Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus: A Detailed Review

Welcome to the showdown between the Nothing Phone 2A and the Nothing Phone 2A Plus! It’s like comparing two almost-identical twins, but as we all know, there’s always one who claims to be just a little bit better. In this case, the 2A Plus is strutting around with four small, but important, differences. So, what’s really going on here? Let’s break it down.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus – Key Differences

1. Design and Performance Upgrades
   • First, it looks slightly different.
   • It’s got an upgraded MediaTek Dimensity 7350 inside.
   • You’ve got an upgraded selfie camera, and the charging speed is slightly faster.
2. First Reaction
   • My first reaction after looking at that was: “Wait, this seems like a money grab just like every single Terminator movie was after Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
   • But coming back to reality, phone production lines don’t work at such a breakneck pace.

Performance Differences

1. Chipset Comparison
   • Let’s check the differences between the new Dimensity 7350 inside the Plus and the Dimensity 7200 Pro inside the Phone 2A.
   • The performance scores show a higher clock speed of 3 GHz now, and the GPU is also slightly faster.
   • But what do the benchmarks say? Android2 scores are 10% higher, and Geekbench scores are also slightly higher compared to the Phone 2A.
   • Storage speeds are the same because you get UFS 2.2 on both.
2. Throttling and Stability
   • In our throttle test, the CPU stability was better on the Phone 2A compared to the Phone 2A Plus.
   • We actually ran that test for 30 minutes, engaging 40 threads, so that’s the result that we got.
   • Even the GPU stability in our 3D Mark Wildlife test was higher on the Phone 2A compared to the Phone 2A Plus.
3. Gaming Performance
   • I played Call of Duty and BGMI; both offer the same graphics, but gaming performance is slightly better on the Phone 2A Plus.
   • This is evident from the Genshin Impact test, where we played the game at the highest graphics and 60 frames per second. We got higher average FPS on the Phone 2A Plus compared to the Phone 2A.
   • If you’re wondering if these phones get hot, absolutely not—there’s no problem whatsoever.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus User Experience and Smoothness

• So if you look at it, the Dimensity 7350 is slightly better than the Dimensity 7200 Pro when it comes to performance, but it does throttle slightly more.
• It’s not concerning, but it does.
• If you’re not a gamer and all you care about is if your phone runs smoothly and fast, both these phones are equally fast and smooth.
• It’s not like the Phone 2A Plus performs better than the Phone 2A.

Market Position

• More importantly, if you look at the under 30,000 price category, the Dimensity 7350 is the fourth most powerful chip behind the inside the Poco F6, the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 inside the Realme GT60, and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 inside the OnePlus Nord 4.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Battery and Charging Speed

• Talking about the battery, it’s the same 5,000 mAh battery inside both phones.
• However, the charging speeds, like I mentioned, are slightly faster now.
• You get 50W charging speeds as opposed to 45W charging speeds.
• With a compatible charger, you can charge this phone to 100% in 56 minutes, whereas this took 59 minutes.
• From the 3 minutes that you save on charging the Phone 2A Plus, take 5 seconds and hit the Subscribe button on Tracking Tech English. We need your support! Come on, go ahead, do it, guys!

Battery Life

• Concerning battery life, the Phone 2A offers better battery life compared to the Phone 2A Plus.
• I got about 6.5 hours on the Phone 2A Plus, whereas I got about 8 hours of screen-on time on the Phone 2A.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Camera Upgrades

1. Front Camera Upgrade
   • While the front camera on the Phone 2A Plus has been upgraded, I was wondering if the Dimensity 7350 has a better ISP or a different ISP.
   • Well, it actually doesn’t, but yes, Nothing has definitely made some changes to the camera algorithm on the Phone 2A Plus.
2. Daylight and Low-Light Performance
   • The shutter speed in daylight is pretty slow on both phones.
   • But when taking low-light shots, the Phone 2A Plus shoots slightly faster than the Phone 2A.
   • Of course, the selfie camera does offer more details on the Phone 2A Plus, and the skin tone colors are closer to real life as well.
   • The HDR performance has taken a hit for some odd reason—it looks better on the Phone 2A compared to the Phone 2A Plus.
3. Low-light selfies and Video
   • When you talk about low-light selfies, the Phone 2A Plus is incredibly better compared to the Phone 2A.
   • So is the quality of the 1080p 60 FPS videos captured by the Phone 2A Plus—it’s better than the Phone 2A because you get more details.
4. Ultra-Wide and Primary Cameras
   • The ultra-wide camera is the same quality on both phones, whether you shoot in daylight or low light.
   • The primary camera, on the other hand, has a few differences.
   • The detail retention is the same in daylight and low light.
   • But in low light, the Phone 2A Plus does have more exposure in the darker portions of the image, though it’s slightly better only when you pixel peep.

HDR and Color Modes

• There are four major differences on the Phone 2A Plus.
  • You get improved HDR performance, for one.
  • You also get two color modes: Natural and Vivid.
  • While I’m not a fan of the Vivid mode, the Natural color mode is close to neutral and better than the colors captured by the Phone 2A, which is slightly boosted—somewhere in between the Phone 2A Plus’s Natural and Vivid modes.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Video Recording

• Finally, what about the 4K 30 FPS video recording? Well, the quality is nearly identical on both.
• There’s not much to tell the two apart.

Design

• The camera performance on the Phone 2A Plus is actually “Plus” compared to the Phone 2A, but the differences are marginal.
• It’s evident to us because we were pixel-peeping and trying to figure out what the differences are. Normal users really won’t care.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Minor Design Changes

1. Appearance
   • If you look at the design, not much has changed.
   • Unless you peer closely, you’ll see that the bottom half now has a metallic finish.
   • Basically, the coil structure looks like metal, but it’s not actually metal.
   • I do like this gray color variant of the phone as well, but they very well could have launched the gray color variant for the Phone 2A—it’s just a CMF change, that’s about it.
2. Design Elements
   • The rest of the design and the functionalities are identical on both phones.
   • You get the same transparent plastic back with two halves, and you get the matte plastic frame as well.
   • The top half has the glyph lights that surround that centrally aligned camera module—it looks good.
   • There’s a USB Type-C 2.0 port at the bottom, and right next to it is a speaker grille.
   • You also get a SIM card tray that supports two nano SIM cards.
   • The similarities are such that the physical dimensions and the weight are exactly the same.
   • Yes, you get an IP54 rating on both as well.

Display Quality

• The display on these two phones is identical.
• You get the same uniform bezel look as well, and of course, it’s a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate, a peak brightness of 1,300 nits when you’re watching HDR content, and 1,100 nits when you take it outdoors in automatic brightness.
• You get HDR playback on YouTube, but not on Netflix.
• The color accuracy on these panels is actually not up to the mark—it’s kind of inaccurate, and the Delta E is pretty off.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Skin Tone and Color Consistency

• Because of this Natural mode, you also get better skin tones on the Phone 2A Plus compared to the Phone 2A.
• One of the things that we noticed is that the color consistency between the primary and ultra-wide has been slightly improved on the Phone 2A Plus compared to the Phone 2A.

Speakers and Fingerprint Scanner

• The stereo speakers are pretty loud on both—they sound rich as well.
• Take a listen to it for yourself, and let me know what you think, but there’s no difference.
• The in-display fingerprint scanner works similarly on both phones.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Haptics

• The only thing that feels slightly different is the vibration motor on the Phone 2A Plus.
• The vibration feedback feels tight, and the precision is slightly better.
• I don’t know if it’s a placebo, but I feel like it’s slightly better.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Software and Updates

• You get Nothing OS 2.6 based on Android 14 on both phones.
• Nothing has promised 3 years of software updates and 4 years of security patches, which is great.
• The game mode has been updated—you can now lock brightness, and when someone calls you while gaming, you’ll see a pop-up with their name and picture.
• You also get the glyph progress feature that’s now been updated to support Google Calendar as well.

Nothing Phone 2A vs Nothing Phone 2A Plus Verdict: Minor Differences

• To answer the big question, should you feel outdated now that the Nothing Phone 2A Plus is out? Absolutely not, because the differences between the two are extremely minor.
• Unless you really care about performance and camera quality being slightly better, there’s no reason for you to buy the Nothing Phone 2A Plus.

Conclusion

If you’re buying a phone for under 30,000 INR, the Nothing Phone 2A Plus is a good option, but I think the Phone 2A is better value. I’d say if you’re saving money, the standard 2A is a great buy. For more insights on the latest tech and gadgets, be sure to visit Taza Morning and Trending Night. Whether you’re looking for smartwatches or other tech reviews, we’ve got you covered!