What’s up community,
I recently had the chance to check out the Nothing Phone (3a ) Pro and here’s what i think it is,
Right off the back, the design is aggressive. It carries over the same split-back design from the last generation, with a few tweaks here and there. There’s a massive camera bump—but honestly, it’s totally worth it when you consider the camera performance (which I’ll get into in a bit). As Nothing grows as a company, they’re clearly working with better manufacturers, and that translates into better quality products. This one feels premium. Yes, it has a glass back and even a better IP rating than the last gen. The in-hand feel? Pretty darn good.
Now let’s talk cameras—this is hands down the best camera system Nothing has ever put out. I’m not even kidding. The new periscope lens is straight-up flagship level. The shots are amazing—check out these samples! Portraits look solid, low-light shots are better than ever. I do think they still need to work on the ultra-wide lens, though.
The updated camera UI is a game-changer. One issue I had with the Phone (2) was the inconsistent zoom slider. But with this new UI, it’s buttery smooth. Plus, there are look-up tables (LUTs) now—you can create and share them too (check out how to do that!). The new periscope lens gives you up to 6x lossless zoom and up to 60x digital zoom. The camera team really nailed it.
That said, I’ve noticed that colors look a bit better on the periscope lens compared to the main sensor, and the exposure control could be improved. But overall, this is a very good camera system. The Nothing Gallery is now native and opens right from the camera app, and image processing is a lot faster.
On previous Nothing phones, I felt the viewfinder was kind of bad—but here, it’s so much better. The photos look slightly over-processed for my taste, and I’d love an option to tone it down a bit—but hey, that’s just me.
Now, to the front: it’s got a 6.77-inch flexible AMOLED display—pretty huge. It has even bezels all around, though it’s 0.2mm thicker than the last gen, which is a bit of a bummer—but not a dealbreaker. The screen peaks at 3000 nits, which is insane, and the colors are fantastic.
This time, it’s powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 instead of a MediaTek chip. It’s not the best chipset out there, but I honestly can’t be mad at the performance. This phone runs super smooth. Big shoutout to the software team for nailing it! It handles moderate gaming and multitasking just fine. It does struggle a bit with heavier multitasking—but that’s expected at this price.
Speaking of software, it runs Nothing OS 3.1—and man, the animations are so smooth. The whole minimalistic user experience is still there, and I really like the vision of helping users spend less time on their phones. I love it. But yeah, I do have a couple of suggestions—like, they still don’t have native apps for dialer or messaging, and the theming system could use some work. I’d love a proper dark theme. But seriously, the software experience is so good, I can’t stop talking about it.
Battery-wise, this thing packs a 5000mAh monster, and trust me—the battery life is amazing. It supports up to 50W fast wired charging, but there’s no wireless charging, which is a bit of a letdown.
Now, there’s a new button on the side—right below the power button. It’s called the Essential Key, kind of like an AI button. Press it once, and it takes a screenshot. You can then either type something or press and hold to record a voice note—it’ll transcribe and summarize it. You can even set reminders. It’s super useful, especially for someone like me who takes tons of screenshots and forgets why. This is Nothing’s first real take on AI, and it’s actually helpful. There’s a whole debate on Reddit about remapping this button—but honestly, that kind of defeats its whole purpose. But hey, to each their own.
So yeah—that wraps up my 14-day experience with the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro. For ₹32,000, this is a solid device. Sure, there are some trade-offs—like the slightly thicker bezels, no wireless charging, and a plastic frame—but none of those feel like dealbreakers. It delivers a near-flagship experience. This thing is something.
Peace out!
