Nothing Phone (2a) Plus vs Pixel 8a: The affordable phones compared

Nothing recently announced its latest mid-range smartphone, the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus. 

The Phone (2a) Plus offers a spec bump compared to the Nothing Phone (2a) that launched earlier this year. In fact, despite its “Plus” name, the two phones actually share the same size 6.7-inch display. 

But, how does the Phone (2a) Plus compare to other affordable smartphones? We’ve positioned the phone head-to-head against the Google Pixel 8a to see how these two phones match up. 

The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus features Nothing’s Glyph lights 

The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus has the most eye-catching design thanks to the Glyph system on its rear. 

This is an array of LED lights that alerts users to incoming calls and notifications when the phone is face down. The Glyph lights can also be customised with different flashes for different apps and contacts, while the longest LED light doubles as a timer. 

The Pixel 8a doesn’t feature a light-up design, but it does come in a selection of vibrant colours, including blue and green, alongside the more standard black and white finishes. 

The Pixel 8a has a brighter screen 

The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus might not have a bigger screen than the Nothing Phone (2a), but its 6.7-inch display is still larger than the 6.1-inch one on the Pixel 8a. 

That said, if you’re not bothered about having a larger display, the Pixel 8a does have the brighter screen with up to 2000 nits of peak brightness. This is compared to the 1300 nits of peak brightness reached by the Phone (2a) Plus. 

The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus is the first with its chipset 

The Pixel 8a is powered by Google’s own Tensor G3 chipset. This is actually the same chipset found in the flagship Pixel 8 Pro, offering smooth everyday performance and good gaming performance on the cheap model. 

We also found that the Pixel 8a outperformed the MediaTek 7200 Pro-powered Nothing (2a) in our benchmarking tests. 

The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus, meanwhile, takes advantage of the brand-new MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro chipset. The Phone (2a) Plus is the very first phone to carry this chipset and it does seem to offer subtle performance improvements. However, we haven’t yet run our benchmarking tests so it’s tough to say how it compares to the Pixel 8a without having spent a bit more time with the phone. 

The Pixel 8a has a 64-megapixel main camera 

When it comes to camera tech, the Pixel 8a combines a 64-megapixel main camera, with a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera. The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus, on the other hand, features a 50-megapixel main sensor and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera. 

We found the Pixel 8a’s camera setup to be excellent, with plenty of detail and balanced colours without appearing oversaturated. 

We haven’t tested the cameras on the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus just yet, but expect them to perform similarly to those on the Nothing Phone (2a), which we found offered natural colours and great exposure compared to similarly priced competitors. 

The Nothing Phone (2a) Plus offers faster charging 

Finally, the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus has the bigger battery of the two at 5000 mAh. 

The phone also supports faster 50W charging, which Nothing claims allows the phone to reach 50% in 21 minutes and charge fully in under an hour (56 minutes, to be precise). However, there is no wireless charging available. 

The Pixel 8a does support wireless charging, but wired charging is slower at just 18W and the phone carries a smaller 4492 mAh battery which we found drained very quickly when faced with intensive tasks, such as running Google Maps or streaming Netflix with the brightness cranked up high.