Nothing Phone (2a) Plus debuted in India this week as a new mid-range offering with the signature Glyph light interface on the back panel. This also fills the void between the flagship Nothing Phone (2) and the budget Phone (2a) in the country. We have already reviewed the phone and found it a decent offering for the price.
In this article, we give the reasons to buy the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus and why you should not.
4 Reasons to buy the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus
Capable performance
The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro chipset. It has a peak clock speed of up to 3GHz and there’s a Mali-G610 MC4 GPU to handle your graphic needs. The phone was able to score 7,71,491 on AnTuTu. On Geekbench, it scored 1,121 in single-core and 2,203 in multi-core tests.
Numbers aside, the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus was able to handle everyday needs without any lag to stutters. There were no heating issues as such and was able to handle intense tasks like editing videos, GPS navigation, and outdoor video recording with ease. It could handle games like BGMI, Call of Duty, and Real Racing even for extended durations. We have to thank proper system optimisation with the chipset for seamless performance.
Clean software
The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus runs on Android 14-based Nothing OS 2.6 custom skin out of the box. It’s a clean UI without any spammy ads in the UI or too many bloatware applications pre-installed making it seamless and very intuitive while using the phone.
Besides this, the OS has an app drawer with customisable icons and a Wallpaper studio to generate wallpapers as per your liking. There is also ChatGPT integration and a new AI News Reporter widget that drives curated news with eight selectable genres.
Nothing is promising 3 years of Android updates and 4 years of security patches.
Distinctive Glyph Interface design
The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus retains the company’s signature transparent design, with a Glyph Light interface on the back panel. Nothing took what’s worked with the standard Phone (2a) and improved a few things to make it even more elegant.
The LEDs on the back panel light up for notifications, calls, and visual countdowns and also show progress indicators. The lights are arranged around the dual rear camera setup, which is horizontal like the standard Phone (2a) and there are no LEDs on the bottom half of the phone’s back panel.
The new grey colour variant looks quite elegant in person more than it does in the images. The NFC coil gets a shiny design around the camera module and the other decorative coils at the bottom half enhance the overall look of the phone.
Good battery life
The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus has a 5,000mAh battery with 45W charging support. However, you need to purchase the charging adapter separately (more on that later). Our review finds the battery life comparable with the Phone (2a). It could achieve 14 hours and 34 minutes on the PCMark battery test with a series of sequences and programs until the battery drops to 20 percent. This is decent and should be enough to last one single day on moderate usage. The battery life is quite decent but not the best in the segment.
We get an upgraded 50W fast wired charging support and this can charge from 20 percent to 100 in 51 minutes.
3 Reasons to not buy the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus
Peak brightness
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus offers 700 nits typical/1100 nits outdoor/1300 nits peak brightness. While this looks good on paper, it’s not on par with the competition. For context, the POCO F6 offers 2,400 nits while the OnePlus Nord 4 has 2,150 nits peak brightness support. This vastly affects the visibility under direct sunlight.
While the display content is legible both indoors and outdoors, the readability factor under direct sunlight could have been a lot better. If you’re a person who travels a lot, the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus’ brightness could be a deal breaker.
Limited IP rating
The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus supports an IP54 dust and splash resistance rating. For comparison, the similarly placed POCO F6 and Nord 4 offer IP64 and IP65 ratings, respectively. IP54 rating means the phone is only resistant to splashes and not rain or water. This makes the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus less durable/robust during rain, especially when the competition offers better protection.
No charger in the box
The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus has support for 45W fast charging but as said the adapter is not included in the box. This is an inconvenience, especially after spending Rs 27,999. The compatible 45 Nothing charger costs Rs 2,499 on Flipkart (at the moment). This gets added to the cost of the phone. For context, OnePlus offers a 100W charger in the box.
