A decent midrange option, but not in the US

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus is so similar to this spring’s Nothing Phone 2a that it’s almost hard to review the newer phone without repeating myself. Released just a few months after the Phone 2a, the Phone 2a Plus is very nearly the same phone, plus a couple of spec bumps.

That’s not all bad; I liked a lot of things about the older Phone 2a. But the improvements in the 2a Plus — a newer chipset, a higher-resolution selfie camera, and slightly faster charging, to name a few — don’t do anything to address the original Phone 2a’s pain points. So the Phone 2a Plus is pretty much the same story: it’s a fine midrange phone with a unique look and underwhelming camera performance that, critically for much of our readership, isn’t made for the US market.

Price, availability, and specifications

In the US, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus will be available starting August 7 directly from Nothing through the company’s developer program for $399, a $50 increase over the previous Nothing Phone 2a. However, you won’t be able to get it at retailers like Best Buy or through your carrier.

In the UK, you can snag the Phone 2a Plus for £399. An India-only variant with 8 GB of RAM (as opposed to 12 GB in models sold elsewhere) is available for ₹27,999. Nothing has said it’ll disclose info about availability in other markets in September.

What’s good about the Nothing Phone 2a Plus?

Everything that was good about the Nothing Phone 2a

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus has everything going for it the original 2a did. The 2a Plus shares the 2a’s striking design, and Nothing’s added a nice bit of visual flare to the decorative elements under its transparent plastic back, which has a metallic sheen on the 2a Plus. I tend to gravitate toward subtler hardware design, and I think the new finish does make the back of the phone look a little busier. Still, I appreciate Nothing’s unique hardware aesthetic, even if it’s not quite for me.

I really like the Gray colorway I’m reviewing. The matte gray plastic side rails contrast nicely with the Phone 2a Plus’s darker buttons, which have a metallic finish. The lighter color also helps make fingerprints on the phone’s clear plastic back less obvious, which it sorely needs.

The Phone 2a Plus’s Glyph lights are unchanged from the Phone 2a — no RGB upgrade here. They’re equal parts form and function: the light strips are a Nothing hallmark that make its phones look a bit flashier, sure, but they also work as notification lights when the phone is face-down. You can assign unique patterns to different notifications, and there’s an option to have one of the lights stay on when you have specific unread notifications.

Paired with a Pixel-inspired feature called Flip to Glyph that sets the Phone 2a Plus to silent when it’s face down, that persistent notification light makes it easy to ignore the phone without having to worry you’ve missed something important. It’s a great setup you just can’t get on phones from other manufacturers.

I’m as big a fan of Nothing OS on the Phone 2a Plus as ever. Through unique dot-matrix style design flourishes and some thoughtful UI tweaks, Nothing manages to make Android feel distinct without adding any visual clutter or redundant apps. Nothing OS also offers a bunch of visually cohesive nerdy and stylish widgets — a tough balance to strike.

My one extremely specific complaint about Nothing OS is that its Weather app — a wrapper for data from AccuWeather — doesn’t include much data about hourly precipitation. It’ll tell you what type of weather is expected hour by hour, but not the estimated chance it’ll rain, or the expected volume. As slick as the app looks, it’s not very useful without that info.

The Phone 2a Plus’s display, the same 6.7-inch, 1080p AMOLED as the standard Phone 2a, is quite nice. Colors are punchy, and animations look smooth thanks to the display’s 120Hz refresh rate.

Performance on the original Phone 2a was good for a budget phone, so it’s unsurprising that the Phone 2a Plus delivers similarly good performance with its newer (chip), an upgrade from the 2a’s (chip). I’m not the most demanding user, but the 2a Plus never stutters, heats up, or slows down in my day-to-day.

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus is IP54 rated.

Battery life’s been really solid, too. On a particularly light couple of days — mostly browsing the internet and messaging over Wi-Fi — I got five hours of screen time across 48 hours off the charger. Depending on your usage, you could easily get six or seven hours of screen time in a single day.

What’s bad about the Nothing Phone 2a Plus?

Everything that was bad about the Nothing Phone 2a

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus is a better phone than the Nothing Phone 2a was, but unfortunately, none of the improvements address any of the issues I had with the previous model.

Camera performance on the Nothing Phone 2a Plus is not very good. The Plus has a higher-resolution selfie camera than the original Phone 2a, but the rear camera experience is unchanged. The Phone 2a Plus really struggles with dynamic range — highlights are often blown out, and mid tones tend to be too bright.

The way these cameras handle shadows is a little all over the place. Often, shadows come out looking unnaturally bright — which doesn’t look good, but does at least make the contents of the image more legible. But I’ve also seen the Phone 2a Plus crush shadows to black when they were nowhere near that dark on the day. For example, the photo of my dog below has almost no detail left in his coat.

This isn’t a flagship phone, but I think the bar for midrange camera performance is higher than this in 2024. The Pixel 8a, for example, is available on sale for the same $399 the Phone 2a Plus costs in the US, and is leagues ahead regarding camera performance.

The choice of glossy, transparent plastic for the Phone 2a Plus’s rear panel makes it feel cheap. It definitely looks nice out of the box, but the very reflective plastic collects smudges and scratches easily.

But most critically to our US audience, the Phone 2a Plus is, like the Phone 2a before it, not being sold at retail here. You can get your hands on the phone through Nothing’s developer program for $399, but it’s not made to run on US wireless networks. I’ve been using the Phone 2a Plus on T-Mobile’s network, and I wouldn’t know the difference, but it’s missing several important bands for Verizon and AT&T.

Also worth mentioning is that the Nothing Phone 2a Plus comes with Android 14, and Nothing is pledging three years of OS updates and four years of security updates. You could do worse, but Nothing’s commitment here isn’t impressive. The $300 Samsung Galaxy A25 is set to get three years of updates and four years of security patches, and the $500 Pixel 8a is set to get updates well into 2031.

Should you buy the Nothing Phone 2a Plus?

If you live in the United States, probably not

Camera complaints aside, I generally like the Nothing Phone 2a Plus. Nothing OS is a treat, and for $400, the Phone 2a Plus performs more than well enough.

Given the Phone 2a Plus isn’t made for US networks and isn’t sold through US retail channels, it’s not a very good pick for our American readers. If you’re a developer or enthusiast looking for a midrange phone to tinker with, grabbing the Nothing Phone 2a Plus through Nothing’s developer program might make sense. But if you’re just looking for a decent, affordable phone in the US, the 2a Plus likely isn’t a fit.

I don’t necessarily think the Phone 2a Plus is a better buy than other phones in its price range in countries where it’s officially available, either. But if Nothing sells it in your country and you’re coming from something older than the regular Phone 2a, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus is an interesting option — provided you don’t take a lot of photos, anyway.