You have to go through a few hoops to buy the phone.
You cant simply snag this phone online.
Instead, youre required to sign up for its US Beta program and patiently wait your turn.
Photo:© Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Pros
Cons
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Design
Finally, some innovation.
The(2a) Plushas a polarizing design.
Youll either love it or hate it.
Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Im in the first category.
The phone case features a transparent enclosure that proudly showcases all of the phones innards.
There are visible screws, ribbon cables, and an NFC coil.
Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Three glyph lights surround the lenses, arguably this phones most exciting design element.
Its also pretty lightat 190g, the Pixel 8a just barely beats it out at 188g.
On the other hand, its IP rating has a lot of room for improvement.
Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Glyph Interface
More pretty than functional.
An Essential Notifications option sets persistent glyph patterns for your notifications so you dont miss them.
As the name suggests, activating the Music Visualization feature allows the glyph lights to sync with your music.
Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
you could also use the light strips as progression bars for various apps.
The bar fills up as your order gets closer.
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review:Navigation
Terrible fingerprint reader.
Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
I tried deleting it and adding a new one, but the problem persisted.
My left thumb, on the other hand, worked fine.
I had high hopes for its software update, but that didnt help remedy the faulty scanner either.
Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
We reached out to Nothing for a comment or a fix but havent heard from them yet.
I instantly became comfortable with the navigation on this phone because it was similar to iOS.
If anything, the swipes on the (2a) Plus were better because of haptic feedback.
The lights are syncing to my music playing on YouTube. GIF: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Switching to classic Android 3-button navigation is also possible for long-time Android users.
I set mine to load up the camera app.
Unlike on the Moto Razr+, the multitasking feature is much simpler on Nothings phone.
Swiping right to go back. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
The screenshotting gesture is not as intuitively designed.
Not only is this unnecessarily complicated, but it also involves chances of error and accidental taps.
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Performance
Long-lasting battery life.
Swipe up and scroll horizontally to multi-task. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
The 6.7-inch AMOLED display on the (2a) Plus delivers rich, vibrant, and well-saturated colors.
The refresh rate offers you anywhere between 30Hz and 120Hz.
I set mine to Dynamic for most of the review period.
Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
The (2a) Plus ships with 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM.
It runs on Android 14 and the MediaTek 7350 Pro processor and maxes out at 3GHz.
I found the base processor pretty efficient.
Madison Square Park on the Nothing (2a) Plus. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Throughout my reviewing period, I didnt experience any hiccups or lag even when cycling between apps.
But with a MediaTek chip powering the (2a) Plus, its normal to expect modest Geekbench results.
As long as youre using this phone for everyday productivity and entertainment, youre not going to complain.
My night stroll. There’s a slight lens glare in the shot on the right. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Im very impressed by the huge 5000mAh battery on the (2a) Plus.
Most new smartphones usually offer around 4000mAh or less.
If you do the math, thats roughly 10 hours.
Natural Mode on the left vs. Vivid Mode on the right. Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Review: Camera
Excellent night photography.
The colors didnt skew grey or excessively bright; they contained sufficient saturation.
The pictures I took on my night stroll turned out great.
The cameras did an excellent job of eradicating all noise.
There was some lens glare on one of the shots, but not enough to make the picture unusable.
The misleading feature is for live photos instead, similar to what youve seen on iOS.
The camera app lets you choose between a Natural and Vivid Mode, except theres barely any difference.
You have to downgrade to 12MP to zoom in and out between 14mm or 0.6x and 240mm or 10x.
The 50MP mode limits you to a maximum of 1x.
It sports a sufficiently large 12GB RAM but offers additional RAM as an option.
Instead of the standard around 4000mAh battery, it features a 5000mAh one.
The camera results are excellent in low lighting, which a lot ofsmartphones fail to deliver.
The glyph lights may seem like a gimmick, but you’re free to always disable them.
Having said this, the problematic fingerprint reader is too big of a sin to forgive.
Its a shame it makes this otherwise great phone look bad.
But thats too specific of a use case to recommend this rig.
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