Nothing Phone (3a), (3a) Pro are great value, but not coming to Canada

Nothing is a London, England-based consumer electronics brand founded by Carl Pei, the co-founder of OnePlus. It is a relatively new phone company launched in 2021 and is currently in its third iteration of phones. If you’re Canadian and don’t know of Nothing, I wouldn’t be shocked as the brand isn’t in stores; it’s still relatively recent and ‘Nothing’ is a strange name.

However, Nothing is a unique brand for those interested in the smartphone industry. When I reviewed the Nothing Phone (2), I noted that it felt a lot like an iPhone and that it’s pretty much the Android for Apple users. That phone came out in 2023; since then, the company has adjusted its phones.

I’ve spent some time with the company’s latest phones, the Nothing Phone (3a) and Nothing Phone (3a) Pro, and these phones continue to have their uniqueness in the Android ecosystem. However, there has been a dramatic shift from the ‘Android for iPhone users’ style, and the company is carving out a new path. Despite being very similar, the two devices have their own unique design aesthetic, which is strange for handsets of the same lineup.

It’s worth noting that the Nothing Phone (3a) and Nothing Phone (3a) Pro are not coming to Canada, and you’ll have to go south of the border to pick up a device. However, with rumours of the Nothing Phone (3) on the horizon and the likelihood of a Canadian availability for that upcoming phone, I took this as a chance to check out what the London phone maker might have up their sleeve for its next flagship.

Two radically different designs

The Nothing Phone (3a) and the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro have a lot of similarities in their designs, but a difference that’s hard to miss is the camera module. The Nothing (3a) Pro’s camera bump is massive and feels like the biggest I’ve ever encountered on a smartphone.

Both my MobileSyrup colleagues and I said the camera bump felt like an extra piece of plastic just attached to the device or something that you can rotate – which I’m going to say would be very cool if you could rotate the camera module to help you manually zoom like a real camera. The sensors are even laid out weirdly on this massive camera bump.

Nothing says the camera bump is this size so it can fit the 50-megapixel periscope lens with 3x optical zoom. However, other phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Pixel 9 Pro have periscope shooters without such an obscene camera module. But it’s worth mentioning that this is a periscope camera on a mid-range device, which is quite rare and impressive.

On the other hand, the Nothing Phone (3a) lacks a periscope camera; without it, the module is tiny. It’s not flush to the rear of the device, which is what I’d want. However, it’s the next best thing because it doesn’t stick out too much. This is important because I like to play games on my Backbone controller, and the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro barely fits in the accessory. The Nothing Phone (3a,) however, fits easily into the accessory like most other devices I’ve used.

Both phones have the Glyph Interface, which shows a transparent rear, but instead, the lights only show up near the camera module. The Nothing Phone (2)’s Glyph Interface went all around the back of the phone, which I liked a lot. I think if you’re going to have a Glyph Interface, it should be all around the device; if you’re not going to do that, get rid of it. I haven’t noticed the Glyph Interface as much as before, except as an old-school notification LED.

The Nothing Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro both have a 6.77-inch 1080 x 2392-pixel display with a 120Hz refresh rate, 3,000 nits of peak brightness, and 1,300 nits of outdoor brightness. The phones also have 5,000mAh batteries. I’ve been mainly using the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro, so most of my experience with the battery life is with that phone, but since they both have the same size battery, I’d expect the (3a) offers a similar experience.

With typical usage, the phone can easily last past a day. This includes watching YouTube videos, texting friends, and playing several Marvel Snap games. Often, I don’t charge the phone at night, and it still makes it to the following day or about the afternoon. I typically have to charge it around then while I’m working. The device sports 50W fast charging and tops up quickly.

The Nothing Phone (3a) and the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro feature 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. They also have the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor, which has a single-core score of 1,159 and a multi-core score of 3,279 (both phones are very similar in benchmarks).

Every phone launching this year has new gimmicks, making it unique. Aside from the Glyph Interface, the Nothing Phone has the Essential Key and the Essential Space. The Essential Key has a nice, rounded feel and is placed below the flat power button. Clicking it on will bring up an interface, allowing you to jot down a note, take a screenshot, or record a voice note. Alternatively, users can hold the button to quickly record a voice note.

The Essential Space is a new AI-powered spot for your notes and ideas, accessible by double-clicking the Essential Key. It has a Smart Collection feature that recognizes images, audio, and text and sorts them. It also analyzes this information and notes details about the saved data. I’ve been using it to take screenshots that show dates for embargoes or appointments.

In my Essential Space, it shows “Upcoming” and tells me everything coming up on my schedule. It also indicates anything you’ve missed, which you can easily eliminate by swiping to the left. Other collections include a space for everything I’ve screenshotted for MWC (Upcoming Events at MWC 2025). It is titled by itself, provides medication reminders, and so much more.

At first, I thought the Essential Space was pretty dumb, but I realized its usefulness after more usage. I’m not the most organized person, but this does some of the work for me. Google’s Pixel Screenshots app is similar to this feature, but the Essential Space smartly organizes things into what’s upcoming and other collections. Google’s screenshots require users to create their collections, but instead, they offer a clever search bar to find stuff quickly.

Another area where the Essential Space excels compared to Pixel Screenshots is analyzing audio. I told Essential Space about an upcoming appointment with a voice note, and it added it to the Upcoming section without issue. As someone who’s disorganized and lazy, I find Essential Space surprising and a good way to use AI.

You can do similar things with Gemini, asking it to remind you of specific tasks throughout the day and put different events directly into your Google Calendar. However, the Nothing Phone also has easy Gemini access, so you’re able to do all of that too. I don’t think I’ll miss Essential Space when switching phones, but I’ll appreciate it whenever I’m using a Nothing Phone, and really want it to be on the Nothing Phone (3) as well.

The Nothing OS 3.1 has a lot of personalization options, which I love. You can play around with the Nothing Dot Engine’s icons, fonts and animations, and I thought these looked pretty good. However, I’m pretty basic and chose to use the standard home screen, similar to other Android devices. I like that Nothing gives users the choice. Even the app drawer has different options, letting you sort alphabetically or ‘Smartly’ by sorting the apps into ‘Social,’ ‘Entertainment,’ ‘Utilities,’ Business,’ and more.

The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro and the Nothing Phone (3a) sport 50-megapixel primary shooters that take solid photos. The colours pop and are accurate, but the images could be sharper and more detailed. I only realized this after looking at the pictures on a larger screen. However, for a mid-range phone, it’s impressive. The Pixel A series and the iPhone 16e are the only handsets that take photos of this quality in the mid-range category.

The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro also sports a 50-megapixel periscope camera with 6x in-sensor zoom. In-sensor zoom uses image crop to provide a closer look at the subject without losing image quality. The 6x zoomed photos look good and offer a similar image quality to the other cameras on the device. Honestly, the Nothing Phone (3a) series cameras take good shots, and I’d even be happy if the Nothing Phone (3) had similar shooters. Except, I hope it doesn’t have that same ugly camera module and looks more similar to the Nothing Phone (2) or the Nothing Phone (3a.)

I like the Nothing Phone (3a) series. They’re pretty solid mid-range phones, especially for their pricing. In the U.S., the Nothing Phone (3a) 12GB + 256GB costs US$379 (about CA$549), and the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro costs US$459 (about CA$665), which is an insane value for these mid-range phones. If these phones came to Canada, they should sell hotcakes. If the Nothing Phone (3) launches in Canada, hopefully, we can expect a similar but better experience with a relatively affordable price.