Nothing Phone 2a Plus First Impressions

Nothing is on a launching spree these days. After introducing CMF Phone 1 in the budget segment, the company is back again with a new upgrade from its ‘a’ series with the launch of the Nothing Phone 2a Plus. The latest smartphone from Nothing offers some under-the-hood upgrades with the MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro processor, an improved 50-megapixel selfie camera, and better fast-charging support. However, the rest of the specifications and feature set remain similar to the Nothing Phone 2a.

The new Nothing Phone 2a Plus has a starting price of Rs. 29,999 for the 8GB RAM and 256GB storage variant, while the top-end variant with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage is priced at Rs. 31,999. Now that you are familiar with the price, let’s take a closer look at what’s new.

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus comes with a transparent design, similar to other Nothing phones.

The design of the Nothing Phone 2a Plus is carved from the same skin as the Phone 2a (Review) minus the new colour variation. The Grey colour option of the device looks slightly different from the Phone 2a, but the rest of the design aesthetics remain similar. You get the same transparent design and the Glyph Interface as the Phone 2a. Although, it is not necessarily a bad thing as it is a comfortable design to hold, we do want to see some new innovations as the company has already set the bar high for itself.

The front offers a slim bezel, which looks pleasing. Nothing has added a 6.7-inch flexible AMOLED display, which can also be found in the Phone 2a. The device features Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection, which is a welcome move. The display refreshes at 120Hz, offers a 240Hz touch-sampling rate, 1,300nits of peak brightness, and also supports 2,160Hz PWM dimming. It does look sharp and vibrant and you also have the option to customise the colour profile as per your taste.

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus features a 6.7-inch flexible AMOLED display with a 120Hz screen refresh rate.

The significant difference between the Phone 2a and Phone 2a Plus is in the performance department. The latter now comes loaded with a special MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro processor, which is exclusive to Nothing. The new chipset brings two performance, and six efficiency cores clocked up to 3.0GHz. The company claims that its new SoC offers 10 percent better performance than the Phone 2a, which is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro SoC.

The Phone 2a Plus packs up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. It runs NothingOS 2.6, which is based on Android 14, and has a clean user interface, which is also a strong suit of the phone. The company offers three years of Android updates and four years of security patches for the latest devices.

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus has dual rear cameras.

Coming to the cameras, the Phone 2a Plus offers a dual rear camera setup. The phone packs a 50-megapixel primary camera with a Sony GN9 sensor. This camera has an f/1.88 aperture, optical image stabilisation (OIS) + electronic image stabilisation (EIS), and offers 10x digital zoom. It also has a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera with a Samsung JN1 sensor. This camera has an f/2.2 aperture and offers a 114-degree Field of View (FoV). On the front, the handset has an upgraded selfie camera compared to the Phone 2a. You now get a 50-megapixel Samsung JN1 sensor with f/2.2 aperture compared to the 32-megapixel shooter on Phone 2a.

Apart from this, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus features a 5,000mAh battery with 50W fast wired charging support and a 5W reverse wired charging feature. However, just like the Phone 2a, this one also lacks wireless charging.

The handset has a 5,000mAh battery with 50W fast-charging support.

That said, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus seems to be a slightly upgraded version of the Phone 2a. However, this time, the competition is quite tricky as we have the Realme 13 Pro (First impressions), Honor 200, Poco X6 Pro (Review), and more that offer value-for-money propositions for customers. Does it make sense to buy the new Nothing Phone 2a Plus? Please wait for our in-depth review before making a sound decision.