Nothing Phone 3(a) Pro review: This is the way... to do midrange right

Time of India

05-05-2025

Let's cut to the chase: midrange smartphones have more or less been the same or should I just say boring. Most are functional rectangles with predictable camera setups and forgettable designs.
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The
Nothing Phone
(3a) Pro gleefully throws that formula out the window, bringing Nothing's usual see-through design, periscope zoom camera, and a clean, intuitive interface to a price point where such features simply don't exist. At Rs 31,999, it's positioned as the quirky alternative to the usual suspects.
Nothing has always been about making tech feel fun again. The (3a) Pro continues this tradition with its transparent back panel revealing internal components, the usual Glyph that pulses for notifications, and now a dedicated "
Essential Key
" for its new AI features.
But Nothing's biggest flex here is squeezing a proper periscope telephoto lens into a sub-Rs 30,000 phone, something that's not easy to find at this price point.
The whole package feels refreshingly different in a market where most phones at this price look virtually identical. But it raises an intriguing question: can a company barely three years old deliver all this without asking for flagship price tag? Or is this just clever marketing hiding midrange compromises? After spending almost a month using this phone, I might have the answer for you.
Quintessentially Nothing
Phone 3(a) Pro is big and doesn't shy away from flaunting its shiny-new periscope camera, and that is one reason why it also feels its size, particularly on the top portion where the humongous camera island sits. So, even though the phone is quite handleable with one hand, it is not really comfortable using it one-handedly. The phone weighs in at 211 grams, so you know that it's got some heft to it, and putting on a case, which I suggest now since the phone has a glass back, will only add to that heaviness.
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The design is quintessentially Nothing. The phone has a transparent back and comes in two colours — black and silver — showing the faux internals of the phone. The camera island is also aesthetically Nothing, having all the sensors placed unilinearly on a spiralled backdrop and the zoom lens sits inside a metal block, presumably to tell the others that it's a special kind of camera.
The 3(a) Pro is flat from all sides, whether it be front, back or the four sides as well that are still made out of plastic, though thankfully they're slightly rounded.
The buttons are also carved out of plastic, as is the new Essential Key, although it has this glossy finish to make it stand out from the rest of the buttons and the placement is also a little weird. I have mixed feelings about it, so will circle back to it a little later.
Glyph continues to be the salient element of Nothing's aesthetics. The 3(a) Pro [and the 3(a)] has the same three-light configuration circled around the camera island, and still does the same things as before: lights up on notifications, doubles up as flash, also a timer, volume indicator, and has some third-party integrations that'll show you ride or food delivery order updates through the light strips.
Given the 3(a) Pro's back is glass, the phone earns an IP64-rated, so it can withstand light water splashes and some dust. On the front glass,
is using what they call Panda Glass, which upon some research, I found is a rather affordable sheet of glass that has scratch-resistant properties, not shatter-resistant though. No word on what glass is on the back, so as suggested before, do put a case on it if you are risk-averse.
The 6.77-inch screen on the 3(a) Pro has all the specs checked. It's an FHD+ AMOLED display that has a 120Hz refresh rate, and the touch sampling rate clocks in at 480Hz. It's a vivid, sharp, and smooth screen to work with, and also gets plenty bright. Just for the sake of numbers, the typical brightness is 800 nits, but it could peak at 1300 nits in sunlight, and while watching HDR content, the brightness could go as high as 3,000 nits.
Bezels around the screen are uniform and slim, and you'll barely remember that they're there after a while. Also, brownie points to Nothing for not putting a silver ring around the punch-hole cutout, which for some reason irks me (and a few others) a lot.
The speaker on this phone gets loud enough, that's it, don't expect much of it, it's a phone speaker at the end of the day.
I've got the power
Inside the Phone 3(a) Pro is Qualcomm's
Snapdragon 7s Gen 3
, a chipset often found on phones in the mid-tier price segment.
This is then paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage. All this makes for a quite competent phone. Day-to-day tasks like reading webpages, scrolling through social media endlessly, and calling happen fluidly. While you won't feel the phone slowing down, you might encounter a few hiccups here and there, such as stutters while multitasking.
Gaming on the 3(a) Pro isn't half-bad, but running AAA games like Genshin Impact shows the chip's limitations.
Even though you might get past 30 fps, the frame rates remain pretty stable, and the good thing is the phone doesn't really heat up after an hour or so of gameplay.
The 5,000mAh battery is the same size as the one on the Phone 2(a) and the 2(a) Plus, but Nothing says that the new 7s Gen 3 that they're using is more efficient at its job than the MediaTek they were using on the older Phone (a)'s. To give you numbers, it consumes 8 percent less power, so that gives about 30 more minutes of run on a single charge, says Nothing.
I tested it out myself, and yes Nothing is right, the 3(a) Pro lasts more than the Phone 2(a), but the difference is not that significant. It still lasts the whole day if you're someone who's always on their phone, but if you use your phone moderately, you can very well stretch the charge onto the next day.
Charging the phone is quick, quantitatively it's 45 watts of fast charging, but you need a charger that can do so. If you have that, the Phone 3(a) Pro shouldn't take more than an hour to top up completely, and if you don't have a compatible charger the wait time could get up to two to two and a half hours.
Hello, my AI friend
While the general consensus is that it's the Glyph that makes Nothing phones stand out from the herd, I'd say Nothing's OS is something that really makes it different from the rest of the phones. Since day 1, it's been clean, intuitive, and had its own character with a monochromatic and translucent theme. The OS has improved quite a lot over the years since the Phone (1), and Nothing OS 3.1 continues that with some subtle changes here and there, a new Gallery app, and a pinch of AI, because why not.
Rather than approaching AI like everyone else—putting in writing tools or some magic eraser-type image editing tricks—Nothing has created an app that uses AI to act as your second memory, calling it the
Essential Space
, and giving it its own physical button on the side, called the Essential Key, because, again, why not?
So, when I heard about this feature, days before I was even going to use it, my reaction was "why?" Because with any AI feature these days, the first question that comes to mind is whether it would work as I want it to, since let's be honest, that's what AI promises to do but often doesn't.
Now, it's been about a few weeks since I've been using the phone, and while I haven't used the Essential Space as much in day-to-day use, however little I've used it, it works as intended.
It's quite helpful having a way to collect your thoughts throughout a busy day. Like, if you're taking a screenshot or a picture, you can put in a voice recording, reminding yourself why you exactly took them. You can simply also record a voice note, with a long press, and the app will transcribe it for you.
What else? The Essential Space app also auto categorises these memories, and put them together with time, date and location
But, one thing that it can't still solve is the mess I have in the gallery. Since, these notes and all the AI chops are indigenous to the Essential Space app, your gallery app remains as cluttered it is. Then, there's no way to access the screenshots or pictures, you have taken to remember something, other than this app, or a Phone 3(a).
That's me nitpicking, but my quirks can be same as yours.
Nothing is promising three years of Android upgrade, which means you're good to go until 2028, and at least for some of the new upgrades then will make it to the phone. As for the security updates, Nothing is saying it'll seed regular updates for six year, and that's good too, for a mid-range phone.
License to zoom
If you have come this far, you'd know that Phone 3(a) Pro has three cameras — a main, an ultra-wide, and a telephoto — and that is something Nothing is using to push this phone.
So, how good is it? The 50MP telephoto camera zooms to 3x, and it clicks some impressive shots with clear and crisp details, and the colours are also maintained pretty much the same as the main camera. The nighttime shots are similarly good, but the missing OIS, means you will need to keep your hands steady to have the shot you are thinking of in your mind.
This telephoto can also do 6x shots, digitally, and algorithms do help make out for the lost details, and the pictures come out fairly crisp, but not in low-light scenes.
If you zooming further than that, then don't expect anything other than an oil painting.
The portrait with the telephoto comes out nicely, as well, although Nothing could use some help in edge detection. This lens also does macro shots, and I'd have to say, it clicks some of the best macros on a phone that I've seen.
Now, the main 50MP camera captures plenty ofdetails, and also maintains a good dynamic range. It's quite good in the nighttime, as well, avoiding the noise that's usually the case when clicking in the low light.
Although, the colours are tinge saturated, it is something that most people, looking to click pictures for their social media grids, would like, while some might not, but there's one way that they could have the pictures thier own way.
The 8MP ultra wide, which Nothing says is as competent as the 50MP lens found in the Phone (2a), and while I haven't had much complaint with the camera's colour reproduction, I do feel that the 8MP ultra wide on Phone (3a) Pro fails to resolve details as well as the older Nothing phones.
The colours remain nearly same as the wide camera. However, at night it's barely usable.
Telephoto asides, one of the other most interesting tricks of the Phone 3(a)'s camera is Presets. Much like the Photographic Styles on the new iPhones, Nothing Presets are preset filters of different creative styles. The colour grading is happening in real-time and not post processing.There are five default options — Soft Focus, B&W Film, Wide Angle, Lenticular, and Close Up.
Rather than being simple filters, these each have different creative styles and focal lengths, like how B&W Film switches to 50mm and Close Up operates at 140mm.
What's more interesting is that you can create your own Preset right through Nothing's Camera app, playing around with focal length, filter, and bokeh settings. For the more creative types, you could even import a LUT file and have it as a Preset. So you don't entirely have to depend on Nothing's colour grading, which is a nice touch to the camera experience.
On the front, there is a new 50MP sensor, and it's great at its job, which is clicking selfies. The subjects remain in focus and detailed, and also for a change, the skin tones come out natural-looking. While the lens defaults to 1.2x, you can also zoom out to 1x if you need to fit in more people.
As for the videos, the Phone 3(a) Pro can do 4K at 30 fps max, and the telephoto could also do that. The videos do come out fine from the wide and telephoto cameras, usable for social media.
The main sensor has OIS, so it works fine while recording video in the day or night. Meanwhile, the telephoto is fine for quick shots, but the lack of OIS makes it pretty much unusable if you want to take longer shots or when the light is low. And I won't really suggest using ultra wide camera to take videos.
May the Phone be with you
With the Phone 3(a) Pro, Nothing has done it again. While I was skeptical of how pro a 'Pro' Nothing phone—especially an (a) series model—would be, I'm no longer in doubt.
The Phone 3(a) feels evolved not only compared to the Phone 2(a) but also alongside its siblings, like the Phone (1) and Phone (2). It packs all the bells and whistles of a standout mid‑range offering, and then some, for a phone beginning at Rs 29,999.
The signature partly transparent, partly lightweight design of Nothing phones, though becoming familiar, still stands out amid rows of monochromatic glass slabs. The Glyph interface retains its novelty, especially for those new to the Nothing ecosystem.
But these design touches only keep you intrigued for the first few days or weeks; what truly endures is how the phone performs.
Nothing, in this department, has also done a fairly good job. The hardware — The hardware — the 6.67 inches 120Hz OLED, Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, and the 5,000mAH battery — is a combination that delivers on its promise of 'faster, smoother, and longer.' NothingOS is the cherry on top—clean, intuitive, and refreshing.
And while I've been cautious about AI features on smartphones, Nothing's take with Essential Space feels genuinely fresh.
However, you wouldn't choose the Phone 3(a) Pro solely for these perks, since the base Phone 3(a) offers almost the same experience at Rs 24,999. The 3(a) Pro's standout feature is its rear camera trio. Frankly, it's among the best camera setups you'll find on a mid‑range device. The telephoto lens delivers crisp shots, and the other two sensors hold their own.
The question is, should you be really spending Rs 5,000 more for cameras, and does itjustifies the phone's 'Pro' moniker? The answer is as simple as it could be, if you want a phone with photography chops, especially a telephoto camera — then yes, the Phone 3(a) is for the camera 'pro' inside you, and spending that money for it is well worth it. All this makes the Nothing Phone 3(a) Pro one of the best value propositions in today's market.