Nothing Phone (3) vs Nothing Phone (3a) Pro: flagship vibes vs smart mid-range

Phone Arena

a day ago

Nothing's throwing punches in two price tiers. The Phone (3) lands as the brand's boldest and most expensive at $799, finally giving us a flagship-tier phone after two years of waiting and midranger launches. One such midranger is the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro. Aggressively priced at around $459, and with pretty adequate hardware on board. Also, it still has the old Glyph LED strips, which the Phone (3) has decided to kill off.One is chasing flagship status; the other seeks value-domination. So, which one suits you? Let's dive in.
Nothing's latest high-class phone is available at Amazon. Right now, the 16/512GB variant is up for pre-order, with shipping set to begin on July 15. The device boasts a unique design, 6.77-inch AMOLED display, and a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip. Pre-order yours now and save $100! Pre-order at Amazon
The last Glyph-bearer - the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro still has a triple camera, outlandish design, Essential Key, and the latest from Nothing. Buy at Amazon
Nothing Phone (3) vs Nothing Phone (3a) Pro differences explained:
Table of Contents:
Design and Display
Performance and Software
Camera
Battery
Audio
Specs
Conclusion
Both the Nothing Phone (3) and Galaxy S25 Plus are big phones, but once you actually get to hold them, you instantly notice the difference.
The Galaxy is much thinner and weighs less, so it almost feels like carrying a much smaller phone.
The Nothing Phone (3) on the other hand is big, chunky and you can kind of feel that extra heft when you have it in your pocket. Both models share Nothing's signature transparent aesthetic and the Essential Key, giving a unified brand identity. But their personalities diverge sharply.Phone (3) leans max‑out: asymmetrical cams, Glyph Matrix dot‑matrix screen on the back, aluminum frame, and the most powerful hardware on a Nothing Phone right now.
Phone (3a) Pro tones it down with a more conservative circular camera module (but still a somewhat scatterrede design). The frame is plastic, but the back is glass. You will also notice that both phones rock an extra button. That is, of course, the Essential Key, which is Nothing's take on an AI assistant. It's kind of like a screenshots app with a couple of extras. AI will annotate screen grabs and even generate specific alerts based on the context. Probably still evolving, but I can't say it warrants having it's own button on the phone. The displays are OLED panels, seemingly cut from the same cloth: 1080p OLEDs at 120 Hz, 3,000 nit peaks on the (3a) Pro and 4,500 on the Phone (3). The Phone (3) is slightly smaller at 6.7 inches, vs 6.8 on the Phone (3a) Pro, but that could be just some decimals rounding in the wrong direction. Their measurements deviate by just a little:
So, about the same top and minimum brightness. And while they are usable, they are not among the best. 1,500 nits at max may give you trouble when you are out under the summer sun. 2 nits minimum is workable but not ideal when the lights are off (1 nit and below is optimal).
While we do forgive those numbers to a midranger like the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro, we were hoping to get a slightly improved panel on the Phone (3). Well, we did... but with a huge emphasis of "slightly", less so on "improved". For biometrics, we have optical fingerprint scanners on both here. Again, seemingly the same — they are not lightning fast like a Galaxy S25 ultrasonic, not so slow that you'd get annoyed.
Nothing says the Phone (3) is its first true flagship, which is a bit of an odd statement. A flagship product is the best or most mainstream one in a manufacturer's portfolio at any given time. It's not about how expensive or powerful it is — Samsung may have the Galaxy Z Fold series, but the S series is where the flagship phones are. Anyway, I digress. The Phone (3) comes with a powerful chip, but not the top-tier one. The new Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is about as powerful as last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which is not bad at all — great performance and great results across the board. And it's certainly much faster than the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 in the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro.
While we are generally happy with the software optimizations and overall flow of the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro, but it's still an optimized midranger. You can catch apps installing slowly, or pictures taking a while to get processed, or other small hiccups. Plus, you won't get to run modern games at high details, if that's what you're into.
That's a huge leap, which only points to another burning issue within the smartphone world — how big the gap is between midrange and top-shelf chips. But that's a discussion for another time.
And here's all your gaming performance — in the Nothing Phone (3) .
It's also worth noting that the Phone (3) comes with 256 GB of fast, UFS 4.0 storage. The Phone (3a) Pro has 256 GB, too, sure. But it's a UFS 2.2 chip — at least two generations old. Again, sure it works, but it's noticeably slower when downloading, installing, or accessing files.
Two eccentric phones, two triple camera modules arranged in peculiar ways — these phones are definitely fun to watch and examine at the very least. But how do they perform? The Nothing Phone (3) has 50 MP sensors under all four ot its cameras, the Phone (3a) Pro is almost there — only its ultra-wide lens has an 8 MP sensor. So, before looking at some photos, here's how they scored on our benchmark test:
Yeah, the results are very close. The Phone (3) may have slight improvements in detail sharpening, better-lit shadows, or HDR treatment to the photo. Mostly, the improvements are visible indoors.
Both phones deal pretty well, even with the sun blasting into their lenses. But the Phone (3) is a bit better at evening out dynamics and pulling colors out of shadows.
Indoors, we can see that the Nothing Phone (3) is much better at keeping high dynamics at bay and pull realistic color and skintone (if a bit saturated) from subjects. The Phone (3a) Pro is starting to wash out and lose it.
Zoom quality is comparable in terms of detail, but the Phone (3) is much better at taking brighter and more vivid zoomed photos.
Again, slightly better dynamics, and details from the Phone (3).
The Phone (3) footage is more contrast-y and its microphone quality is definitely better here. Otherwise, we have similar levels of detail and stabilization.
OK, the Nothing Phone (3) features a bigger, 5,150mAh battery made with Si-Carbon tech, whereas the Phone (3a) Pro has a 5,000 mAh Li-Poly cell. First of all, what does this mean for endurance:
Interrestingly, the Phone (3a) overperforms even on the browsing test, even if it has a slightly smaller battery. And, yes, it does get 2 extra hours on our gaming test, but hey — a much less powerful processor requres much less juice. Both phones are comparable on the video test.
But what do these numbers mean in general? Both are good for an active day — you can even forget to charge them and they will last through the night. A quick top-up in the morning and you are set. The Phone (3a) Pro does not support wireless charging, but the Phone (3) does. As for the tech — Si-Carbon batteries are new and capable of packing more energy in smaller cells. Potential issue — they may have shorter overall lifespan, but we'll see.
Eh, not amazing sound from neither of those phones. They don't have a lot of bottom end, they are boxy and midrangey, a bit barky even. They work great for the built-in ringtones which have been designed around those speakers, and they are loud enough to wake you up, that's for sure. Not for music, but OK for podcasts or YouTube videos.
The haptics are amazing on both phones — quick, clicky, and responsive.
The Nothing Phone (3) is certainly the more powerful phone, and will get more software support down the line, so there's arguments to be made for it. It's objectively the better phone, but at $800 — its price is getting up there. That, combined with the recent identity crysis and you may be feeling that you have no idea what you are "buying into".
The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro, on the other hand, is still a fantastic way into the ideology and experience of Nothing. You will get that mini Glyph to see what the hubbub is about (spoiler: mostly looks, but we like them!). You will get to see and experience the Nothing OS interface and the Essential Space. And you won't be out a lot of money for it.