Nothing is a young brand founded in London by former OnePlus employees. Originally launched on the market with inexpensive headphones, the Ear (1) and a competitive smartphone, the Phone (1), the brand then ventured into premium countries with the Nothing Phone (2).
Premium is good for making a name for yourself, but not for making a living. So Nothing changes its attitude and releases the Nothing Phone (2a). A bit like a Pixel 7a compared to Pixels, its aim is more or less to offer the Nothing experience at a lower price. Let's see if the contract is fulfilled.
Price and availability Nothing Phone (2a)
The Nothing Phone (2a) costs 349 euros in the version with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage and 399 euros in the version with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. It comes in two colors: black and white.
Pre-orders open from March 6th and the phone will be available in stores from March 12th.
Please note that a launch event will be held on March 8th at Station F in Paris in collaboration with the operator Free, where approximately a hundred copies will be sold in advance. Treats will be distributed on this occasion.
Design: Not a cheap nothing phone
Nothing has always wanted to stand out through the design of its devices. Two elements in particular in his smartphones contrast with the rest of the production: the play with transparency and the lights on the back of the device. The whole challenge of the Nothing Phone (2a) is to retain that DNA by offering a cheaper smartphone 350 euros for the phone (2a), compared to 679 euros for the phone (2).
The nothing phone (2a) © 01net.com – Rémi Lou
The matter is quite successful. Firstly, for reasons of transparency: Nothing swaps glass for plastic. The back does away with the rounded appearance of its predecessor and is slightly flatter. The elements visible under the plastic are fewer: we can still see the cable that connects the motherboard at the top of the smartphone and the lower part of the phone, passing over the battery that contains, among other things, the bottom of the speaker and the USB controller.
Of course, this tablecloth was designed to give it a nice curve to highlight the smartphone. Nothing explained to us that this element was inspired by the New York subway map.
The nothing phone (2a) © 01net.com – Rémi Lou
A real dividing line separates the top part of the phone from the rest. At the top you will find the photo block, centrally placed for the occasion. Leave the comparisons with the iPhone that irritated internally, hello the comparisons with Wall-E, the robot from the Pixar film. While a central photo block usually places the two modules on top of each other, Nothing has opted for a horizontal arrangement. Add a circle around these two and it's impossible not to see a head and two eyes.
For information: The NFC chip is located under the circle. Nothing claims that the materialization should help users find them and therefore use them on a daily basis.
The Nothing Phone (2a) © 01net.com – Maeva
Around this circle we find three LED strips, which partly define the aesthetics of the Nothing smartphones. These have 26 addressable zones, so less than the phone's 33 (2) but more than the phone's 12 (1). In our eyes, the fact that the Glyph interface has been retained is a good point, especially since they retain most of the functionality of the Nothing Phone (2). We'll explain this in more detail in the software section below.
Glyph and Nothing OS 2.5: Life widgets are at your disposal
The Nothing Phone (2a) ships with Nothing OS 2.5 (Android 14) and benefits from three years of major updates (up to Android 17) and four years of security patches. An absolutely respectable average in this price range.
Nothing has a very special story with its user interface. From its first smartphone, the young brand wanted to stand out with its own interpretation of Android: Nothing OS was born. Although this first version was interesting, it seemed imperfect and relatively buggy. There is a clear reason for this: Back then, Nothing outsourced the development of its overlay.
The nothing phone (2a) © 01net.com – Rémi Lou
Since Nothing OS 2.0, the interface has been completely rebuilt by an internal team, including many former OnePlus employees. This is not insignificant: OxygenOS, the OnePlus interface, is often cited in the industry as a reference for those looking for a simple, light and fluid interface. This is in line with Nothing's ambitions for Nothing OS 2.5.
Three good reasons to be interested in Nothing's work on the interface
Three elements clearly distinguish this interface from others. Let's check them out.
One of them that immediately catches your eye is the monochrome and pointillist aesthetic. It must be said that this is, frankly, successful and allows you to immediately immerse yourself in a world different from that of the competition. In addition, this is a small achievement, since Nothing had to negotiate with Google to be able to change its Monet algorithm so that it no longer relies on the colors of the background image to apply them to the icons, but lets them remain monochrome.
The Nothing OS 2.5 interface © 01net.com 
The Nothing OS 2.5 interface © 01net.com 
The Nothing OS 2.5 interface © 01net.com 
The Nothing OS 2.5 interface © 01net.com
The second strength of Nothing OS lies in its very widget-oriented approach. As a reminder, these are interactive interface elements placed on the Home screen that allow you to interact with an application without opening it or that can serve as stylized shortcuts to an app. By playing a little with the different widgets combined with monochrome, it is possible to get a homepage that is both very effective and minimalist. So we can move away from the diptych of “Either I use the application drawer or I have dozens of application pages” and open up a third way with a homepage that has everything without it being too busy.
The third element that distinguishes Nothing OS from the rest of the market is obviously the management of its LEDs, the famous Glyph interface. Here you'll find most of what you could do with the previous Nothing Phones. Here is a list that is intended to be as complete as possible:
- Glyph Timer;
- Important Notifications;
- volume display;
- Glyph Composer (we couldn't get it to work on our test model at the moment);
- Glyph Torch;
- Glyph History (on Google Calendar, Uber and Zomato);
- Back to the glyph;
- bedtime;
- music visualization;
- Camera countdown.
Battery life: excellent, but not very fast when charging
Although we didn't have time to fully test this smartphone before publishing this guide, it has already started its journey in the 01Lab. We already have an initial result on autonomy, which we are sharing with you here.
Autonomy was once the prerogative of cheap smartphones, but that dynamic has been completely reversed since high-end chips manage their heat better, first with the iPhone 13 Pro, then with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 on the other hand. Android. However, this remains an essential criterion for a smartphone and the competition couldn't be tougher.
In this context, the Nothing Phone (2a) performs well. Here are our results:
Battery capacity Versatile battery life Charging time
Nothing Phone (2) 4700mAh Samsung Galaxy A34 5G 5000mAh Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro Plus 5000mAh
As for autonomy, whether compared to the Nothing Phone (2) or to smartphones sold under 500 euros and therefore not far from its price range, the Nothing Phone (2a) dominates the discipline by lasting more than a day Use on our protocol offers. As a reminder, this simulates continuous use of a smartphone with all traditional uses: video, music, web search, gaming, etc.
The nothing phone (2a) © 01net.com – Rémi Lou
On the charging side, the Nothing Phone (2a) performs slightly worse despite its 45 W Power Delivery support. Please note that the charger is not included with the phone. Regardless, it still takes more than two hours to go from 0 to 100%.
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