Nothing Phone 2a Hands-On, First Impressions

The Nothing Phone 2a finally arrives in the Philippines via local retailer Digital Walker.

Digital Walker posted phone’s pricing that comes in two configurations: 8GB RAM + 128GB storage priced at PHP 18,990 and a 12GB + 256GB combo for PHP 20,990. Both options are available in Black and Milk colors.

We managed to snag a review unit in the white color. Having tested the Nothing Phone 1 and the Nothing Phone 2, both in black colors, the Phone 2a looks fresh and feels a tad different. We liked the Milk color better.

The device has an aluminum mid-frame with a transparent plastic back cover fused with the chassis in a curved fashion giving the device a free-flowing and smooth feel. Nothing calls it 90° infinity back cover.

At the bottom, you have the USB Type-C charging port, speaker grill, primary mic and the dual SIM card slot.

At the left side are the volume controls, power button at the right and the secondary noise-canceling mic up top.

The camera island at the back is part of the back cover and protrudes in a tapered, smooth bump at the center, symmetrically positioning the dual camera system.

Typical of the Nothing Phone, the Phone 2a comes with customizable light patterns and sounds.

Running on the Nothing Phone 2a is a fairly new and seldom used Mediatek 7200 Pro (MT6886) which is composed of a dual-core Cortex-A715 2.8GHz and 6-core Cortex-A510 2.0. This is paired by an ARM Mali-G610 MC4 GPU.

Our review unit comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB storage with no option for expandable storage. It’s a very snappy phone and performs in almost all tasks we ran through it, including a bunch of games.

Benchmarks scores also looked promising with Antutu Benchmark scores hitting a little over 650,000 points.

The dual camera of the Nothing Phone 2a is not to be brush off as well. The 50MP f/1.9 main camera has PDAF and OIS while the second one is also a 50MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera.

Here are some sample photos we took using the two cameras of the Nothing Phone 2a.

Here’s a sample selfie shot from the front camera:

Here’s some sample 4K video clips from the main camera:

So far, the cameras are showing promising shots from our initial samples. We’ll take more of them for our full review soon.

We’ve also done an initial battery benchmark test and got 17 hours and 34 minutes at 50% brightness, zero volume and in airplane mode. We also played a few Ranked games on Mobile Legends and managed to get a result of 7 and a half hours of gameplay at 50% brightness, 50% volume and in WiFi mode. That’s great battery life there for a 5,000mAh Li-Ion battery.

We’ll share more details and share observations about the Nothing Phone 2a in our full review so watch out for that any day now.

Nothing Phone (2a) specs:
6.7-inch Flexible AMOLED Display, 1080×2412 pixels, 394ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 5, 120Hz adaptive refresh rate
HDR 10+, 10-bit color accuracy, 1,300 nits peak brightness
MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro (4nm)
2x Cortex-A715 2.8GHz + 6x Cortex-A510 2.0
Mali-G610 MC4 GPU
8GB, 12GB (+8GB RAM Booster)
128GB, 256GB internal storage
Advance Liquid Cooling System
5G / 4G LTE
WiFi 6
Bluetooth
GPS
NFC
50MP f/1.9, (wide), PDAF, OIS
50MP f/2.2, (ultrawide)
4K @ 30fps, 1080p @ 60/120fps, gyro-EIS
32MP f/2.2 Front Camera
1080p @ 60fps
True Lens Engine, Ultra XDR
IP54 Certified
Glyph Interface
Nothing OS 2.5.3 (Android 14)
5,000mAh Li-Ion battery, 45W Fast Charging
Black, Milk White