Nothing Phone 2a first look: The Glyphs are lit

At Mobile World Congress 2024, we’ve seen a whole bunch of new tech. Today, though, we saw one of the more exciting smartphone launches of the week: the Nothing Phone 2a.

At a Barcelona restaurant packed with journalists, Nothing “unboxed” the Phone 2a by literally pulling apart two large boxes covering a display case with the Phone 2a inside. Because of the way it was propped, we could only see the back of it. However, that’s where a lot of interesting stuff is happening.

First, any concerns that the Phone 2a wouldn’t have Glyph lights can be put to rest. There are three lights on the back of the phone — far fewer than the 11 on the back of the Nothing Phone 2 — and the bottom “exclamation point” light isn’t one of them. That means the charging animation seen on the Phone 2 and the Phone 1 won’t be included with the Phone 2a, at least not in the same way. That’s a bit of a bummer.

The phone also has a unique camera module that’s centered in the top half, with the lenses grouped to look like eyes. This explains the “Fresh Eyes” tagline Nothing has been using in teasers so far.

Since the phone was in a glass display case, we couldn’t do much of a size comparison to other devices. However, judging from what we could tell, the Phone 2a is not significantly larger or smaller than the other two Nothing phones. If you were hoping for something more compact, it does not appear the Phone 2a will provide.

Since we couldn’t see the front of the phone, we can’t tell you much else. However, we do know through previous confirmations that the Phone 2a will come with the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro and 12GB of RAM. We also know the phone is launching on March 5, so you only have about a week to go before we know everything.