- The Nothing Phone 3a Lite has been officially launched
- This is a cheaper alternative to the Nothing Phone 3a
- But it looks a little worse than another phone the company currently sells for around the same price.
Following leaks and teases, the Nothing Phone 3a Lite has now been officially unveiled, giving Nothing fans a cheaper alternative to both the Nothing Phone 3 and Nothing Phone 3a.
Costing £249 / AU$439 (about $330) for a 128GB model and £279 / AU$489 (about $370) for a 256GB version, but with no current availability in the US, the Nothing Phone 3a Lite has a 6.77-inch 1080 x 2392 AMOLED display clocked at 120 Hz refresh, a fairly low-end MediaTek. Dimensity 7300 Pro chipset and 8GB of RAM.
It also has a 50MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera, a 2MP macro camera, and a 16MP front camera.
The battery capacity is 5000 mAh and charges at 33W, there is an under-display fingerprint sensor and it runs Android 15, with the promise of three years of Android version updates and six years of security patches. It also has a microSD card slot, which is increasingly rare on phones, and isn’t something you’ll find on the non-Lite version of the Nothing Phone 3a.
Design-wise, you get a phone that largely follows the design language of other Nothing phones, but with a much more limited Glyph lighting system than most, as there’s only a small light on the back.
The Nothing Phone 3a Lite measures 164 x 78 x 8.3mm and 199g, has a glass back and plastic frame, and its IP54 rating protects it against splashes. As for colors, you can get it in white or black.
A minor option
Now, in isolation, this all sounds good, but in both the UK and Australia, Nothing is still selling the CMF Phone 2 Pro and charging an almost identical price for it, despite having a 50MP telephoto camera instead of the 3a Lite’s 2MP macro and otherwise having almost identical specs. So it’s a very similar phone but probably a bit better, which makes the Nothing Phone 3a Lite a bit useless.
However, Nothing has announced plans to spin off its CMF sub-brand, so the company may not directly sell the CMF Phone 2 Pro for much longer, and it’s also possible that it will be discontinued at some point. In which case, the Nothing Phone 3a Lite might start to make more sense, but for now, we don’t see many reasons not to buy the CMF alternative.
As for how the Nothing Phone 3a Lite compares to the standard Nothing Phone 3a, you get a more powerful Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset in the 3a, along with a 50MP telephoto camera instead of the 3a Lite’s 2MP macro sensor.
The Nothing Phone 3a also has a 50MP front camera and faster 50W charging, and the remaining specs are similar, but unlike the CMF Phone 2 Pro, this one costs substantially more than the Nothing Phone 3a Lite.
So for now, we’d suggest purchasing the standard 3a if you want the extras it offers, or the CMF Phone 2 Pro if you otherwise like the look of the 3a Lite. Although it might be worth waiting for our full Nothing Phone 3a Lite review to see if it’s more than the sum of its parts.
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