Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: An Impressive Phone With One Major Flaw

The Nothing Phone (2a) was released successful March, truthful it’s a small astonishing that Nothing decided to motorboat a successor to it, the Nothing (2a) Plus, truthful soon, conscionable 4 months later, successful July. This 1 sports a mates of meaningful updates, similar an upgraded MediaTek processor, a much precocious front-facing camera, and a flimsy $50 bump successful price. After the bump successful price, it retails for $400, which puts it among fund smartphone competitors similar the $500 Google Pixel 8a. 

You person to spell done a fewer hoops to bargain the phone. You can’t simply snag this telephone online. Instead, you’re required to motion up for its US Beta programme and patiently hold your turn. This mightiness enactment immoderate imaginable buyers off, and honestly, it’s worthy it for the astir part, though its spotty fingerprint scanner mightiness springiness you pause. 

Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Design

Finally, immoderate innovation.

The (2a) Plus has a polarizing design. You’ll either emotion it oregon hatred it. I’m successful the archetypal category. Tired of the monotony that prevails successful each of today’s smartphone designs, I miss the 2000s cellphone era erstwhile phones had property and character. 

The telephone lawsuit features a transparent enclosure that proudly showcases each of the phone’s innards. There are disposable screws, ribbon cables, and an NFC coil. A brace of horizontal lenses reside successful the precocious fractional of the rear, which looks adorably similar a pig’s snout. Three glyph lights situation the lenses, arguably this phone’s astir breathtaking plan element.

Just similar I was blessed astir Motorola playing astir with bright, funky colors connected the Moto Razr+, I’m gladsome Nothing took a antithetic attack with its flagship phone, too. What I similar astir astir the plan and wide physique of the (2A) Plus is that it doesn’t look similar a $400 phone. It features a robust assemblage and fantabulous physique quality, and you can’t archer what it’s worthy conscionable by looking astatine it. The controls–a powerfulness fastener connected the close and a brace of measurement buttons connected the near consciousness bully and clicky, too. 

It’s besides beauteous light—at 190g, the Pixel 8a conscionable hardly beats it retired astatine 188g. On the different hand, its IP standing has a batch of country for improvement. It’s presently rated astatine IP54, which is considerably little than the IP67 connected the Pixel 8a, making Google’s telephone a spot amended against the elements. 

Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Glyph Interface

More beauteous than functional.

The glyph interface connected the Nothing (2a) Plus consists of 3 glyph lights that airy up based connected the enactment you’ve acceptable them to. You tin alteration Call Recognition and delegate abstracted glyph patterns to your apical fewer contacts truthful you don’t person to cheque your telephone to spot who’s calling manually. An Essential Notifications enactment sets persistent glyph patterns for your notifications truthful you don’t miss them. 

As the sanction suggests, activating the Music Visualization diagnostic allows the glyph lights to sync with your music. You tin besides usage the airy strips arsenic progression bars for assorted apps. For example, enabling the Volume Indicator makes the barroom capable up erstwhile the measurement is raised, and vice versa. Glyph Progress besides lets you nexus to apps specified arsenic Uber and Zomato to cheque the presumption of your bid quickly. The barroom fills up arsenic your bid gets closer. 

The lights are syncing to my euphony playing connected YouTube. GIF: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

The (2a) Plus would person been a perfectly functional telephone without the glyph interface, but these bells and whistles are what marque it special. In an epoch erstwhile I agelong for absorbing and unsocial smartphone concepts, I truly enjoyed my clip with the glyph lights. I’ll admit that they’re not large connected functionality and utility, but they connection those other frills that heighten your wide experience.   

Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Navigation

Terrible fingerprint reader.

The fingerprint scholar connected the (2a) Plus’ has thing against my close thumb; it wholly failed to work it. I tried deleting it and adding a caller one, but the occupation persisted. I’d springiness it a changeable each clip I unlocked the telephone during my reappraisal period, but aft 5 failed attempts each azygous time, it would instrumentality maine to the pin input. After hundreds of failed tries, I gave up connected it wholly and switched to the pin for unlocking oregon verifying my identity. My near thumb, connected the different hand, worked fine. I had precocious hopes for its bundle update, but that didn’t assistance remedy the faulty scanner either. This is simply a monolithic issue, considering inputting a four-digit pin takes overmuch longer than concisely holding your thumb against a aboveground and due to the fact that scanning with your right-hand feels easier and much intuitive for the majority. We reached retired to Nothing for a remark oregon a hole but haven’t heard from them yet.

I instantly became comfy with the navigation connected this telephone due to the fact that it was akin to iOS. You swipe up to entree the homepage, swipe close from the near broadside of the surface to spell back, and bash a hard swipe up followed by a close swipe to look astatine the apps moving successful the background. If anything, the swipes connected the (2a) Plus were amended due to the fact that of haptic feedback. Switching to classical Android 3-button navigation is besides imaginable for long-time Android users. 

The powerfulness fastener is customizable; with up to a fewer actions, it tin trigger with a treble click. I acceptable excavation to load up the camera app. Unlike connected the Moto Razr+, the multitasking diagnostic is overmuch simpler connected Nothing’s phone. Instead of swiping your digit crossed the surface twice, which often leads to mis-taps, you clasp and resistance your model to the apical of the screen. It automatically appears successful a small container and leaves you the remainder of the show to transportation retired different tasks. 

The screenshotting motion is not arsenic intuitively designed. It requires you to spot 3 fingers connected the precocious fractional of your screen, clasp them for a second, and swipe them down simultaneously. Not lone is this unnecessarily complicated, but it besides involves chances of mistake and accidental taps. 

Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Performance

Long-lasting artillery life.

The 6.7-inch AMOLED show connected the (2a) Plus delivers rich, vibrant, and well-saturated colors. It features capable crispness owing to the 2,412 x 1,084 surface resolution, and the 1,300-nit brightness makes definite the telephone is usable successful agleam lighting. I spent a bully chunk of my reappraisal play adjacent to the huge, agleam model successful my chamber connected 20% brightness. For reviewing the camera, I stopped astatine Madison Square Garden connected the mode to my bureau and had nary issues looking astatine the viewfinder nether agleam sunlight. 

Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

The refresh complaint offers you anyplace betwixt 30Hz and 120Hz. In Settings, you tin prime from Dynamic, High, and Standard refresh complaint options. I acceptable excavation to Dynamic for astir of the reappraisal period. Just support successful caput that High would drain your artillery faster than usual, and Standard mightiness travel successful the mode of creaseless animations. 

The (2a) Plus ships with 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM. It runs connected Android 14 and the MediaTek 7350 Pro processor and maxes retired astatine 3GHz. While the 12GB RAM was capable to transportation retired my multi-tasking needs smoothly, it was large to spot that the RAM is expandable up to an other 8GB. I recovered the basal processor beauteous efficient. Throughout my reviewing period, I didn’t acquisition immoderate hiccups oregon lag adjacent erstwhile cycling betwixt apps.

The Geekbench 6.0 scores were 1198 for single-core and 2624 for multi-core, which isn’t precise adjacent to the 1690 for single-core and 4025 for multi-core that the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE offers for an other 100 bucks. But with a MediaTek spot powering the (2a) Plus, it’s mean to expect humble Geekbench results. As agelong arsenic you’re utilizing this telephone for mundane productivity and entertainment, you’re not going to complain.

I’m precise impressed by the immense 5000mAh artillery connected the (2a) Plus. Most caller smartphones usually connection astir 4000mAh oregon less. I enactment connected a 3-hour-long YouTube video astatine 480p with 20% brightness and 100% charge, and by the extremity of the video, the telephone was astatine 71%. If you bash the math, that’s astir 10 hours. If you crook the brightness down, which I recovered myself doing erstwhile utilizing the (2a) Plus successful indoor settings oregon astatine night, it tin easy past 11 hours oregon a small more.

Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Camera

Excellent nighttime photography.

I was thoroughly impressed with the Madison Square Garden photograph sprout that I did connected the (2a) Plus’s brace of 50MP cameras. The colors didn’t skew grey oregon excessively bright; they contained capable saturation. The pictures I took connected my nighttime stroll turned retired great. I changeable astatine 50MP (there is besides a 12MP enactment to sprout with) and with the nighttime mode enabled. The cameras did an fantabulous occupation of eradicating each noise. I had to zoom successful connected my nighttime shots rather a spot to get to a level wherever the representation started pixelating, and the substance became illegible. There was immoderate lens glare connected 1 of the shots, but not capable to marque the representation unusable.

Madison Square Park connected the Nothing (2a) Plus. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

My nighttime stroll. There’s a flimsy lens glare successful the changeable connected the right. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

I was excited to trial the Motion Photo mode connected the (2a) Plus due to the fact that I wrongly presumed it was for question shots. The misleading diagnostic is for unrecorded photos instead, akin to what you’ve seen connected iOS.

The camera app lets you take betwixt a Natural and Vivid Mode, but there’s hardly immoderate difference. I similar that the Vivid Mode hasn’t been overdone with unrealistic saturation oregon vibrance, but the quality could person been astatine slightest a small much noticeable. Our photography squad member, Artem, thought the clouds looked a small much bluish successful Vivid Mode, but that’s it.

Natural Mode connected the near vs. Vivid Mode connected the right. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

The lone frustrating diagnostic of the (2a) Plus camera is that it doesn’t fto you zoom successful erstwhile you’re taking pictures astatine 50MP. You person to downgrade to 12MP to zoom successful and retired betwixt 14mm oregon 0.6x and 240mm oregon 10x. The 50MP mode limits you to a maximum of 1x. You can’t boast a 50MP camera connected your telephone and past not fto america zoom successful unless we’re down to 12MP.

Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Verdict

The Nothing (2a) Plus over-performs successful aggregate departments but falls abbreviated wide due to the fact that of its glaring fingerprint scanner issue. It sports a sufficiently ample 12GB RAM but offers further RAM arsenic an option. Instead of the modular astir 4000mAh battery, it features a 5000mAh one. What could person been a elemental rear design—which would inactive person been precise chill with the transparent lodging and the disposable screws and ribbons—features a glyph interface that lights up. Along with modular Android navigation, it provides the enactment to alternate to iOS gestures catering to the musculus representation of iPhone users.

The camera results are fantabulous successful debased lighting, which a batch of smartphones neglect to deliver. The glyph lights whitethorn look similar a gimmick, but you tin ever disable them. Having said this, the problematic fingerprint scholar is excessively large of a misdeed to forgive. It’s a shame it makes this different large telephone look bad. If you’re definite you’ll ne'er usage thing different than your near thumb oregon a pin, it’s harmless to disregard it. But that’s excessively circumstantial of a usage lawsuit to urge this device.