Nothing moves into high gear. The young technology company based in London presented the Nothing Phone (2a), its new phone which arrives with a clear aspiration: to be the king of the mid-range. It does this by combining functionality and design at a really attractive price, 329 dollars from Europe.
The Phone (2a) is the third phone in the company’s history and takes the most out of the user experience to transfer it to a new mobile that establishes the concepts that users are looking for in Nothing and brings it to a accessible model which is located above the Nothing Phone (1) launched two years ago and slightly below the Nothing Phone (2) arriving in July 2023.
In recent weeks in EL ESPAÑOL – El Androide Libre we have been able to thoroughly test the Nothing Phone (2a), a smartphone that goes down into the mud to compete directly with the most popular brands and those sought after by the general public , with the ambition of being the flagship purchase for those who aspire to have everything at a low price.
A design without rival
One of the elements always sacrificed in cheaper phones is design. That is not the case here. The Phone (2a) boasts of retaining the seamless aesthetic of all of the company’s devices as well as retaining the Glyph interface so characteristic of Nothing’s smartphones. On this occasion the light distribution is smaller than in previous phones but it continues to serve as notifications, to be used with third-party applications like Uber and to serve as lighting for the camera that it surrounds.
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And this time the camera layout is horizontal in the central part of the phone, a change from previous versions that serves to give personality and a unique touch to this phone (2a). One of the most interesting details of the camera module in the design is the integration of the bump which is completely integrated into the rear plastic.
The design of this mid-range is so ambitious that Nothing opted for the sketch it had for the brand’s first phone. Then it was too ambitious and because of technical vicissitudes it was unaffordable, now they were able to achieve it by integrating the camera into the NFC coil, with the tmb plate at the top and a symmetry that ends up playing with the connections seen at the bottom imitating Massimo Vignelli’s iconic map of New York.
Unlike the higher range, here the finish is an anti-fingerprint polycarbonate which is particularly noticeable in the weight (190 grams) if we take into account that it is a large terminal (161, 74mm x 76.32mm x 8.55mm) which packs a 6.7-inch screen with the thinnest bezels on a Nothing phone. It is light, it is ergonomic and the feeling in the hand is excellent, you can spend hours with it and you will want to continue using it. Additionally, it is splash and dust resistant with IP54 certification.
The screen, meanwhile, works perfectly. The phone (2a) features a 6.7-inch flexible AMOLED panel with super high-quality color accuracy and a peak brightness of 1,300 nits; Lower than the Phone (2) but more than enough to use it in direct sunlight without any problem. An important detail to take into account is the dynamic commitment to the refresh rate of 120 Hz, thinking about preserving autonomy.
Excellent performance; own seal
For Carl Pei, boss of Nothing, there is no point in having specifications that do not improve the experience. Each component is designed to provide something essential to how the user will use the phone, not for marketing purposes, and in this phone (2a) that continues to be another maxim. For the first time, there’s nothing outside the box from Qualcomm to use a MediaTek chip, specifically the Dimensity 7200 Pro, a processor customized with the development team to replicate that older brother experience in a lower-end phone. And he understands.
The Dimensity 7200 Pro offers us a smooth and efficient phone, with performance higher than what we would expect in a price range between 329 and 379 dollars —depending on the version we buy—. The alliance between Nothing and MediaTek has allowed the customization of the 4 nanometer processor to improve energy efficiency, be faster and have higher performance than the Nothing Phone (1). Concretely, the company explains that it is 13% more efficient and 16% more efficient than its first phone launched in 2022.
In addition to improving the energy efficiency of the chip, the Phone (2a) incorporates a 3,200 square mm vapor chamber with the idea of being able to offer all possible performance without the phone moving in the slightest. The truth is that during the weeks we tested it, we subjected it to the same workload that we usually do with high-end phones and it behaved without suffering any type of delay.
The chip also allowed Nothing to develop a series of its own features such as Smart Clean, which regularly cleans files that the mobile no longer needs to use; RAM Booster, uses virtual RAM to facilitate the use of several applications at the same time; HyperEngine 5.0, a mode that improves video game stabilization and reduces battery consumption; as well as NTFS optimization, which allows you to optimize moving files between Android and Windows. This is the file system used by Windows computers.
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This fluidity of the system is crystallized in a key point which puts the icing on the cake of the experience sought in a device from the brand: Nothing OS. The phone thus arrives with Android 14 and the company’s customization system layer that seeks a unique design, total cleanliness and fluidity, as well as a customization that – ironically – seeks to make us spend less time using the phone. It is favored by a black and white interface and a series of widgets that seek maximum utility. This identity of Nothing is transposed into a hundred visual elements which in no way sacrifice fluidity.
All advances in the system and components have a clear goal: autonomy that goes beyond the day. It incorporates a 5,000 mAh battery, the largest a smartphone of the brand has ever had, which allowed us to last about two days with intense use. It has 45W fast charging with which a 50% charge is achieved in 20 minutes; Of course, in this mobile what we will not have is the possibility of wireless charging, an understandable loss in the price range in which we find ourselves.
A great camera
The Nothing Phone (2) surprised with the good performance of its cameras, and in this model the good work and calibration of the company in the development of software solutions are once again noticeable. This is due in part to the growing team of engineers and developers who have focused on the maxim that less is more. And the truth is that both sensors show that better quality does not mean having more cameras.
In terms of camera, this phone has an obvious rival, the Pixel 7a. The Google phone is that cheap mobile for those who want an inexpensive smartphone with which to take spectacular photos. Here, Nothing doesn’t have the massive processing power of the Mountain View company, but it manages to get excellent performance from two cameras with a 50-megapixel sensor.
Specifically, the main camera has a 50-megapixel angle with an aperture of F/1.88 and OIS and EIS stabilization; while the other lens that comes with it is a 50MP ultra-wide angle with F/2.2 and a 114-degree field of view. If we are shooting at 12 megapixel resolution we can have a 2x crop zoom, but otherwise in practice it will be like using a single prime lens and a wide angle.
More than its versatility, the camera stands out for its ability to bring out vivid details, with precise textures and to transfer what we see to the camera quickly, easily and precisely. It does this through the use of its TrueLens Engine technology, which uses a series of algorithms seeking this realism and fidelity. This includes Ultra XDR technology, developed jointly with Google to ensure a more accurate representation of highlights and shadows in each photo. It involves capturing 8 images with different exposure levels in RAW format and then adjusting the brightness of each pixel up to 5 times to show the result most faithful to reality.
On the other hand, the camera also allows us to take dynamic photos with Motion Capture, film in night mode or in neat portrait mode which works quite well. It also has the ability to record 4K at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps and shoot slow motion video in 1080p at 120fps. Regarding the main lens, located in the center of the screen, we have a 32 megapixel sensor with F/2.2 aperture which also works very well, better than other models in the price range.
I buy it?
The Nothing Phone (2a) arrives to answer the eternal question of “which good, beautiful and inexpensive cell phone to buy?” “. If you want an above-average phone, with a unique and neat design and performing well on all fronts, this is, without a doubt, a flagship buy. It competes with the best in the sector like the Pixel 7a, which starts at almost 200 dollars more (509 dollars). It therefore also enters directly into the battle against Xiaomi, realme or Samsung in a price range to which it had not yet devoted so much attention.
In short, the Nothing Phone (2a) performs better than it costs. The 329 or 379 dollars (8 GB and 128 GB or 12 GB and 256 GB versions respectively) become one of the good deals to take into account if you are looking for a phone that has everything at a reasonable price.
The experience during these weeks of use has been excellent, it has become our main phone leaving aside the high ranges that we usually use and serves to meet the demands of users who are looking for something more than the good phone walk. It’s a round smartphone that I won’t tire of recommending.
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