Summary
- Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro to launch on March 4 at MWC Barcelona.
- A teaser image hints at a unique feature resembling a camera button, bringing back physical controls for a better user experience.
- Other Nothing Phone 3a leaks suggest a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset, 5,000 mAh battery, and a triple-camera setup, promising significant upgrades.
Nothing’s next phone launch — the Nothing Phone 3a series — is about a month away. This means it’s about time the company started teasing us with borderline ambiguous hints. Historically, this approach has often underdelivered, but things are shaping up to be not only different but also exciting this time.
No Thanks, Keep Reading
The Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro will go official on March 4 at MWC Barcelona. Looking at past trends, these could end up being the brand’s best-selling phones to date. Among other features, here’s one that we did not see coming but is likely to be a first in the mid-range segment: a dedicated camera control key.
Nothing we’ve not seen before
A new teaser by Nothing on X shows an x-ray-like image of a phone with an additional button under the power button. It’s comparatively shorter and wider. The post is captioned “Your second memory, one click away”, which may lead some to believe that it has got something to do with AI. However, without any major practical use cases and knowing the company’s anti-AI stand, it’s more likely that the Nothing Phone 3a series has a dedicated camera button. In some ways, a photo could also be called a “second memory” if we are to be a little imaginative.
Apple’s iPhone 16 series from 2024 brought back camera controls on smartphones. The implementation, however, left a lot to be desired. Just months later, the Oppo Find X8 Pro brought similar functionality to Android with a much simpler experience. Knowing how much Nothing loves talking about smartphone user experience, we hope the Phone 3a’s dedicated camera button implementation is closer to Oppo’s than to Apple’s.
Other leaks on the upcoming Nothing phones suggest that they will be powered by a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset, have a 5,000 mAh battery, an updated glyph interface on the back, and a new triple-camera setup, including a telephoto shooter — a first for Nothing. For now, it’s unclear how the Pro and non-Pro Nothing Phone 3a will differ.
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