing Phone 2a’s 161.74 mm by 76.32 mm by 8.55 mm dimension seems average. Using a semi-transparent plastic body material, the phone weighs 190g, which measures lighter than most market peers of the same budget range.

The back of the phone fosters its ancestors' glossy finish. However, the cameras have found a new position on Nothing Phone 2a. An elliptical stage protrudes on the middle-top portion of the phone’s back. The stage rooms two circular lenses and a flashlight just above its top-right corner. Maintaining the angle, a microphone is seated just above the flashlight.

Nothing phone’s signature Gluph notification lights surround the camera stage. The phone’s back is covered with a black border. Volume rocker, power button, sim tray, etc., are placed just right on every other phone.

Display

Nothing uses a 6.7” flexible AMOLED display with a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the front. The display features an adaptive refresh rate from 30 Hz to up to 120 Hz. The touch sample hits high with a 240Hz capacity. With all these features, the display of the Nothing Phone 2a surfaces near-perfect pictures and videos on it.

The Nothing Phone 2a has a default 700 nit brightness, with an adaptive capacity of up to 1300 nits in the outdoor light.

Nothing Phone 2a’s display integrates 1084 by 2412 pixel resolutions with 394ppi pixel density. Its display maintains a 5M:1 contrast ratio while supporting 1.07 billion colors. The overall features of the display promise a stand-out visual experience.

Camera

The Nothing Phone 2a offers double 50MP cameras on its rear- one wide and one ultra-wide. Together, they produce pictures with balanced colors and qualities. The only issue that might bother a user is a slight distortion in the low-light scenario. Pictures snapped around artificial lighting appear a tad overexposed.

The front lens is of 32MP resolution, which suffices the requirement to capture good photos for selfies. The rear camera can record up to 4K videos at 30 fps while the front camera can capture 1080p footage at 60 fps.

With Nothing Phone 2a, the manufacturing company has thought of minute details. The phone lets users pick between H.264 and H.265 video encoding. The former is compatible with most apps, while the latter is efficient at saving storage.

Performance

“Nothing” has customized the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 original chipset to employ it in the Nothing Phone 2a. There will be several phone variants based on RAM and internal storage capacity.

The most powerful variants will have 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. The other two variants are 128GB storage with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage with 8GB RAM. Usual functionalities like app-installing or maneuvering, internet or screen scrolling, and multitasking can’t hinder the smoothness or responsiveness of the phones. The 4nm architecture hints at the processor's sufficient strength.

Gaming, not requiring users to be worried about stutters or limps, is comfortable on the Nothing Phone 2a. For high-resolution games, the usual smoothness can feel low a trifle. However, integrating the RAM booster can be handy in cases like an 8GB boost, which should bring significant performance improvements.

Software and Other Features

The Nothing Phone 2a offers, plainly out-of-the-box, two choices for their operating system. Users can stick to the originality using the base Android 14 OS and comfort themselves in Google’s default Android look and feel. Otherwise, they can explore Nothing’s variant of Android 14, NothingOS 2.5, stripped of disturbing distractions and bloatware that comes with a mottled shadowy-themed skin.

One key feature of the NothingOS 2.5 is a gaming dashboard through which games can be streamed to different platforms.

Battery and Charger

The biggest battery introduced by Nothing, a 5000mAh cell can claimingly endure for two days straight without going fully empty. An average mixed-use scenario may last a day. A continuous run, dealing with heavy gaming, average browsing, meager snapping with the camera, and enough video consuming can hold up to 18 to 20 hours.

Nothing has deprived the users of a charger, even after lauding the battery’s capacity to support 45W. Users have to purchase a charger separately.

Pros and Cons of the Nothing Phone 2a

Pros

- Crisp display with a higher refresh rate
- Good brightness level
- Double OS user interface.
- Decent photography
- 4K video recording supported by gyro-EIS
- 5G and NFC enabled
- Sufficient battery life with fast charging
- Decent gaming and multitasking performance
- Stereo speakers
- Corning Gorilla Glass protection
- IP54 water/dust resistance.

Cons

- Durability concerns
- No wireless charging
- Lack of micro SD card slot
- No zoom camera
- No audio jack
- 1080 video recording capacity for the selfie camera

Price of Nothing Phone 2a

The Nothing Phone 2a costs about € 335, or BDT 39,608 (EUR 1 = BDT 118.23). The phone is not officially available in Bangladesh at this moment.

Conclusion

The Nothing Phone 2a is a mid-budget smartphone that aims to deliver satisfactory performance and quality. Its design features a semi-transparent plastic body with a unique camera setup. The flexible AMOLED display promises vibrant visuals, while the dual 50MP rear cameras and 32MP front camera capture decent photos and videos. Performance-wise, the customized MediaTek Dimensity 7200 chipset ensures smooth multitasking and gaming experiences.

The device has slight issues in low light. The provision of an audio jack, zoom camera, wireless charging, etc could make it a better package.

On the whole, the Nothing Phone 2a has several unique and explorable features. Anyone with mid-budget affordability and a knack for unique design can buy the phone.