Nothing launches Phone 3a & 3a Pro: Periscope zoom for the masses

It used to be the case that if you were looking for a stellar value from a smartphone, you’d check out something like one of the “flagship killers” from OnePlus. But as that manufacturer turned its attention to phones that were more and proper flagships (with the pricing to match), co-founder Carl Pei went off on his own to create the brand Nothing, which has stepped up to fill some of that void. Last year we found ourselves very tempted by the super affordable Nothing Phone 2a and Nothing Phone 2a Plus, so it should be no surprise at all that we’re hugely excited for the next generation.

Leaks have already given us a great sense of what to expect from the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro, but today we can put the rest of the mystery behind us, as Nothing formally introduces its latest models.

Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro: Release date, price, and availability

• Nothing Phone 3a (12/256GB): $379
• Nothing Phone 3a Pro (12/256GB): $459

This year, Nothing is really trying to step up its game with the mid-range A-series and while that means some big upgrades (that we’ll be getting to in just a second), it also spells higher pricing. Still, the bump is relatively minor, considering the 2a phones started at $349, and we’re still clearly in very affordable territory.

The tricky bit here concerns how you can take one of these phones home. You won’t find them on carrier shelves, nor in your local big-box retailer, and instead, interested shoppers will need to sign up for Nothing’s US Beta Program. Only US residents will be able to place their orders in this manner.

Once you’re properly registered, you’ll be able to order a Phone 3a as of today, March 4. Get one in quick, and you can hope to expect delivery as soon as March 11.

With the Phone 3a Pro, Nothing is holding back orders for another week, with those set to open on March 11. Here, though, you can expect a slightly longer wait for fulfillment, and Nothing says to look for these orders to start arriving on March 25.

To say that these are two phones cut from the same cloth would be a bit of an understatement. From their screen, to processing power, to connectivity options, the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro are very nearly carbon copies of the same hardware. The biggest differences lie in terms of the camera package each gets, but even there, you’ll find a ton of overlap.

Considering how much they share, it’s probably going to be easiest to appreciate those few differences when we lay all the hardware details out side-by-side:

Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro: Features

These may be budget-friendly phones, but Nothing is not the kind of company to let that be an excuse to produce some boring, cookie-cutter hardware. That should be immediately apparent as soon as you check out the unique, eye-catching designs each model employs, with the highlight being that glyph-enclosed camera circle that so prominently dominates the back panel. In fact, that’s a perfect spot to start getting into detail.

Nothing starts out by bringing back a 50MP main camera for the Phone 3a that’s very similar to what we had on the Phone 2a. Don’t let that make you think that we’re in for a straight rehash here, as that lens is now joined by a 50MP telephoto, new to this series and great to see on a phone at this price point.

While it’s not all upgrades for the 3a (both the 3a and 3a Pro are stuck with an 8MP ultrawide option this year, as opposed to the 50MP sensor from last generation), that new telephoto lens goes a long way towards making up for it, capable of 2x optical zoom and 4x lossless in-sensor cropping. But it’s over on the 3a Pro where the new camera hardware really becomes something worth talking about.

The star of the show here is the 50MP periscope camera — responsible for the phone’s serious chonky hockey puck of a camera bump. This assembly pushes optical zoom to 3x, lossless crop to 6x, and will let you run wild as far as 60x with some AI-processed software magic.

Nothing doesn’t want you spending too much time fretting over screen options, and no matter which of these models you might decide to go with, you’re going to get the exact same display experience. The 6.77-inch flexible AMOLED panels offers a FHD+ resolution, dynamic refresh rates as high as 120Hz, and 1,300 nits auto-brightness (hitting as high as 3,000 for HDR content).

Let’s face it: The Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro simply do not look like your garden-variety smartphone. And that probably means that you either utterly adore this design, or you think Nothing’s phones are the ugliest things ever.

But if you’re on board with the whole see-through design and glyph business, you’ve got some nice upgrades to enjoy this year, like the move from IP54 to IP64 ingress protection: ain’t no dust squeezing its way into these puppies. That’s a consequence of the also very premium-feeling switch from polycarbonate to glass for the back panel.

What you won’t get here, though, is much in the way of choice when it comes to color, and we’re largely stuck with the sort of monochromatic options you see here. In India (where Nothing’s also making this hardware available in alternate RAM/storage configurations) shoppers will get access to a tantalizing blue colorway, but don’t count on finding that elsewhere.

Fresh this year is the addition of a new hardware input: the Essential Key. We’ll cover exactly what that does in a minute, as we get into software.

Battery life and charging

It feels like we’ve been seeing a lot of mid-rangers lately with 5,000 mAh batteries, and Nothing is not about to break that mold with the Phone 3a and 3a Pro

What is a bit more rare to see in this market segment is exceptionally fast charging, and both these phones support wired power at up to 50W. Of course, you’ll need the proper charger to pull that trick off, and Nothing’s not shipping it with either phone, so make a note on your shopping list if you plan to take advantage.

Neither the Nothing Phone 3a nor 3a Pro support wireless charging.

Nothing’s new phones will ship running Nothing OS 3.1, based on Android 15. And while neither of these mid-rangers will get the kind of crazy seven-year upgrade guarantee like we see from Samsung’s flagship phones, the three years of platform updates and six years of security patches still means you should be able to get plenty of usage out of this affordable hardware — stretching your dollar even further in the process.

One of the most prominent changes with this generation of Nothing phones is the addition of the Essential Key, and that enables a whole bunch of new software experiences. A quick press of that button will send a copy of your screen to Essential Space. A long-press lets you quickly record a voice memo, and a double-tap lets you jump right into Essential Space itself.

Essential Space is an AI-fueled tool for organizing your data. Functionally, it sounds like it operates much in the same vein as Pixel Screenshots, and the Essential Key gives you a super-convenient hardware button for adding new screens to your collection. Maybe you want to remember an address from an email, or save color samples for use in a project later — with the Essential Key you can quickly save those while adding voice notes to help you recall what you want to do with them. Then Essential Space helps you organize tasks built around them into a to-do list.

Nothing is only just getting started with Essential Space, and while it will be in early access initially for the 3a and 3a Pro, an even more feature-rich incarnation is due a few months down the road.

For smartphone shoppers operating on a budget, who prioritize powerful camera hardware and appreciate an inspired, if slightly off-kilter design, the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pros present a compelling proposition. They’re not going to be for all, or even most Android fans, but if you even sort of liked the old Phone 2a series,  you should just love how Nothing’s managed to one-up itself this year.