Nothing Phone 2a Plus debuts with a brand-new chip and shiny colorways

Summary

• The Nothing Phone 2a Plus offers new color options, faster charging, and enhanced camera capabilities for $399.
• The Phone 2a Plus features a MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro 5G chip with a 50MP selfie camera, all backed by three years of software updates.
• While the Phone 2a Plus improves on some features of the original model, it may not be a significant upgrade for current Phone 2a owners.

Carl Pei’s Nothing has been in business for a few years now, and it is evident the company tends to deliver several models of the same hardware in a staggered fashion. One of its newest budget Android phones, the Nothing Phone 2a, released in July this year is no exception. The device launched in white and black colorways, with an India-exclusive blue hue added shortly thereafter. This was followed by a Special Edition colorway featuring a smattering of color on the minimalistic back panel, but Nothing just announced another addition to the Phone 2a range, boasting Plus branding, and it is more than just another two color options.

The Nothing Phone 2a Plus adds two new colors to the already-vibrant Phone 2a catalog — a metallic gray and an updated shade of black. Both colors feature the same ribbon cable-like design Nothing claims is inspired by Massimo Vignelli’s subway map, but this time in a reflective silver or black color shared with the camera island surround masking the NFC coil. That contrasts nicely against the matte finish everywhere else. Like other Nothing models, the side rails are color-matched to the back panel, and all other elements like button placement and the Glyph Interface remain unchanged.

The biggest change in the Phone 2a Plus comes in the form of a new SoC — MediaTek’s 7350 Pro 5G, promising 10% faster CPU performance than a standard 2a. Nothing also claims the new chip has an ARM Mali-G610 MC4 GPU clocked at 1.3GHz, making the 2a Plus 30% faster than the standard 2a for gaming. Faster 50W charging on the Phone 2a Plus should also ensure you get to enjoy the hardware with lower downtime for recharges in between. Nothing says it’s the company’s largest battery to date, capable of powering the phone for an entire day after a 20-minute charge.

The new Phone 2a Plus also ditches the standard 32MP selfie camera for a new 50MP unit, matching the two rear cameras in terms of resolution. Although we noticed the camera results vary slightly between lenses when testing the Phone 2a, Nothing highlights that all three cameras can handle 50MP photo output, HDR photography, and 4K video recording.

Nothing plans to support the Phone 2a with three years of software updates and four years of security updates. However, it ships with Android 14 from the factory, instead of Android 13 like most phones in the same price bracket. Speaking of pricing, the Nothing Phone 2a Plus’ sole model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage will retail for $399 in the US through the company’s US Beta Program, starting August 7 at 09:00 am ET. The company plans to offer the device in other markets, but those plans will be announced in September. For now, here are our first impressions of the device.

Early impressions with the Nothing Phone 2a Plus

From AP Google Editor Taylor Kerns

I haven’t had the Nothing Phone 2a Plus long enough to write anything I’d call a review — I’ve been using it for about four days — but my early impressions are mostly good. This phone is extremely similar to the Nothing Phone 2a I reviewed this spring in a lot of ways: the overall size and shape, the display, the battery capacity, and the rear cameras are all unchanged from the 2a I’m used to.

There are a handful of updates that are appreciated, but don’t seem to amount to a wildly different phone than the original Phone 2a. The 2a Plus has a new chipset in the MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro, an upgrade from the Dimensity 7200 Pro in the 2a. It charges just a little faster, topping out at 50 watts to the 2a’s 45-watt cap. It’s also got a new 50-megapixel selfie camera — an upgrade on paper, but resolution is hardly the whole picture when it comes to smartphone photography.

Nothing applied a new finish to some of the ornamental internal components on the back of the Phone 2a Plus, which gives them a metallic sheen. It does look nice, but it doesn’t solve the problem I had with the Phone 2a’s finish: the Phone 2a Plus’s back is still coated in glossy plastic, and it still collects dust, fingerprints, and fine scratches like nobody’s business. A more matte or frosted finish on the Phone 2a Plus’s back would’ve gone a long way to make it look nicer, longer. The problem’s not as pronounced on the gray Phone 2a Plus I’ve been using as it was on my black Phone 2a review unit, though.

I’ll need some more time with the Nothing Phone 2a Plus to render a formal verdict, but my initial feeling is that it’s not much more than a slightly better version of the existing Phone 2a. The added processing power, charging speed, and front-facing camera resolution are definitely steps in the right direction, but none of them address my biggest issue with the original Phone 2a. The Phone 2a Plus isn’t available at retail in the US; stateside, you can only get it through Nothing’s Developer Program, where it’ll run you $400. Price aside, it lacks the LTE and 5G bands to take full advantage of US networks, particularly Verizon’s and AT&T’s.

So far, the Phone 2a Plus seems like a decent option for people in the places where it’s available at retail, but it’s not a sensible upgrade for any Phone 2a owners. But because of its wireless network compatibility, for many users in the US, it’ll be a non-starter.