The Nothing Phone (2a) was released in March, so it’s a bit surprising that Nothing decided to release its successor, the Nothing (2a) Plus, just four months later in July. The phone features some key updates, including an upgraded MediaTek processor, a better front-facing camera, and a slight price increase of $50. The increased retail price will put the phone at $400, putting it in line with budget smartphone competitors like the $500 Google Pixel 8a.
To buy this phone, you’ll have to clear a few hurdles. You can’t easily get this phone online. Instead, you’ll have to sign up for the US beta program and patiently wait your turn. This might put some people off buying it. Honestly, it’s worth it in most cases, but the flaky fingerprint scanner might give you pause.
Nothing (2a) Plus
An unreliable fingerprint scanner holds back what could have been a great phone.
Strong Points
- Navigation is simple and intuitive
- Interesting design and sturdy construction
- Glyph light adds a unique touch
- The display delivers amazing detail and color
- Efficient processor with expandable RAM
- Long-lasting battery
Cons
- Fingerprint reader not working
- Hard to buy in the US
- To zoom in you need to go down to 12MP
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Design
Finally, some innovation.
(2a) The Plus’s design is polarizing. You either love it or hate it. I’m in the former camp; I’m tired of the monotony that pervades today’s smartphones. Design-wise, I miss the days of mobile phones in the 2000s, when phones had personality and character.
The phone case has a transparent enclosure that proudly shows off all the innards of the phone. You can see the screws, ribbon cable, and NFC coil. At the top of the back, there is a pair of horizontal lenses that look cute like pig snouts. Surrounding the lenses are three glyph lights, which are arguably the most exciting design element of the phone.
Just as I was happy that Motorola tried bright and funky colors with the Moto Razr+, I’m also happy that Nothing took a different approach with their flagship phone. What I like most about the design and overall build of the (2A) Plus is that it doesn’t look like a $400 phone. It has a solid body and excellent build quality that you wouldn’t know it was worth just by looking at it. The controls on the power button on the right and the two volume buttons on the left are also clicky and comfortable to use.
It’s also pretty light, weighing in at 190g, just slightly more than the Pixel 8a’s 188g. Meanwhile, the IP rating leaves a lot to be desired: it’s currently rated IP54, which is significantly lower than the Pixel 8a’s IP67, making Google’s phone a bit better protected from the elements.
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Glyph Interface
We value beauty over functionality.
The glyph interface of Nothing (2a) Plus consists of three glyph lights that light up based on the activities you set. You can enable call recognition and assign individual glyph patterns to your top contacts so you don’t have to manually check your phone to see who is calling you. The important notifications option sets the glyph pattern for notifications permanently, ensuring you never miss a notification.
As the name suggests, you can enable the Music Visualization feature and the Glyph Light will sync with your music. You can also use the light strip as a progress bar for various apps. For example, if you enable the Volume Indicator, the bar will fill up as you turn up the volume and vice versa. Glyph Progress also lets you link to apps like Uber and Zomato to quickly check the status of your order. The bar will fill up as your order gets closer to being delivered.
The (2a) Plus would have been a perfectly functional phone without the Glyph interface, but these bells and whistles are what make this phone special. In an era when we crave interesting and unique smartphone concepts, I really enjoyed my time with the Glyph Lite. While I will admit that the Glyph Lite lacks in functionality and practicality, it does provide an extra touch that enhances the overall experience.
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Navigation
Terrible fingerprint reader.
(2a) The fingerprint reader on the Plus was not compatible with my right thumb and would not read at all. I tried removing it and adding a new one, but that did not solve the problem. During the review period, it tried every time I unlocked the phone, and after five failed attempts, it would proceed to enter a PIN every time. After hundreds of failures, I gave up completely and switched to using the PIN for unlocking and identity verification. Meanwhile, my left thumb worked fine. I had high hopes for a software update, but it did not improve the scanner glitch. This is a big problem considering that entering a four-digit PIN takes much longer than tapping your thumb on a surface, and scanning with your right hand is easier and more intuitive for the majority of people. I have reached out to Nothing for comment and corrections, but have not yet heard back.
The navigation on this phone was iOS-like and easy to get used to: swipe up to get to the home page, swipe right from the left side of the screen to go back, and swipe hard up and then right to see apps running in the background. If anything, the (2a) Plus swipes better thanks to the haptic feedback. Longtime Android users can also switch to the traditional Android 3-button navigation.
The power button is customizable and can have up to a few actions, which you can launch with a double click; I set mine to load the camera app. Unlike the Moto Razr+, multitasking on the Nothing phone is much simpler. Instead of swiping your finger twice across the screen, which often leads to missed taps, you long-press and drag a window to the top of the screen. The window will automatically appear in a little box, leaving the rest of the screen free to perform other tasks.
The screenshot gesture isn’t designed to be intuitive: You have to place three fingers on the top half of the screen, hold them there for a second, and then swipe down at the same time — not only is this unnecessarily complicated, it also introduces the potential for errors and accidental taps.
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Performance
Long-lasting battery life.
The (2a) Plus’s 6.7-inch AMOLED display delivers rich, vibrant, and saturated colors. The 2,412 x 1,084 screen resolution provides plenty of clarity, and the 1,300 nits of brightness means you can use the phone in bright lighting. I spent the majority of my review period in my bedroom, next to a large, bright window, at 20% brightness. For my camera review, I stopped by Madison Square Garden on my way to the office, and had no trouble seeing through the viewfinder in bright sunlight.
You can choose the refresh rate between 30Hz and 120Hz. In the settings, you can choose between Dynamic, High, and Standard refresh rate options. I set it to Dynamic for most of the review period, but be aware that High will drain your battery quicker than normal, and Standard may interfere with smooth animations.
The (2a) Plus comes with 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM. It runs Android 14 and is powered by a MediaTek 7350 Pro processor, clocked at up to 3GHz. The 12GB RAM was enough for smooth multitasking, but it’s great that the RAM can be expanded up to 8GB. The base processor felt pretty efficient. During the review period, we didn’t experience any interruptions or lags, even while switching between apps.
Geekbench 6.0 gave it a single-core score of 1198 and a multi-core score of 2624. That’s not even close to the 1690 single-core and 4025 multi-core scores you can get in the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE for $100 more. But the (2a) Plus has a MediaTek chip, so the Geekbench results are to be expected. As long as you use the phone for everyday productivity and entertainment, you won’t have any complaints.
I was very impressed with the (2a) Plus’s massive 5000mAh battery. Most new smartphones usually have batteries under 4000mAh. I played a 3 hour YouTube video at 480p with 20% brightness and 100% charge, and by the end of the video, the battery was at 71%. That works out to about 10 hours. If you turn the brightness down (which I do when using the (2a) Plus indoors and at night), you can easily get 11 hours or more.
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Camera
Great night photo.
I was very impressed with my photo shoot at Madison Square Garden with the (2a) Plus’s two 50MP cameras. The colors were not grayish or too bright, and were well saturated. My photos from a night walk also came out great. I shot at 50MP (there is also a 12MP shooting option) with night mode enabled. The camera perfectly removed all noise. For night shots, I had to zoom in quite far to the point where the image became pixelated and the text was unreadable. One photo had a lens reflection, but not enough to make the photo unusable.
I was excited to test out the (2a) Plus’s Motion Photo mode, as I assumed it was for motion shots, a misleading feature when in fact it’s for Live Photos similar to what we see on iOS.
The camera app lets you choose between Natural and Vivid modes, but the difference is minimal. We like that Vivid mode doesn’t unrealistically boost saturation and vibrancy, but we think the difference could have been at least a little more noticeable. Our photography team member, Artem, thought that the clouds looked a little bluer in Vivid mode, but that’s about it.
The only gripe I have with the (2a) Plus camera is that you can’t zoom in when taking photos at 50MP. To zoom in and out between 14mm or 0.6x and 240mm or 10x you have to downgrade to 12MP. You’re limited to a maximum of 1x in 50MP mode. It’s annoying to have a 50MP camera on your phone and then have to go down to 12MP to be able to zoom in.
No Calls (2a) Plus Verdict
The Nothing (2a) Plus exceeds expectations in several areas, but the fingerprint scanner issues make it an overall disappointment. It has a generous 12GB RAM, with more RAM available as an option. It has a 5000mAh battery rather than the standard 4000mAh or so. It features an illuminated glyph interface on a simple back design that could have been very cool with a transparent housing and visible screws and ribbon. In addition to standard Android navigation, there is also the option to switch to iOS gestures to better suit the muscle memory of iPhone users.
The camera also performs well in low light, something that many smartphones fail to achieve. The glyph light may seem like a gimmick, but you can always disable it. That being said, the problematic fingerprint reader is a sin too big to forgive. It’s a shame that it ruins the look of this great smartphone. If you’re sure you’ll never use anything other than your left thumb or a pin, you can ignore it. But your use case is too specific to recommend this device.
