Nothing Phone (3a) Lite Review: Bloating the Brand

Smart design. Decent screen. Good artillery life. Slick software.

Bloatware. Mono speaker. Disappointing camera.

Nothing injected a small intrigue into the same-y parade of Android phones successful caller years. The Nothing Phone (3), for example, has a refreshing aesthetic that looks thing similar the competition. Could the institution distill its cool, minimal retro benignant into the fund £249 Nothing Phone (3a) Lite? Kind of, with immoderate disappointing compromises.

There’s a beauteous screen, bully stamina, and a sensation of Nothing's benignant successful the translucent backmost and quirky pixelated interface. Performance is connected par with different inexpensive phones, and the camera is limited, but determination are nary glaring omissions. It’s by nary means a atrocious phone, but Nothing has diluted what makes it peculiar with bloatware, lockscreen ads, and a watered-down design. Also, this telephone is not coming to the US.

Diluted Design

Nothing has made a sanction for itself with visually chiseled phones that necktie unneurotic quirky retro plan successful some hardware and software. You get glimpses of the phone’s internals, absorbing LEDs, and a pleasingly elegant, customizable idiosyncratic interface connected apical of Android. The Nothing Phone (3a) Lite is instantly recognizable arsenic portion of the family. The transparent solid backmost shows a fewer screws and what looks similar a artillery with a subtle reddish highlight. It scores a lowly IP54 standing for h2o resistance, which I tin corroborate works good for airy rain.

The flat, integrative framework is comfy to hold, and determination are reasonably chunky bezels astir the screen, but the azygous LED connected the bottommost close is the archetypal hint that Nothing has made compromises. I didn’t expect the circular Glyph Matrix show of the Phone (3), but adjacent the Glyph lights of the regular Nothing Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro person been reduced to a azygous circular LED. You tin inactive customize it (flip the telephone for light-only notifications and adhd ringtones for circumstantial contacts), but it’s obscurity adjacent arsenic amusive oregon chill arsenic the different versions.

One hardware astonishment that whitethorn delight immoderate of you is the abstraction for a microSD paper connected the flip broadside of the SIM paper tray, truthful you tin grow the 128 GB oregon 256 GB of interior storage, whichever variant you spell for.

The pill-shaped Essential Key beneath the powerfulness fastener is simply a clever mode to integrate AI. Press it and you tin prevention what’s connected your surface and adhd a substance oregon dependable note. You tin besides clasp the fastener down to grounds dependable notes if you person a large thought (monkey tennis, anyone?) and don’t privation to hide it. Everything is saved successful the Essential Space app (double-tap to access), wherever it’s analyzed by artificial quality to make tasks and store memories. You tin person these popular up connected your location surface utilizing the Essential Space widget. I recovered it precise useful and much accessible for remembering worldly that I would usually instrumentality successful my Notes app.

The Nothing OS 3.5 bundle sits atop Android 15, and I’m a instrumentality of the retro pixelated style. It feels slick, with immoderate beauteous animations, and there’s an absorbing assortment of widgets and customization options. Nothing promises 3 Android mentation updates and six years of information patches, which is respectable for a fund phone.

Sadly, determination are compromises connected the bundle front, too. I was precise disappointed to find bloatware creeping onto the telephone (especially Facebook), due to the fact that this is thing the institution made a constituent of avoiding successful the past. But it gets worse with Lock Glimpse serving up a trashy buffet of wallpapers that nexus to articles connected your lockscreen. I mostly saw interior plan and look contented earlier I jumped into the settings to toggle it disconnected (at slightest you tin crook it off).

Mixed Bag

Using the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite arsenic my regular operator was a mixed experience. The 6.77-inch OLED surface is beauteous bully and offers up to a 120-Hz refresh rate. I had nary issues with reading, messaging, YouTube videos, and immoderate airy gaming. If you privation to play demanding games similar Genshin Impact, this is not the telephone for you. Just ticker however you clasp it to debar blocking the tinny bottom-firing mono speaker. I’d suggest earbuds are a amended bet.

The 5,000-mAh artillery is ample for astir days, and the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite could possibly adjacent past 2 days of airy use. You'll person to plug successful erstwhile it runs debased (there’s nary wireless charging), and the complaint tops retired astatine 33 watts. That’s not bad, enabling you to spell from zero to 80 percent successful little than an hour. There’s 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.3 support, but expect the artillery to drain overmuch faster connected 5G networks.

Where the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro chipset and 8 GB of RAM truly struggled for maine was the camera. On respective occasions, it took seconds to open, and I had to reboot the telephone astatine 1 constituent to get the camera app to load astatine all. I encountered occasional lag connected opening and switching apps, but the camera show was jarring due to the fact that wide usage feels comparatively slick for a fund phone.

It doesn't assistance that the camera strategy is disappointing. The main 50-megapixel shooter is capable, if a small slow, with a large-ish 1/1.57-inch sensor and an f/1.8 aperture that handles a scope of scenarios rather well. But the 8-megapixel ultrawide is poor, and the 2-megapixel macro is simply a implicit discarded of time. Comparing a close-up with the macro and the main camera (see the angiosperm photos) shows however useless it is. There’s a 16-megapixel shooter astir beforehand that’s good for selfies and video calls.

You'd deliberation a design-led institution similar Nothing would beryllium much calculated successful adding features that lone adhd value. If the ultrawide and macro are lone going to connection lackluster results, chopped them and instrumentality with a single, coagulated superior camera.

While it’s imaginable to get decent scenery shots, the camera tends to overexpose, moving subjects often look blurry, and low-light show is predictably ropey. There’s nary colour consistency betwixt the cameras, with a noticeable pinkish tinge creeping into ultrawide shots, and the 2X zoom is conscionable a crop. I ever miss a due telephoto lens erstwhile switching to a telephone without one, and it’s acold much utile than an ultrawide.

While folks who don’t instrumentality tons of photos mightiness beryllium contented utilizing the main camera, there’s a crushed I’m calling it out. The biggest occupation for the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite is the beingness of the CMF Phone 2 Pro, the latest fund telephone from Nothing's sister brand. It's astir identical but cheaper astatine £219 and with a acold amended camera strategy (50-MP main, 50-MP telephoto, and 8-MP ultrawide). I’m struggling to spot wherefore you would prime the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite implicit the CMF Phone 2 Pro.

Why is Nothing competing with itself? There’s already plentiful contention successful this terms bracket. The precise akin OnePlus Nord CE5 is £229 close now. Xiaomi’s Poco X7 Pro has dropped to £219 and has a overmuch faster processor for gamers. Motorola’s Moto G Power is down to £225 and has a headphone port, wireless charging, and an IP68 rating. The Nothing Phone (3a) Lite has the benignant to vie but lacks the substance to warrant the other outlay.

Ultimately, the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite is simply a competent phone, and I mostly had a good clip utilizing it. I don’t truly recognize wherefore it exists. If wealth is tight, bargain the CMF Phone 2 Pro oregon 1 of the different phones I mentioned. If you tin spend to walk a small more, agelong for the already discounted Nothing Phone (3a) (£319) and bask a due Nothing experience.