Google Pixel 9a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: Midrange Marvels Shake Up the Smartphone Market

I found an Android phone that can convince iPhone users to make the switch - and it's not a flagship

The lack of wireless charging and IP rating is easy to shoulder, but not the lack of retail presence. There's no greater reality check for a tech journalist than when you're at a family gathering, set your phone on the dining table, and the gravitational pull of innovation does its thing. The curious eyes, familiar questions, and impatient hands of younger cousins are almost always guaranteed when I'm testing the latest iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, etc. But lately, this phenomenon has been happening less and less. Also: I thought the budget phone market was in shambles - then I held Google's latest Pixel Even foldable phones have lost some of their appeal to mainstream eyes, which I blame on stagnant, never-decreasing prices. But the latest device I've been testing, the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, seems to have reinvigorated things. Perhaps it's the transparent back design, the glowing Glyph lights, or the absolute island of a camera bump that screams, "I take good photos." Everyone seems to have a different answer to this one. After testing the Nothing Phone 3a Pro for almost a month now, I get the discourse. But one thing's for certain: At $459, you can't find a more well-rounded handset than this. Nothing's products have led the way in industrial design -- as far as creativity and detail are concerned -- since the company's inception, and the Phone 3a Pro is no different. Whether you opt for the all-black finish or the slightly more exciting gray, the phone sports a transparent backing that shields the various screws, data ribbons, and components underneath. Like previous Nothing phones, the Glyph interface is present, a unique assembly of LED lights that blink to indicate incoming notifications, alerts, and timers. Also: Nothing Phone 1 review: You ain't seen Nothing yet Nothing made a much bigger deal of its glowing back cover design when it first launched the Phone 1 almost three years ago, but since then, the smart interface has taken a back seat. I don't mind that, as it still serves its purpose of being a display-off status indicator without putting on a disrupting light show every time. In fact, the ability to set a constant beacon only for specific (hopefully important) notifications, like text messages from my wife, has allowed me to stay more focused on other tasks. It's the best thing since the original notification LED on phones. Remember those? The rest of the design is akin to last year's Phone 2a and 2a Plus, especially if you opt for the similar-looking gray finish (see above). However, holding the two generations in hand reveals some major hardware shifts: The back cover is now made of glass instead of plastic, and the large camera bump makes the Phone 3a Pro much more top-heavy. Also: The best Android phones to buy in 2025 In a surprising turn of events, I'd argue that the Phone 3a Pro is Nothing's least ergonomic handset yet, with a bulge that only accentuates the phone's uneven weight distribution. Whether scrolling news stories on the subway or navigating the New York City streets with one hand, I'd often have to shift my fingers around to get a secure grip on the phone. A clear case, especially one that makes the camera bump feel more flush, may remedy this. On the opposite end -- and you'll have to excuse my geekery for a moment -- I quite adore the button placement on the Phone 3a Pro. The right-side power and Essential keys and left-side volume rocker are situated around the center of the frame, so they're always just a click away, whether you're holding the phone with your left or right hand. Notably, the new Essential key, which serves as an AI-assisted archiver, is treated with a gloss coating instead of matte, so it's easier to discern. The Essential key, which powers Nothing's Essential Space, is one of the more practical AI features I've tested. A click of the button takes a screenshot, the AI model sorts out any text or visual information, and you can attach a note or voice recording for future reference. It's very similar to Google's Pixel Screenshots app, but the ability to make commands takes Nothing's interpretation a step further. Also: I tried Google's Pixel Screenshots and it's everything I'd want an AI feature to be While in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, I'd frequently save the location of local restaurants and meeting venues by dictating, "Remind me to come here at the scheduled time." About 30 minutes before an event took place, I'd get the reminder on the phone along with the screenshot. While the feature works as intended, it's not perfect. In an ideal world, Essential Space can be synced to third-party services like Google Calendar or Gmail. Then, I'd get reminders even if I didn't have my Nothing phone in hand. Regardless, I commend Nothing for keeping its AI initiatives subtle, at least to start. Instead of pushing the Phone 3a Pro as the next best device to help you summarize emails and draft text messages, the company is upstaging every other aspect of it, including its camera system and performance. The big camera upgrade, and what separates the Phone 3a Pro from the Phone 3a, is the new 50MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. The addition of a dedicated periscope camera means you can capture more distant subjects without relying on digital cropping. I snapped several photos with the new camera while roaming the streets of Barcelona. I found the output to be competitive with my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Xiaomi 15 Ultra, both of which cost about three times the price. Also: I replaced my $3,500 Sony camera with 200MP Android phone - and it's spoiled me big time That's only if you're not pixel-peeping, of course, as the Phone 3a Pro can capture moments in relatively natural color and contrast levels but falls short in sharpness and detail. This is especially the case with low-light photography when the dimness of the environment makes it difficult for the camera to reproduce images accurately. Remember that this is a $459 phone, so I'd still rate its output in the B tier; the main wide and telephoto lenses will serve you much better than what you get from similarly priced Motorola and Samsung handsets. Regarding day-to-day performance, the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, paired with 12GB of RAM, on the Phone 3a Pro got by most tasks I threw at it, including loading and quick-scrolling through social media feeds, responding to emails, streaming movies and videos, and mobile gaming. Aside from the occasional stutter and dropped frames when browsing text-heavy services like Reddit, I never felt frustrated when using the phone. It helps that Nothing OS is on the cleaner end of the Android spectrum, with virtually no bloatware or excessive features. (You can even opt for a Stock Android aesthetic instead of Nothing's dot-matrix theming, though I'd recommend being more adventurous when using a phone like this.) Also: Nothing's new budget Android phones make Samsung and Apple look bad Lastly, the Phone 3a Pro is both an endurance and charging champ, with a 5,000mAh battery that rivals flagships and a 50W wired charging rate that beats them. However, you don't get a compatible charging brick in the box, and the omission of wireless charging will leave users coming from competing midrange phones like the Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) and Google Pixel 8a scratching their heads. That's to say, the Nothing Phone 3a Pro checks a lot of boxes, more than any phone in its price range, but its most unique features, from the polarizing design to the Essential key, make it just as compelling for tech enthusiasts using flagship phones. Over the course of testing, I even witnessed several iPhone users contemplating switching to the Phone 3a Pro, whether it was for the digital well-being that the Glyph lights promote or the fashionable user interface. There is one catch with the Phone 3a Pro and Nothing phones in general: the US Beta Program, a sign-up-to-buy procedure that's only accessible through Nothing's web store. (You could reason that this is one way the company is cutting costs with its US phones.) While buying directly from Nothing still comes with your standard manufacturer's warranty and a 30-day return period, the aftersales support (read: finding replacement parts and connecting to different cellular networks) is notably less structured than at your typical carrier store. Trade-in deals are also less aggressive, and compared to the traditional installment plan, you'll be buying the phone off-contract and unlocked.

Google Pixel 9a -- 5 reasons to buy and 3 reasons to skip

Though Google just announced the Pixel 9a, you can't buy the latest low-cost Pixel model just yet. Though based on the phone's specs and price, there's lots of reasons to be excited. The Pixel 9a goes on sale at some point in April -- Google will give a specific date later on. And the phone promises some notable changes, including a whole new design. And as you'd imagine, the improvements touch on camera performance and AI -- two major reasons to pick up a Pixel phone. We've only had some limited hands-on time with the Pixel 9a, but we have some first impressions about what might make this phone a good option to buy. But we also see a few reasons why you might want to look elsewhere -- or at least wait our full Pixel 9a review to make your decision. In the meantime, here's what's to like about the Pixel 9a and areas where the phone comes up short on paper. Phones are getting more expensive. That goes for flagship models, including Google's own Pixel 9, which debuted last fall with a $100 price hike over its predecessor. Midrange phones are under pricing pressure as well, and you only have to look back to last month's iPhone 16e debut to see Apple's cheapest phone jump from a $429 starting price all the way up to $599. The Pixel 9a bucks that trend. It's still $499, the same price as the Pixel 8a that came before it. And pricing in the U.K. and Australia -- £499 and AU$849, respectively -- has remained the same, too. Meanwhile, features have expanded over the Pixel 8a, raising the value that Google delivers in its midrange model. The Pixel 9a introduces some important camera changes. The main camera on the Pixel 9a uses a 48MP sensor, compared to the 64MP sensor previous Pixel A models have used recently. The more significant spec is the aperture on the Pixel 9a's main camera. It's an f/1.7 aperture, compared to f/1.89 on the Pixel 8a camera. That should allow the Pixel 9a to capture more light, resulting in more detailed images particularly when the lights are low. That's not the only improvement. The Pixel 9a adds a Macro mode and support for astrophotography -- two first-time additions to the Pixel A series. Add it together, throw in some AI-powered photo editing features, and the Pixel 9a seems like it's on the path to rank among the best camera phones. The Pixel 9a features a Tensor G4 chipset, just like the rest of the Pixel 9 lineup that debuted last year. And that means most -- though not all -- of the AI capabilities introduced with that chipset are available to Pixel 9a owners. Some of the more compelling AI features include Add Me, for inserting yourself into group shots, and Pixel Studio, which uses text prompts to create images. hanks to a Pixel feature drop, you'll be able to create images with people in them, too -- a capability missing from the Pixel 9 when it first launched. Other tools like Reimagine for AI-powered photo edits and Gemini live are present and accounted for, too. And all that's on top of the Magic Eraser editing features and Call Assist phone call management that have already been a part of past Pixel phones. All told, the Pixel 9a gives you an AI powerhouse for a fraction of the cost of a similarly-equipped flagship phone. One of the missing features confirmed by Google is Pixel Screenshots, the Pixel 9 app that searches and manages any screen captures saved on your phone. If there's one thing we've knocked Pixel for phones in recent years, it's the battery life. Google is taking advantage of the Pixel 9a's larger size to include a bigger battery with its new phone. The Pixel 9a features a 5,100 mAh power pack, which is nearly 14% larger than the one inside the Pixel 8a. Pair that with a more efficient Tensor G4 processor, and you should see improved battery life for the Pixel 9a. That would be a welcome development. The Pixel 8a posted a result that was only an hour better than the average smartphone on our custom battery test. If the Pixel 9a can improve on that -- and there's no reason to think it wont -- it becomes an even more compelling option for bargain hunters who already benefit from the strong camera and AI features. Midrange phones have traditionally gotten short-changed when it comes to software support, with phone makers committing to more updates for their flagship devices. That's changing as midrange phones become more popular, and Google is primarily responsible for leading the way. Like the Pixel 8a before it, the Pixel 9a comes with a guarantee of seven years for both software and security updates. That's a better offer than any phone in this price range, even after Samsung upped support for the Galaxy A56, Galaxy A36 and Galaxy A26 to six years. the new Nothing Phone 3a models -- which we'll go back to in a moment -- offer six years of security support but only three Android updates. So not only will you get a full-featured phone for less than $500 with the Pixel 9a, you can also count on it still running the latest version of Android past the end of this current decade. Google's move to its own Tensor silicon has been crucial to supporting all those AI-powered features available on the Pixel. But the Tensor doesn't offer a lot of performance muscle, and that's not likely to change with the Tensor G4 powering the Pixel 9a. We know this because we've already benchmarked the Tensor G4 inside the Pixel 9 flagships. And it doesn't keep pace with the Snapdragon 8 Elite or Apple A18 silicon powering some of our top picks for the best phones. The Pixel 9a figures to also lag behind those phones. If there's a silver lining it's that the Tensor G4 does figure to compare well against the chips found in many midrange phones, such as the Exynos 1580 inside the Galaxy A56. But slightly more expensive alternatives like the iPhone 16e and OnePlus 13R boast more powerful chips -- the A18 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, respectively -- and should handily outperform the Tensor G4. The Pixel 9a figures to handle everyday tasks well. But if you depend on a lot of power-intensive apps, you're probably going to want to look elsewhere. Normally, we wouldn't ding the Pixel 9a for offering just a dual-camera setup. After all, that's what you'll find on most phones in the price range. But dedicated telephoto lenses are starting to find their way onto midrange models. And in some cases, those phones cost less than the Pixel 9a. Both the Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro feature telephoto cameras -- in the Pro's case, it's a periscope-style lens capable of a 3x optical zoom. While the Super Res Zoom feature on the Pixel 9a figures to remove a lot of fuzziness from close-ups, you'd have to think a dedicated telephoto lens is better suited to the task of zooming in. We'll find out for certain when we compare the cameras on the Pixel 9a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro. I'm going to put my cards on the table here -- I loved the look of recent Pixel phones that featured the horizontal camera bar. In a world of similar-looking smartphones, the camera bar added a touch of originality, and it also kept Pixels from wobbling when you set them down screen side up on a table. The Pixel 9a ditches that distinctive look in favor of a more conventional camera array. It's not without its charms -- the lens are pretty flush against the back of the Pixel 9a instead of jutting out like cameras do on other phones -- but if you appreciate the design of recent Pixels, you may be disappointed by the Pixel 9a's new appearance. Though we still need to fully test the Pixel 9a, it's clear right off the bat that this phone has a lot going for it. There are some trade-offs that may prove to be sticking points for some would-be owners, but the Pixel 9a packs in a lot of features into a sub-$500 package. Stay tuned for our full assessment as we get closer to the phone's April release.