Phone (2a)

Review after 1 month of heavy usage:

In short:
It feels like a flagship, handles like an iPhone, but with a great battery life and a splash of personality.

In long:
I pre-ordered on the day of the event. I was very excited to get mine as soon as possible. I have been using the same phone for over 5 years straight, and wanted to write my own applications, and do fun things Apple wouldn't let me do on a phone.

Coming from a 5 year old iPhone X with 64GB, it is great to have 256GB with 12GB ram at this price point, this noticeably increases what you can multitask between. Thx Nothing to not cheap out on this in all cheaper phones like some other brands.
It is amazing to have a processor that handles heavy usage without breaking a sweat, except when stress testing.
The camera's equal to those of my iPhone at day (or surpass it, I'm not a professional photographer but have nothing to complain about here, not even factoring in the price), but ABSOLUTELY CRUSH the iPhone at night!!!
I didn't expect to be taking pictures of the stars!!!
The Battery handles everything I throw at it.
It is so nice to be able to play games without having to worry at all about getting through the day.

Nothing OS is also amazing, and the reason I'm pretty sure my next phone will be a Nothing phone to: the monochrome stylish icons, the widgets and the general design, are just amazing.
This is the first time I have an android phone where I'm not spending enormous amounts of time trying to get it to look acceptable. This was the main reason I switched to an iPhone about 6 years ago!
Features like pop-over are a game changer for multitasking. Split-screen has always been a gimmick.

The equal boarders all around the phone are unprecedented at this price point.
The back is nice to look at, without being too busy.
The camera layout may look odd, but the phone laying stable on a table is more than worth it.
The glyphs retain all their useful features here and are straight up useful: it is the reinvention of the notification light from ages ago, but in typical Nothing fashion: in a stylish way! And on the back where it today has more purpose with the always on display.
The essential glyph feature especially is amazing.

The high refresh rate of the display is great, and although the processor can't run Minecraft at 120fps, it is amazing for scrolling, and in apps like WhatsApp, on the home screen or in the browser you generally can't tell a difference with more expensive phones, besides the occasional little stutter.

In the beginning I did notice the lack of base in the speakers compared to my €900 iPhone X, but it compensates by never clipping the sound (which the iPhone did), and having an amazing soundstage. I got used to this over time and now it doesn't bother me at all anymore.

The haptics are great.
The mic is good (enough).

I previously didn't want to buy any phone larger than 6 inches, but to everyone out there that is in the same position: it was way easier to adapt than I expected. And since the small flagship is dead, there is no point in trying to hold on. The big screen very much has its advantages.

In general I cannot recommend it enough.
It is literally THE phone to buy on a budget right now.

I bought it to take a glimpse at Android while also exploring it through a unique brand such as Nothing. I used IOS for most of my time and still do. The phone is quite a cool gadget and is in general a pleasant experience, but lacks core features to be able to replace my iPhone. It does not have eSim and Passkeys do not work on it. I always have to take my iPhone out to be able to login on my passkey registered phones as Nothing 2a fails to do. The phone won me over aesthetics and design, but it is just not enough to be a reliable, full-time smartphone with all fundamentals. I would love a proper flagship Nothing phone with the aforementioned features. None of the Nothing models achieve that so far. Looking forward to that time however.

Phone (2a)

In short the phone is a great design and overall I like the phone. However, I have one small issue and on contacting customer support after a couple weeks still yet to get any 'support'. Seems another company that thinks they don't have to invest in decent customer support. Won't be buying anything else from Nothing based on this experience and wouldn't recommend the brand to anyone else. For me the customer support is what determines if I am loyal to a brand or never buy anything from them again.

The phone has severe flickering which causes eyestrain for some users.