Nothing Phone (3a) review
Nothing OS 3.1 on top Android 15
The Nothing Phone (3a) runs on the latest Android 15, with Nothing OS 3.1 layered on top.
Nothing promises three Android updates and six years of security patches for both phones. While not the longest in the industry, this support period is still quite solid.
Nothing OS 3.1 has a sleek yet distinctive Dot Engine design featuring unique apps and widgets. The Gallery and Camera apps have received specific updates as well.
Left: Nothing Phone (3a) • Right: Nothing Phone (3a) Pro
Nothing's signature dot matrix font and overall aesthetic are prominent throughout the UI. You get a wide variety of custom widgets (18 in total), ranging from clocks and calendars to contacts and weather, ensuring a consistent Nothing look throughout the interface.
The notification shade and quick toggles combine elements of AOSP and Nothing's own style. The quick toggle area has evolved over time and now features a combination of large rectangles and smaller circles.
Nothing has its own icon pack, which, as expected, sticks to a monochrome design. It covers most of the popular apps we tried, giving users a consistent look and feel if that's the kind of aesthetic they prefer.
There is also an Always-on Display available, which, in keeping with the overall aesthetic, follows the same design principles. You also have a variety of lockscreen widgets to choose from.
In its ongoing efforts to innovate and appeal to trendsetters, Nothing continues to experiment with advanced features. Our review unit is missing the "Connect to Tesla" feature found on the Nothing Phone (2), so perhaps that idea didn't quite catch on.
The experimental AirPods support is still included, along with the "Glyph Progress" feature, which integrates with third-party apps and lets you track the progress of your Uber ride from the back of your phone.
There are also fewer experimental integrations, like the Nothing X app, which supports a number of headphones, including the Ear (1), Ear (stick), Ear (2), and CMF Buds, Neckband Pro, and Buds Pro.
Glyph settings
The most customizable aspect of the Nothing OS is the Glyph Interface, which controls the LEDs on the back of the phone. This feature is optional, so you can disable it or schedule it if it's too distracting at night. You can also adjust the brightness of the LEDs, which can get quite bright, even at the default medium setting.
Currently, the Glyph Interface is mainly used for notifications and alerts. The Glyph Menu includes options for adjusting Brightness, Ringtones, Notifications, Flip to Glyph, Glyph Timer, custom Glyph ringtones, and Visual Feedback for Volume control, Music Visualizer, and third-party apps like Uber, Zomato, and Google Calendar.
You can read a more detailed explanation of all the Glyph options in our Nothing Phone (2) review. There haven't been many changes in this regard.
Appearance is just one area of customization, though. A smart drawer is available to automatically organize your apps into categories, serving your most used apps first. However, we found the grouping to be a bit confusing, so we preferred the more traditional launcher layout.
Nothing OS 3.1 also includes advanced behavioral learning algorithms that work in the background, optimizing load times and boosting read and write speeds by managing the file system when the phone is idle. The multi-tasking performance has also been optimized.
The Essential Space is an AI-powered hub for organizing your daily tasks. As we understand it, you can send screenshots or photos to it with a single click of the new Essential Key and annotate them as needed.
Alternatively, you can double-tap the key to record a voice memo, which is later automatically transcribed by AI.
You can also set reminders for yourself, and everything is organized intelligently.
While the concept seems interesting, it appears to be tailored toward users with specific note-taking habits. We're not sure it will be one of the phone's major selling points, and the prominent hardware key may not be the most user-friendly solution for everyone. We wish Nothing offered the option to map the key to a different function, just for the added versatility.
Benchmarks and performance
Both the Nothing Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro are running the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip. It is a modern 4nm part from Q3 2024 that offers great features and connectivity.
In the CPU department, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 delivers one "big" Cortex-A720 core, clocked at up to 2.5GHz, another three Cortex-A720 ones, working at up to 2.4GHz and four "small" Cortex-A520 cores, rated for up to 1.8GHz. The onboard GPU is an Adreno 810, and there is a powerful NPU for AI tasks.
Nothing says that the Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro are 33% faster in CPU tasks than the Nothing Phone (2a), 11% faster in GPU tasks, and a whopping 92% better at AI tasks. Nothing thinks that the latter makes them particularly futureproof, and the NPU horsepower has allegedly already been put to good use in the TrueLens Engine 3 photo processing pipeline.
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of non-expandable storage in the international version of the Phone (3a) Pro. India also gets an 8GB/128GB variant and an 8GB/256GB one.
As for the vanilla Phone (3a) - it comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of non-expandable storage by default and is also available in two other options: 8GB/256GB (India only) and 12GB/256GB (elsewhere).
Our Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro review units are both 12GB/256GB models, and as far as our storage testing goes, we believe they are using UFS 2.2 storage chips. Still, it is worth noting that, based on the same tests, the Pro model seems to offer 50% faster random read and write speeds than the vanilla Phone (3a).
Looking at some actual benchmark numbers, the Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro hold up well against their peers. Also, they have the same performance characteristics.
GeekBench 6
- Multi-core
- Single-core
Poco X7 Pro
Xiaomi 14T
Nothing Phone (2)
Galaxy A55
Nothing phone (3a) Pro
Nothing phone (3a)
Redmi Note 14 Pro+
AnTuTu 10
Poco F6 Pro
Nothing Phone (2)
Motorola Edge 50 Pro
Nothing phone (3a)
Realme 14 Pro+
Nothing phone (3a) Pro
vivo V40
3DMark - Wild Life Extreme (2160p)
Galaxy S24 FE
Motorola Edge 50 Pro
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus
Nothing Phone (2a)
Nothing phone (3a)
Nothing phone (3a) Pro
Redmi Note 14 Pro+
Thermal-throttling
Although it doesn't lead the pack in performance benchmarks, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is still a capable chipset. Thanks to its modern and efficient architecture, it doesn't generate excessive heat. However, the Nothing Phone (3a) can still get noticeably warm under heavy workloads, as seen during stress testing. While it doesn't become uncomfortably hot, it's evident that Nothing has implemented effective heat dissipation techniques to transfer heat away from the chipset and toward the phone's surface.
Thermal-throttling
These efforts appear to be paying off, as even during extended stress tests, the chipset in the Nothing Phone (3a) maintains steady performance. It handles thermal throttling exceptionally well, with only minimal performance drops and no significant stutters or slowdowns.
Reader comments
- Yg
- 12 hours ago
- Gva
Cool
- Luke
- 28 Mar 2025
- AZd
Dolby Atmos for music hearing?!?! Really?!?! that is a disaster...
- ReaLogic
- 28 Mar 2025
- K1L
Can you do the peset yourself? AFAIK Apple doesn't have Dolby Atmos except in it's Apple Music app.