a Cool Cellphone for Individuals Who Need to Save ...

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 digicam. Primarily based 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 digicam {hardware}. They each characteristic the signature see-through casing. The parts are all lined 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 should you favor. These lights come once you obtain a flurry of notifications, whether or not alarms or pings from oft-used functions. You may customise them to your liking, all the way down to the sunshine sample.

A better have a look at the Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional

The show is similar on the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional. It’s a 6.7-inch AMOLED with a variable refresh fee as much as 120Hz. The colour replica is as vivid as Samsung’s Tremendous AMOLED, a formidable 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’d like a smaller cellphone, you may maintain out for the shorter, thinner Google Pixel 9a, nevertheless it’s a bit extra cash than the Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional.

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

A better 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 similar specification set, with assist from the 12GB of RAM stuffed inside. There’s a further possibility for as much as 20GB of RAM with a RAM Booster, which allocates extra digital system sources should you’re gaming or one thing akin. The additional RAM received’t make apps load quicker 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 taking part in standard 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 should put the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional by 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 ok for jamming out whereas getting your make-up finished. For those who recognize fashionable 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 parts like water and dirt.

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 high 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 should you 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 primary options of Important Area, the place all of the AI tidbits are, is the Important Key, which is a bodily button on the appropriate aspect of the system beneath the facility button. After you set it up, you need to use this button to snap a screenshot or long-press it to report a voice be aware that AI will then transcribe within the Nothing Important notes software. I really 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 simple technique 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 digicam. The standard of the Nothing Cellphone (3a) and Cellphone (3a) Professional’s cameras has improved. Photos are sharper and extra consistent with 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 gadgets. 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 reduction 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 great deal should you’re not in search of essentially 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 totally different should you’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 corporations 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 also 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 concept of built-in synthetic intelligence. On the very least, this newest technology of see-through smartphones isn’t asking you to make big sacrifices in pursuit of one thing else.