Latest news with #3APro
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
Nothing Phone 3A Pro Review: Flashy Design Is the Cherry on Top
The Nothing Phone 3A Pro is cut from the same cloth as the rest of London-based Nothing's handsets. This midrange Android phone packs solid specs and a suite of flashing LED lights and tops it off with an affordable price tag. It has a lot to offer, but competition in the midrange market has never been more fierce, with Google's recent Pixel 9A promising similar all-round performance for a closely matched $499 price. Nothing actually offers two phones in its 3A range; the base Phone 3A and the slightly more premium 3A Pro, which I tested for four weeks for this review. The phones are nearly identical, with the processor, display and batteries shared between them both. The 3A Pro adds in a more capable camera setup, which includes a telephoto lens. At a time when Google, Samsung, Motorola and Apple are all releasing affordable phone options for their customers, Nothing's 3A and 3A Pro stand out for their attractive design, excellent value and solid cameras, especially as the US puts tariffs on imported goods. Read more: Best Android Phone of 2025 The Nothing Phone 3A starts at $379 with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. In the UK, you can pick up a pared-back model with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage for only £329, or get the 12GB/256GB model for £379. The Phone 3A Pro costs $459 (£449) for the 12GB/256GB model. Both phones pack a lot of value for their cost, and have plenty of power for everyday tasks, vibrant displays that are great for gaming and cameras that are good enough for casual snaps on your days out in the summer sun. How they stack up against the new Samsung Galaxy A series and Pixel 9A remains to be seen when we're able to finally test Google and Samsung's newest budget phones. The design is the first thing that stands out about these phones. The glass back reveals screws and data ribbons, giving it an industrial look that I quite like. It might not be the style I'd choose in a phone, but it's certainly nice to see designs that go beyond the plain gray looks of most phones. The LED lights -- which Nothing calls the Glyph -- are strewn around the camera units on both phones and light up to alert you to incoming notifications. They're a fun addition to Nothing's phones that you won't find anywhere else. Both phones have 6.7-inch displays that looked bright and vibrant during my testing time. They did a decent job of countering the overhead Barcelona sunshine, as well as the cloudy skies of my Edinburgh home. If you're using these phones under the bright midday California sun, you may find them more difficult to view, but I've certainly seen worse for this price. With an IP68 water-resistance rating, taking calls in the pouring rain (again: not you, California) won't be a problem. Read more: Samsung Shows Off Quirky Pincer Phone, Folding Console and Flexi Briefcase Concepts Powering the 3A series is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7S Gen 3 processor, which provided fairly low scores on our benchmark tests for both processor and graphics performance. It fell behind both the more expensive iPhone 16E and last year's Pixel 8A with its graphics score being particularly underwhelming. But benchmark tests only tell some of the story. In real-world use I found both phones to run smoothly with plenty of power for everyday essentials like emailing and web browsing. Even demanding games like PUBG played perfectly well with high resolution settings (I even managed to get a "winner, winner, chicken dinner!") so don't think that opting for a midrange phone means sacrificing performance. While it might not be a benchmark winner, the Nothing Phone 3A has enough power to tackle most things you'd want to use it for. The Phone 3A Pro's 5,000-mAh battery didn't impress on our battery drain tests, but it's far from the worst I've seen. Its battery prowess is more in line with Samsung's affordable Galaxy A25 5G from last year, but falling short of more premium phones like the iPhone 16 or Galaxy S25. Getting a full day of use shouldn't be a problem here, as long as you avoid playing games or streaming video for hours on end but like most phones, you'll almost certainly want to give it a full charge each night. Read more: Oppo Find N5 Review: A Remarkably Thin and Surprisingly Practical Foldable Phone Both phones run Android 15 at their core, but Nothing has heavily customized the interface with a stark, monochrome aesthetic. It looks sleek, but I sometimes struggle to distinguish app icons when they're reduced to minimalist black-and-white buttons. Still, you might be into the mono look, and if not, you can customize the layout to your liking. Nothing promises a total of six years of software and security support, which is good, especially considering the price. Gemini Advanced, Gemini Live and Circle to Search are all available to use on the phones, and while Nothing hasn't thrown in much of its own AI stuff (for which I'm grateful), it has launched one tool that I quite like. Called the Essential Space, it's designed as a central hub for storing your thoughts, notes, screenshots and ideas throughout the day. See some shoes you like? Open the camera and use the dedicated Essential Space button on the side of the phone to save a shot -- along with your voice note about them -- to your Space. Need to buy brie, vodka, party hats and snake food on the way home? A long button press will let you dictate your fascinating shopping list to add it to your Space to check later. It's a nice idea in theory, and while it's had a couple of minor updates since its launch in March, it still seems limited in its functionality. Essential Space is essentially a hub for screenshots and voice notes, but I see its potential usefulness in providing a dumping ground for all your thoughts throughout the day. It's refreshing to find a feature that's both unique and useful and the fact that it makes use of a dedicated hardware button on the phone means it's easy to use rather than being tucked away out of sight. Nothing emphasizes that Essential Space is still in beta, with more features on the way -- so keep an eye on this space. Read more: We've Found 6 MWC 2025 Products You Can Actually Start Ordering Right Now Both phones have 50-megapixel main cameras and I'm pleased with some of the shots I've been able to get from the Pro model. Images are sharp with accurate, natural colors. While it's no competition to today's top camera phones, it offers a solid experience if you want to take simple snaps of your friends at the beach, rather than looking to take the photography world by storm. The bigger question will be how the phone's camera stacks up against the Pixel 9A and new Galaxy A series, but we'll need to wait to get all three phones side-by-side to answer that. While the base 3A packs a 50 megapixel telephoto camera capable of 2x optical zoom, the 3A Pro's 50-megapixel periscope camera offers 3x optical zoom, with 6x "in-sensor" zoom, which effectively crops the sensor out to achieve a longer zoom. The base Phone 3A has a 32-megapixel front-facing camera and the 3A Pro has a 50-megapixel sensor that's larger to help take sharper shots. Nothing has done a good job creating a phone that offers all of the essentials for an affordable price. Its processor can tackle all of your everyday essentials, its cameras take good-enough snaps and the six years of software support is a nice touch. The flashy design is the cherry on top. I'm surprised by how little difference there is between the two models. With the same processor, display and 5,000-mAh battery (with 50W fast charging), the main distinctions are the added periscope zoom and the higher-resolution front-facing camera. Is photography important to you? If so, maybe spring for the Pro. Otherwise, save yourself a few bucks and go for the base model. If you're desperate for a new sub-$500 phone right now, either option is certainly worth considering. However, if you can stand to wait a few weeks, it's worth seeing just how well Google and Samsung's new affordable models stack up. Every phone tested by CNET's reviews team is used in the real world. We test a phone's features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it's bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP-rating for water-resistance. We push the processor's performance to the extremes, using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark as well as our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates. All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions, from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using the phone daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Yahoo
Best of MWC 2025: Affordable Phones and Cool Camera Concepts
2025's Mobile World Congress has once again witnessed the tech world flock to the busy streets of Barcelona to tout their latest, greatest innovations. And we've seen plenty in our time here, from quirky concepts through to products you can actually buy. Of course, we've also eaten our weight in tapas and maybe tried a few local beers. But as the show draws to a close, we wanted to take a look at our top products we saw. While not all of them are things you can go and spend your money on, they're all innovative in their own way, offering a design, an idea or even just a price that makes them stand out from the crowd. Here then are CNET's top picks from Mobile World Congress 2025. London-based tech firm Nothing is best-known for its affordable Android phones that light up on the back and the new Phone 3A and 3A Pro don't stray from that format. The two models share most of their key specs, including a decent Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor, vibrant 6.7-inch display and 5,000mAh battery. And while both have 50-megapixel main cameras, the 3A Pro has a more advanced autofocus system and has a periscope camera for better-looking zoom shots. I put it to the test around Barcelona and I got some pretty cool images. Crucially though, both phones are also affordable, starting at just $379 for the 3A or $459 for the 3A Pro. Not bad for phones that pack in Google's Gemini AI tools and offer six years of software and security support. We can't talk about affordable phones without also talking about Samsung's new Galaxy A series. The company took the wraps off the latest additions to the range, including the $300 Galaxy A26, the $400 A36 and the $500 A56 (why is there no A46, I wonder?). While all three have the same 6.7-inch display and 5,000mAh batteries, spending more on the higher-end models will secure you more powerful processors, more RAM and slightly more potent camera setups. Of course, AI features baked into Samsung's One UI -- as well as Google Gemini and Circle to Search -- are available on all three. While Xiaomi's 15 Ultra with its awesome rear cameras might really be the best phone of the show, it's not that far removed from last year's 14 Ultra and I had my eye on something else from Xiaomi. Its "modular optical system" as Xiaomi calls it, is essentially a camera lens and large sensor that attaches to the phone, giving you a pro-quality imaging setup, but still using your phone as the brain to take advantage of instant editing and social sharing. It's not dissimilar to Sony's QX10 from 2013, which was arguably ahead of its time, but I really liked it as an idea. Sadly, Xiaomi's lens is very much being shown off as a concept, but I really hope this one makes it as far as the shop shelves. As a professional photographer, I love the idea of having something that lets me get higher-quality images than my phone, without the added bulk of carrying a full-sized camera and lens setup. While we normally talk about which phones have the most power, or the best camera or the longest battery life, HMD's Fusion X1 serves a very different purpose. It's aimed squarely at young teens and allows the parents to limit access -- or screen time -- from their own phone in order to help them develop a healthier relationship with technology and social media. "Whereas most phones with parental controls either rely on an app that can be deleted or bypassed, the Fusion X1 combines app-based controls baked deep into its version of Android OS." CNET's Katie Collins explains in her hands on with the device. "This creates a locked-down safe space where kids can still have limited access to Snapchat, WhatsApp and TikTok -- if their parents agree." The HMD Fusion X1 will be available in May for £229 (about $290 converted). Projectors tend to be bulky items you'd usually mount to your ceiling and leave in place. The Aurzen Zip is a different beast altogether. Utilizing a folding mechanism that makes it look a bit like a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, the Zip can stand on a surface and project your movies up to 80 inches in size and then fold down into something small enough to fit in your pocket. It works over Apple AirPlay, allowing you to stream Netflix videos from your iPhone, though an HDMI adapter will also be available if you want to plug in your laptop to stream other content. Its battery provides up to 1.5 hours of use, so watching Dune 2 will require you to plug it in, but it features fast charge to get the juice back quickly. While its 720p resolution won't suit enthusiastic cinemaphiles, its small size makes it great for taking round to your friend's place for a movie night, travelling with, or simply for those of you who don't have room for a full-size projector in your apartment. Following its successful Kickstarter launch, the Zip will go on general sale later this month from $300. While rumors suggest Samsung's teased Galaxy S25 Edge may be just under 6mm thick, Tecno's Spark Slim concept takes that even further. At just 5.75mm it purports to be the world's slimmest phone and in person it really does look almost bizarrely skinny. Often, slim phones compromise on battery life, simply due to the nature of there being less space to fit all those cells. But somehow, Tecno has managed to squeeze in a whopping 5,200mAh battery, along with 50 megapixel main and ultrawide cameras. It's very much still a concept, so some of these specs should be taken with a pinch of salt. Still, I'd love to see a phone like this that really focuses on being easier to hold -- and easier to slide into the pocket of my skinny jeans. My only concern with it being quite so thin is how easily it might bend, especially if I sit on it with it in my back pocket. It'd be a nasty way for any phone to go. Lenovo had a host of concept devices at the show this year, including some neat-looking screens you can attach to your laptop's main screen to extend your workspace. But our favorite is the solar-powered laptop which features an array of solar cells on its lid. Lenovo reckon that these cells are especially efficient and can provide enough power for an hour of video playback after just 20 minutes of direct sunlight. Still, as CNET's Josh Goldman points out, it's less about powering the laptop entirely off solar, and more about extending the battery life when you can. It's certainly a neat idea, though I can't imagine it being especially practical in everyday use. For one, who wants to work on their laptop in bright sunlight? And crucially, when you're working on your laptop, the back of the screen will likely be angled down, away from the sunlight, so it can only really recharge when it's closed and not in use. Still, we're always super keen to hear about ways that tech firms are making use of renewable energy, even if it's sticking solar panels on a poncho.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Yahoo
The Nothing Phone 3A and 3A Pro Are Fun, Flashy and Affordable
London-based tech firm Nothing has delighted us before with its light-up Android phones that provide some much-needed frivolity in a world full of plain, gray smartphones that take themselves too seriously. The Nothing Phone 3A and 3A Pro are cut from the same cloth as their predecessors, packing solid all-round specs, affordable price tags and an LED-infused design that stands out from the crowd. The Nothing Phone 3A is the base model in the new series, starting at $379 with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. In the UK, you can pick up a pared-back model with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage for only £329, or get the 12GB/256GB model for £379. The Phone 3A Pro has a more full-featured camera system than the base 3A, but shares the same processor, display and batteries. It costs $459 (£449) for the 12GB/256GB model. I've been testing the Nothing Phone 3A Pro while on the ground in Barcelona for this year's Mobile World Congress. I'm quite keen on the phone's balance of price and performance and look forward to seeing how it stacks up against other affordable phones like the new Samsung Galaxy A series and the Google Pixel 8A -- as well as pricier budget phones like the iPhone 16E. The design is the first thing that stands out about these phones. The glass back reveals screws and data ribbons, giving it an industrial look that I find appealing. The LED lights -- which Nothing calls the Glyph -- are strewn around the camera units on both phones and light up to alert you to incoming notifications. They're a fun addition to Nothing's phones that you won't find anywhere else. Both phones have 6.7-inch displays that looked bright and vibrant during my hands-on time, easily countering Barcelona's gray, overcast weather. Those under the bright midday California sun may have a different experience. With an IP68 water resistance rating, taking calls in the pouring rain (again, not you, California) won't be a problem. Powering the 3A series is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor, which provided decent scores on our benchmark tests, especially considering the price of the phones. While not topping today's flagship phones, the 3A Pro's results are more in line with the Pixel 8A and Galaxy A35 5G, both of which are great phones. In everyday use, the phone has plenty of power for essential tasks, while games like Alto's Odyssey and Vampire Survivors ran smoothly. Both phones run Android 15 at their core, but Nothing has heavily customized the interface with a stark, monochrome aesthetic. It looks sleek, but I sometimes struggle to distinguish app icons when they're reduced to minimalist black-and-white buttons. Still, you might be into the mono look, and if not, you can customize the layout to your liking. Nothing promises a total of six years of software and security support, which is good, especially considering the price. Gemini Advanced, Gemini Live and Circle to Search are all available to use on the phones, and while Nothing hasn't thrown in much of its own AI stuff (for which I'm grateful), it has launched one tool that I quite like. Called the Essential Space, it's designed as a central hub for storing your thoughts, notes, screenshots and ideas throughout the day. See some shoes you like? Open the camera and use the dedicated Essential Space button on the side of the phone to save a shot -- along with your voice note about them -- to your Space. Need to buy brie, vodka, party hats and snake food on the way home? A long button press will let you dictate your shopping list to add it to your Space to check later. It's a nice idea in theory, though right now it seems limited in its functionality. Essential Space is essentially a hub for screenshots and voice notes, but I see its potential. It's refreshing to find a feature that's both unique and genuinely useful. Nothing emphasizes that Essential Space is still in beta, with more features on the way -- so keep an eye on this space. Both phones pack 50-megapixel main cameras and while Nothing says the Pro model has upgraded autofocus and dynamic range, I haven't yet been able to compare them, so my thoughts here are based on my use of the Phone 3A Pro. While the base 3A packs a 50 megapixel telephoto camera capable of 2x optical zoom, the 3A Pro's 50-megapixel periscope camera offers 3x optical zoom, with 6x "in-sensor" zoom, which effectively crops the sensor out to achieve a longer zoom. The base Phone 3A has a 32-megapixel front-facing camera and the 3A Pro has a 50-megapixel sensor that's larger to help take sharper shots. I'm surprised by how little difference there is between the two models. With the same processor, display, and 5,000mAh battery (with 50W fast charging), the main distinctions are the added periscope zoom and the higher-resolution front-facing camera. Is photography important to you? If so, maybe spring for the pro. Otherwise, save yourself a few bucks and go for the base model. Both phones seem to offer a solid overall experience at a genuinely reasonable price. At $379, it's a great deal for a phone that can handle almost anything -- especially when Apple considers $599 "affordable" for the iPhone 16E. However, unless you need a new phone right away, it may be worth waiting to see how Samsung's newly announced Galaxy A26 and A36 stack up, or if Google's Pixel 9A is just around the corner.
