Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Nothing Phone 2A Review: Flashy Good Deal!”.
( cube bounces ) ( electronic crackling ) Budget phones are fun because pretty much with all of them. If you poke around hard enough, you will find the thing that they had to cut corners on you’ll find the thing that they trimmed back to get it to be a budget phone. And so for picking one for you. It’S just a matter of picking the one that makes the trade offs that you’re okay with., Like maybe you love you got ta, have good build quality and cameras.. Well, then iPhone SE is probably a good one for you., And then you know, you’re not gon. Na get a great screen or battery life, or things like that. Or maybe you got ta – have a great big screen.
Samsung makes the Galaxy A54. Ar. Maybe you got. Ta have good software and cameras. Pixel 7A.. This phone is 350 bucks., And this this is the designer one.
( sophisticated electro-jazz music ) ( electronic crackling ). So this phone is not going to win anyone over with raw specs.. It’S not gon na win by having the best camera or the best battery life of any budget. Phone.. The performance isn’t gon na blow. You outta the water, but you could definitely argue that it’s the prettiest $ 350 phone., So Nothing has had this transparent, aesthetic going for a while with their phones and then also the earbuds.. This one definitely also has that., There’s also a white version of this.. I think it looks better. It also has like black buttons. So it’s kinda this nice contrast, but you know dark version, looks cool too. And honestly. If the mission is to look like a Nothing phone and not be mistaken for anything else, then yeah mission definitely accomplished..
The dual cameras in the middle and near the top is pretty unique. Kinda, like a pair of eyes, maybe. And the NFC coil actually surrounds the cameras.. Then there are three bars of LEDs: making a glyph design around the camera circle again..
Then it’s kinda. This split design, the bottom half, is like a PCB-inspired look apparently inspired by the New York City, subway, map. And Nothing’s already shown people. This, like there’s, been some reactions to the design already.. Some people love it. Some people actually hate it.. I don’t know it’s a bit asymmetrical, so it’s unconventional for sure, but I think it’s nice not gon na lie.. But even if you don’t like it at least you can say it’s at least somewhat visually interesting..
You know there’s some textures there’s some exposed screws and some text and that little red square – it’s not functional, it’s just purely to look cool. So I appreciate that. And if you do like this look but have maybe a more boring phone that you’re not willing to give up then channel sponsor dbrand has you covered with their Something skins.? So if you haven’t heard of it already, dbrand has performed some and these are their words. Not mine, “, Creative plagiarism” on Nothing’s whole design, language, both in light mode and dark mode.
So I’ll leave a link below if you wan na check those out. But guess what It’s an extremely competitive price bracket. So you get a good looking phone, but you still will have to make some sacrifices to get it.. So, first of all, it’s clear plastic, not glass at the back., Which you know I’m sure Zach will get to this phone at some point. But I think it’ll be easier to scuff and scratch, but harder to shatter like glass would be so.
But I think it’s a reasonable trade off., It’s also a textured plastic frame as well. So it looks like aluminum, but it’s this plastic all the way around the phone to the point where this phone actually ends up feeling surprisingly light in the hand for how big it is., But we should just get to that. This is a huge it’s a jumbo-sized phone, it’s gigantic.! Some people might not love that, but I think a lotta people like really big screens and you get the natural advantages that come with a big phone, which is a big battery and a big screen.. So this is a relatively giant 6.7-inch display corner to corner., It’s literally ultra phone size. And it gets pretty bright too, so definitely not flagship, bright ,’cause.
We have some crazy numbers these days, but 1300 knits peak brightness is very visible in bright indoor lighting and bezels are even all the way around the front of the phone so aesthetically I have no complaints. And then even at this price, it’s AMOLED. It has an optical fingerprint reader under the glass., Its variable refresh rate up to 120 hertz., And it even has 2160 hertz PWM dimming.. So if you don’t like the back of this phone at least the front of it that you’re actually looking at all the time is pretty impressive for 350 bucks..
But I’d say an even bigger strength to this phone is battery life.. So battery always comes from three main things, basically, obviously having a huge physical battery., Also good software and an efficient chip. We’ll get to the software.. But this phone has a 5000-milliamp hour battery, that’s literally bigger than their flagship phones from Nothing so really big battery..
It doesn’t have wireless charging, but it does have 45-watt wire charging., Which is pretty good, that’s zero to full in an hour. And the chip. It’S running is this little thing called the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro.. So this was my biggest question mark actually going into testing this phone ,’cause. You know how Nothing teases the specs and stuff ahead of time., So we find out it’s a MediaTek chip and I’m not sure if this one’s going to perform the way I’ve been used to some other phones like they’re showcasing. All these, you know specifically handpicked benchmarks results.
Of course they will, but conveniently they only compare it to a two-year-old, Nothing Phone 1, which had that mid-range 778G Plus from Qualcomm.. Now I’m not expecting flagship stuff for 350 bucks, but like what’s it gon na land. At this feels like a make or break part of the phone., And I’ve been pleasantly surprised.. Now it’s not gon na win any prizes with raw specs and I definitely don’t think it’ll earn anybody’s money with the benchmark. Scores alone. You look at those numbers you’re like “, Okay, not a total shock here.”, But as far as actual performance, when you use the phone the way I’d put, it is it’s respectable and I really feel like that is a testament to the software and how well it’s Working together.
So at this point we’re on Nothing OS 2.5 on top of Android 14., And you already have seen Nothing Phone software with the dots and the aesthetic and all that stuff. But it’s clean, there’s no bloat wear and there is a solid focus on fast and smooth. It kinda feels like a throwback to the old OnePlus Magic back in the day., But with regular use. This phone is quite smooth and snappy..
Sometimes a fingerprint reader shudders a little bit like when you’re, first unlocking, but for the most part, if you’re, just using the phone doing stuff like messaging or flipping through a couple, apps email web browsing taking your pictures. This is a smooth phone.. It’S pretty similar to what they did with the Nothing Phone 1. With this 778., It’s very solid with everyday use and the second you try to do super high-end stuff. Like gaming, then you’ll see where the benchmarks come up short, where you start dropping frames and all that.. But again this is a $ 350 phone and I am definitely not complaining about that..
Now. Nothing has had some time now to build up their aesthetic and their identity and what they really want. A Nothing phone to be. And I got ta say they have a lot of unique, really identifiable things going on here that you may like or dislike, but they’re.
All here., So aesthetically they’ve got the dots everywhere., So the stock apps have this dots, aesthetic and the thin font to go with it.. The back arrow in Android is made of these dots. And they have this extensive, built-out selection of Nothing widgets. Now, most of them with the dots theme as well, so you can have this very consistent home screen, aesthetic. And then there’s other little stuff like you can enlarge a single app icon to fill up four spots on your home screen for a unique home screen grid.. I don’t know you might be into that.
There’s also this nice little animation with the folders on the home screen.. Also, this new thing, which lets you add a glass effect to your wallpaper, so it’s blurred behind your home screen for better visibility. I actually really like that., There’s also AI wallpapers. Now so you can jump into the wallpaper studio and create the most soulless combo art the world has ever seen in just a few taps.
There’s also third-party icon pack support on the home screen with instant one-touch, previews. And then, of course, the glyphs.. So this phone still has some lights on the back. It’S less lights that the flagship than the phone two, but about the same amount of functionality..
So there’s one vertical light on the right and a small one down here on the bottom left and then the big top one arcing around the top left.. This is the one that works with the glyph countdown timer.. Maybe you’ll find that useful. The blinking notification glyph when your phone is down.
I still wish I could just customize it a little bit more. I know they don’t wan na do RGB, but if this was RGB I would totally have different colors light up for different app notifications, and I would go to town with that. But you know it still works with just white lights.
And it also does music visualizations to sync up with any music coming out of the speaker. So … ( phone plays electro-R .