Nothing Phone (2a) Review - Did They Lie?

When the company Nothing Tech first launched in 2020, their big selling point was that

they

were going to create technology that would fade into the background. Technology that improves your life and keeps you more connected, but without getting in your way, and I love that. Vision,

they

released the Nothing

phone

which did that with this glyph lighting system which meant you could hold your

phone

face down but still see your notifications from the back, then the Phone 2 which did the same thing a little better and now we've We got our third, most affordable one yet, the Nada 2A phone, which costs $349 for the top and 12GB Ram model and I think this is a very good opportunity now that this company has had three full phone launches for decide what they are doing. really achieve your goal can using a phone

nothing

improve your life make you a more present person or are they really just basic phones but with crazy designs for people who are happy to sacrifice value to be different, let's find out, so this is the package I took out out of nowhere, okay there's a white 2A phone and then a black one, how adventurous is the intention so let's unpack the white one, unfortunately it's a slim package which means no charger but wear and tear credits due to the except that he has a different personality. the sea of ​​generic phones you have to wade through at this price and also the not at all transparent and original cable or these shells look pretty tasty so the white and now the black it's nice to see a screen protector pre-installed on these two and immediately Secondly, if you or someone picks this up, you will get a reaction, it may not be good.

Drisha thinks it looks like a face with some intestines sticking out, which is fair and I can't completely erase that image from my mind now and Joseph. and my team laughed, the design is clearly not for everyone and you will have to be ready to defend your choice to people, but there are a few reasons why I personally rate it, part of this is making the screen even thinner . Screen borders like this at a price under $350 are very hard to ignore, like when I go between my $1,200 s24 Ultra and this one, yes I prefer the s24 ultra obviously, but it doesn't feel like I'm jumping off a phone expensive to a cheap phone. which in itself is an achievement, part of this is the sides, it has a completely fingerprint resistant finish.

I love these matte black buttons and also how you can see parts of the back design through them and part of this is of course this strange uniqueness. What you would call back, by the way, this is a plastic phone which is pretty standard for the price, but what I like is that they've leaned into that material instead of trying to hide it. There are many companies trying to make it. Its cheaper plastic phones look as close as possible to its flagships, which are made of glass and metal, but doing so often makes them feel like knock-off versions of the real thing that are lighter than a feather and squeakier than the M from your grandmother, whereas with the 2A phone it looks like it's been intentionally designed to feel good basically like a toy, but you know, a solid, cool premium toy, you know those fancy robots you always saw on the shelves of the stores when you were a kid, but you wouldn't even dare ask. your parents because that's the vibe I get from the 2A phone, especially with all this glyph lighting interface running through its veins and whether it is or not, it doesn't feel like another mass-produced slab, but what's up with the software?

Because you can have Crazy Design, but if the goal of anything is to have technology that actually disappears into the background of your life in a way that is fundamentally different from anything else out there, then whether or not that succeeds will depend almost entirely on what it's like to use it, part of it is the user interface, this completely minimalist black and white aesthetic, which I like, there are a lot of useful widgets, the customization is great, like with your folders for example, you can configure exactly how you want the applications to be displayed. and even choose

nothing

style cover photos if you find it cleaner and AI wallpaper generator.

I think it's fantastic, it's a hem, nothing we haven't seen before, but it feels very in tune with the non-minimalist philosophy in mind that they've created it with. Easy to create wallpapers that fit naturally into the aesthetics of the software with the ability to make them scroll as wallpapers if you wish and add atmosphere and the no-glass effect to your creations. Now don't get me wrong, the software isn't exciting to look at, but that's in a way about taking away the power of any individual app to demand your attention and therefore control your life, and I'm all for that.

The temptation is to say, well, it's just a black and white icon pack, there are literally thousands. Of them for free on the Play Store, but there is more than that, like lock screen widgets for example, you can choose basically anything from live widgets to apps that you can quickly launch and device controls that are there for you to use. without you having to unlock your phone or face your distractions so every night before I go to bed I put on airplane mode so there's the torch because you never know when you're going to need it and that's a compass that I've been looking at a lot of potential houses recently so whenever I want to check which direction things are facing I tap and that's north and also yes I have a ton of apps but actually very few are pre-installed on phones with nothing it's clean and it really feels like the phone tries to make you use your technology less compared to more affordable phones that feel like a gateway to the company and then spam you with promotions or try to sell you their services too, at least for Now, there is none of that here. the software could use a little more consistency, like why when i use completely original widgets i have three different fonts on my home screen, it should be nothing, not everything and also polished like the lock screen apps on the that should be encouraged online. with this transition rather than just appearing, but for the most part it looks good and effectively makes your phone seek less attention in a good way, however I don't think this alone is enough for anything to claim that.

They're doing something particularly different, which might seem like something you don't see anywhere else is this glyph interface with their previous premium phones. They have had many areas of glyph illumination. This is their cheapest offering, it has three and is actually completely Good, they still look great, the lighting is high quality and consistent and they have slightly limited the amount of light leaking into the rest of the design which helps to improve the perception of precise engineering, but the most important thing is that you can absolutely say that this company has not spent anything. He spends a lot of time in boardrooms discovering all the possible things that can be done with a set of LEDs, like they can emit different beep patterns depending on who is calling, which is cool and well executed as a feature, even if most of the notifications themselves sound like a refrigerator door that needs to be closed or a smoke alarm that needs to replace its batteries.

I don't know, it's very strange, they can light up when you play music and sync with that music. You know the promise of all those Philips Hue lighting strips, except that one. actually works, a fun party trick you probably won't use, as turning it on enables it for literally every content you consume, including essential morning news update notifications, although I think this is such a cool feature that you can choose any of your apps and then specify any type of notification from that app that you would like to mark as important, so that for example with your emails you can choose which inbox counts as high priority or for slack, you could say which is only really vital if there is an entrance. call and once you've done that, whenever one of those notifications comes, from then on, this glyph will stay lit until you unlock the phone the next time.

Have you ever heard of the saying that there are two types of people: those who keep their phone face up and those who keep their phone face down, choosing a phone with nothing on it is basically declaring that you are part of the Down Club. This is designed so that when you go out to dinner, for example, you turn your phone over and you can activate Do Not Disturb. By the way, mode so that nothing sounds and you can rest easy knowing that you will still see anything important and the rest of the notifications, you can access them later.

In my opinion, the concept is beautiful and something introduced in the last generation. What goes a little further is that one of those glyphs is also a timer, so if you set a stopwatch, for example, you can see the progress and if you order an Uber, you can see how much time until you pick it up, so everything This sounds amazing. It's wrong, while I like the idea of ​​looking at the back of your phone for a notification, you're losing most of the information that accompanies that notification, for example if you're using this to time your Uber sometime soon. .

To pick up, you'll need to see the license plate of the driver who's picking you up, so at some point you'll have to turn your phone over and go into the app anyway or like emails, for example, although it's very thoughtful. of them you can set certain inboxes as priority, the problem is that within any given inbox there will still be a huge variation between the level of importance of each email that an LED on the back simply can't distinguish, I want say, simply For example, in the last few months, my emails range from would you like to take a flight to the United States to interview the CEO of our large technology company? to would you like to try our avalanche of rotating makeup?

And it's pretty clear that one of those is more important than the other and the same goes for messages, since in theory it makes sense to mark your parents, for example, as important enough to illuminate the glyph in case there are an emergency, but then the vast majority of your messages aren't going to require immediate attention and at that point those notifications are really essential after using this for a while. I imagine most people will experience enough false positive messages marked as important that end up not being very important when they check them and they start to tune out this essential notification glyph which kind of defeats its purpose in the first place and now you look like the fool who left his torch burning.

I admit I've given this whole glyph thing a little slack in recent years. Generations because I felt like the rate of improvement was so rapid that the next big update always felt like it was just around the corner, but this is the first time I think I felt like progress slowed down. Yes, this is a more affordable phone, I have no doubt. that the next flagship phone nothing will boost the ship a little more, but since their last device was like 8 months ago, the point at which we were promised that the developers were about to start getting their way with these glyphs that we have had support as one The big new Google Calendar app and even that is a bit strange, it only gives you a 5 minute countdown before the meeting starts, it works and I can see the use case, but I mean, if I were having dinner and flipping my phone.

Completely forgetting that I have an upcoming meeting, I would personally prefer to have my phone ring like 20 minutes before to make sure I knew rather than wait until 5 minutes before the meeting and start a silent counter in case it happens. Looking back over time using this phone has made me feel like we might be starting to reach the limit of what can be done with LEDs now, maybe if in the future there was a little secondary display here that could sum it all up. that I needed to know in a really smart and concise way, it could be a game changer, but as it stands, that's where the useful functionality of the glyph interface ends and, if you're enjoying this video, then a subscription to the channel It would be glyphic, so before I put all this together, the last thing I want to crystallize is that if we take away all the extras, this is actually too expensive for what you are getting.

Well for starters you have the screen, this is a 120HZ full HD Plus AMOLED screen and for the price it is brilliant. It's smooth, it's slick, you honestly couldn't expect better, you get the latest Android 14, which is already more than most phones on this stand, but you also know you'll get a standsolid, 3 years of major Android version updates and 4 years. of security upgrades, it has a thick 5,000 mAh battery which, with 45W fast charging that charges fully in basically an hour on the dot, is a very complete battery pack, not a supreme battery life possibly reduced slightly because of the glyph lighting and the extra software that goes into that but it's good it's a reliable all day phone and then for performance there's 12 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage for 349 and then in some regions, you can get an 8GB RAM option for less money, but that comes with the dimension. 7200 Pro and it has actually gotten a lot faster since I was using it when I first set up the phone and it was downloading 100 apps while playing with settings and camera at the same time, it was running in City, I definitely felt overwhelmed, but as I adjusted to more normal use and the phone learned my behaviors, it's fine, it's fast for the most part, it's smooth for the most part, it plays the games I want to play for the most part, the only reason why the one I'm caved in is because every now and then they remind you that this is not a top tier flagship, like sometimes when you exit an app you'll get a little bit ofsometimes the camera takes a little while to load and sometimes the photos when captures take a while to process, but those things only stand out because for 95% of the things you do, it will cut through like butter, so the only remaining question mark is the cameras, that's why you're here, okay , I'll grab one and the cameras sound good, it's two 50 map sensors on the back and then a 32 megap camera for selfies, which is actually quite refreshing compared to most phones at this price that try include four cameras on your phone, one will be a crazy 200 megapixel camera and then the rest will be like five and you have no balance, but in the end, as far as its actual performance, I would say it's only decent.

In some ways I'm impressed as the video it produces is on the higher end of what you'd expect; You can take professional photos with that delicious blurred natural background and the camera app feels premium, which makes it feel a bit. It's more like you're shooting with proper kit, the fundamentals are solid but there are little weaknesses throughout as many times you will over-apply the high dynamic range effect which is a common shortcut for cheaper phones because it can create landscapes. and city shots instantly look more impressive, but faces and hair often suffer as colors are often exaggerated compared to reality for the same reasons, but most surprisingly, they don't even match each other. the two lenses of the phone, how different they are. the wooden panels are seen on the main camera compared to the old Ultra wide angle, oh yes, and that Ultra wide angle, although it is 50 megap, it does not feel in daily use, it feels clearly not very detailed, the Front camera only shoots in 1080P there's no 4K and while it's not bad for 1080p it's arguably lacking as far as 2024 standards are concerned and the fact there's no zoom lens means Zoom shots don't work.

They will look too hot and also I will have a hard time taking any kind of beautifully framed portraits with otherworldly looks. Now I realize it sounds like I've made a great dunk with these devices, but those are the differences I feel coming from a flagship phone at this price, the cameras are about what you'd expect is in the middle of the line, so where does that leave us? Don't make phones and specifically the Nothing Phone 2A improves your life. Well, I'd say it can. I would say that someone who comes into this with the right attitude could use the tools. that doesn't present you with anything to better balance your phone life and real life, but equally I don't think most of the features have enough depth to have a meaningful impact for most, so if this were a $4 phone 99, I would bet on these elegant nothing elevates it above the competition.

I'd say it's a tough pass, but it doesn't do that. What saves this phone for me is that even if you took everything away, even if this was just a blank slate with no glyph lights, no monochrome software. Without a fancy design, it would still be a decent value at $349 for a phone with a big screen and even borders on 12GB of RAM and 256 gigs of storage. Excellent software support, good battery life and a very solid and durable build, I think that's pretty fair and yes, you absolutely can. Get a cheap phone with a better camera than this one or one with a faster chip than this one, but these guys have picked out a package that's overall pretty right for most people.