The Phone 3a Lite brings Nothing’s unique look and feel to an entry-level price point

London, UK-based consumer technology company Nothing has officially launched its first-ever entry-level smartphone, the Phone 3a Lite. Externally, the device takes design cues from both the CMF Phone 2 Pro (a budget handset from Nothing’s spin-off brand CMF), and from the higher-end Phone 3 (Nothing’s current flagship phone offering). The combination of a plastic frame, transparent rear panel glass, and offset camera modules make for a unique aesthetic — one that certainly leans into Nothing’s signature design DNA.

Internally, the Phone 3a Lite ships with a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro processor, a 5,000 mAh battery, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, IP54 dust and water resistance, and a full HD 7.66-inch AMOLED display panel capable of 3,000 nits of peak brightness and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. The triple rear camera setup consists of a 50-megapixel wide-angle shooter, a 50-megapixel telephoto lens, and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide sensor.

Nothing has confirmed that the handset won’t be making its way over to North America.

Software wise, the Phone 3a Lite comes with Nothing OS 3.5 out of the box, which is based off of Android 15. Nothing promises three years of platform updates, in addition to six years of security patches. An upgrade to Nothing OS 4 based off of Android 16 is expected to land sometime early next year.

The base Nothing Phone 3a Lite is priced at £249 / €249 for the 8GB of RAM and 128G of ROM configuration, with a step-up 8GB + 256GB variant coming in at £279 / €279. Both variants are available in a choice of white and black colorways, with sales in “select markets” beginning on October 29 through the company’s online storefront. Nothing has confirmed that the handset won’t be making its way over to North America, which is a bit of a shame: the handset looks to be a solid, budget-friendly Android phone that doesn’t sacrifice Nothing’s core identity.

The Phone 3a Lite is Nothing’s first entry-level smartphone

The handset is slick, but it does ship with lock screen ads out of the box

As with other Nothing smartphones, the 3a Lite comes with an on-board Essential Key, which acts as a quick-access button for launching the company’s AI-powered Essential Space feature. Unlike higher-end Nothing phones, which include either Glyph Interface LED lights or a Glyph Matrix display on their rear panels, the 3a Lite offers a single Glyph Light. This module, Nothing says, is “inspired by classic notification lights,” and it offers customizable light sequences, access to Flip to Glyph for notification silencing, and other associated perks.

It’s worth mentioning that to achieve its £249 / €249 price point, Nothing has opted to ship the Phone 3a Lite with what can essentially be described as lock screen advertisements. The feature is called Lock Glimpse, and it feeds dynamic content to the user with links to the internet to learn more. Thankfully, the feature can be toggled off directly via Settings.

Elsewhere, the device is pre-installed with several third-party applications, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. While hardly egregious, I do find this mix of bloatware and Lock Glimpse to put a damper on the otherwise lean, mean, and clean Nothing OS software skin that makes other Nothing phones such a joy to use. Of course, lock screen ads and preinstalled bloatware are nothing new in the mobile space, and, overall, the company pushing to make its handsets accessible to as many consumers as possible is a net positive in my eyes.