Nothing Phone 3A and 3A Pro: smartphones with AI for order in chaos

Nothing has unveiled its new Phone 3A and 3A Pro smartphones, which rely not only on upgraded hardware but also on smart features. One of the highlights is Essential Space, a storage tool for screenshots, notes, and images that organizes digital chaos with artificial intelligence.
What’s new in the Nothing Phone 3A and 3A Pro
The two models feature a Snapdragon 7S Gen 3 chipset, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, making them pretty powerful for their price category. The smartphones run on Android 15 and will get three years of OS updates as well as six years of security patches.

The design stays true to Nothing’s signature style: the transparent back panel and Glyph LED strips are still in place. However, the 3A Pro gets a massive round camera module that makes the phone feel especially bulky. Your fingers bump into the protrusion at first, but over time it even becomes comfortable – like a built-in PopSocket.
Cameras: the main difference between models




- The two models feature a 50-megapixel main camera with an f/1.8 aperture and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens.
- The 3A Pro gets a 3x periscopic telephoto lens, while the 3A is limited to 2x zoom.
- The two smartphones use 50-megapixel sensors for telephoto lenses, allowing for quality loss in framing: 4x zoom on the 3A and 6x on the 3A Pro.
Essential Space: AI on the lookout


- Add items using a separate Essential Key button. One click takes a screenshot, double click opens a space to view the saved data.
- AII analyzes the content and suggests important details – dates, key moments, possible tasks.
- You can manually add notes to items, and algorithms will suggest appropriate actions.
How the AI organizer works
Essential Space’s testing showed that the tool gets the job done: for example, when adding screenshots of flight data, the AI extracted flight dates and times on its own. However, if the information is disparate (e.g., the date is not on all screenshots), the system doesn’t always link the data correctly.
Price and Availability
- Nothing Phone 3A is available for order starting March 4, with shipments starting March 11.
- Nothing Phone 3A Pro will go on sale March 11, with shipments of the devices starting March 25.
- Pricing is 379 dollars for the 3A and 459 dollars for the 3A Pro
Worth Buying?
Nothing is banking on convenient AI-driven content management, but for now Essential Space is more of an add-on than a key factor in choosing a smartphone. Otherwise, the 3A and 3A Pro are solid middlers with decent cameras, a transparent design, and decent performance.