- 1 week ago
It is time to durability test the Nothing phone (3a) Pro. and of course the regular Nothing (3a) since they are basically the same phone with different camera packages. Personally I kinda like the more vibrant blue colored nothing 3a, but thats just me. Splurging on a nice phone is great if you need a phone for work or you make money with your phone. Otherwise... its better to just get the less expensive version.
All of that to say of course that I am giving away TWO nothing phone 3a's and ONE Nothing phone 3a Pro. Just leave a comment below this video with your favorite dessert or icecream (so I know you made it all the way to the end) And ill pick 3 winners and ship the phones one week from now. The giveaway is international, and will be chosen randomly. Sending me an email asking to win will be disqualifying
All of that to say of course that I am giving away TWO nothing phone 3a's and ONE Nothing phone 3a Pro. Just leave a comment below this video with your favorite dessert or icecream (so I know you made it all the way to the end) And ill pick 3 winners and ship the phones one week from now. The giveaway is international, and will be chosen randomly. Sending me an email asking to win will be disqualifying
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TechTranscript
00:00It's been a while since we've had a true flagship killer and I think this smartphone
00:05just might be it. Introducing the Nothing 3A Pro in black.
00:11Getting into the box is rather interesting. I imagine the sleeve is supposed to come off
00:15easier than this, but I'm going to be honest, there's nothing super satisfying about this
00:20particular unboxing experience until you finally get to the nothing that's inside. I'm a huge fan
00:25of transparent devices. Also in the box we have a long white USB-C cable as well as the classically
00:31clear nothing SIM card removal tool. Not quite as glitzy as the gold plated Red Magic SIM ejector,
00:37but definitely a good looking close second. Nothing has dropped two phones at the same time
00:42this year. The 3A Pro on the left and the regular blue 3A on the right. Both nearly identical in build
00:48quality and hardware, just different cameras and camera placements and of course a different price.
00:54The 3A Pro is an extremely reasonable $459 and the regular 3A is an even more extremely
01:01reasonabler $379. A sub $400 smartphone in this economy is truly a treasure. I hope it survives.
01:11Since both phones have the same size and physical build minus the camera bump, I'll be focusing most
01:16of my attention on the black nothing 3A Pro, which has a substantial raised ring in the center to contain
01:22the massive periscope camera. For reference, this hump is about the height of two car keys,
01:27exactly three quarters, or if you're outside the USA, there's a really nifty trick you can do with
01:32the back end of a set of calipers that reveal the exact dimension of 5 millimeters. The less expensive
01:383A has a more reasonabler gradient on its own linear triple camera setup instead of the massive plateau.
01:45When it comes to the front of the phone however, instead of Gorilla Glass this time around, we have
01:49something called Panda Glass, which appears to be a more budget friendly alternative to Gorilla Glass,
01:55and it's made in China. A panda seems way more cuddly than a gorilla, but that's besides the point.
02:00It's still chemically strengthened like Gorilla Glass, and while I can't speak to Panda's impact
02:05resistance, its scratch resistance levels are what we would expect on a flagship, with scratches at a
02:10level 6 and deeper grooves at a level 7. The same glass covering the screen also covers the 50 megapixel
02:17front facing selfie camera and razor thin earpiece slit. It's on the side of the phone where we
02:22finally find out how nothing managed to make this nothing so inexpensive.
02:30Plastic, which to be honest I'm totally fine with. Single use plastics need to be banned off the face of
02:36the earth of course, but plastic on a phone that has 6 years worth of security updates? Sign me up.
02:42The polished essential key is made from metal along with the metal power button.
02:46A plastic frame just makes a lot of sense. There are no antenna lines and honestly I didn't even
02:51realize it was plastic when I first grabbed it. The individual volume buttons are both made from metal
02:57and the bottom of the phone with this lower loudspeaker and 50 watt USB-C port is also plastic.
03:03However, this year we do have an official IP64 rating, as we see with the rubber ring around the
03:08edge of the dual SIM card tray. IP64 means we have protection against rain or mist,
03:13but submerging your nothing is still a bad idea. Nothing has upgraded the back panel to glass this
03:19year which is nicely scratch resistant. The plateau as well is topped with a single circle of glass
03:25protecting each of the camera units. The top left camera is the 8 megapixel ultra wide. The 50 megapixel
03:31main camera is on the bottom left. The 50 megapixel periscope telephoto camera is the big boy in the center.
03:37And the single LED flash is up top with the large ring around all three cameras being made from metal.
03:46It appears the only real compromise, if it can even be called that, is using plastic on the frame.
03:52Since the screen on both phones is still a massive 6.7 inch 10 bit 3000 nit 120 hertz 1080p AMOLED,
03:59which survives for about 20 seconds under the heat from my lighter without any permanent visible
04:04blemish. It has of course evaporated the oleophobic coating so don't try this at home. You'll be
04:09surprised at how many moms get mad at me for that one. I am a professional however so feel free to
04:14leave the testing to me. Both phones do have an under display optical fingerprint scanner which when
04:20slathered with level 7 deeper grooves is still able to read my fingerprint and unlock the phone every
04:25single time. So thumbs up for that. Finally, the bend test. Being plastic, I thought that we would
04:31at least get some delightful destruction or some blissful bending or maybe an educational experience.
04:37But for some reason, probably due to the ultra rigid glass on both sides, which is embedded into
04:43the plastic clips of the frame, we don't get any movement. No cracking, no creaking, and no catastrophic
04:49carnage. Even the less expensive regular 3A, which is built in the exact same way with glass on the
04:55back survives just fine when bent from both the front and the back. Glass is indeed helpful for
05:00that rigid structure, but as we know, glass is glass, so keep that in mind as drops are still going to be
05:06an issue. Like I said earlier, the main difference between the two phones are the camera units, so I
05:12vote that we see what that periscope camera looks like from the inside, which means the back glass needs
05:17to come off. I'll warm it up until it's barely too hot to touch and slide my razor blade between the glass and
05:22the plastic frame. I did that, obviously, as an example of what not to do since the adhesive was
05:32obviously not fully soft enough to start pulling on. Anyway, with the adhesive now fully sliced away,
05:38it's cool seeing the camera units basically already exposed. The camera housing comes away with the
05:42tinted back glass. I thought it was kind of interesting here that the directional microphone
05:46on the back glass has its own waterproofing mesh over the whole opening. This microphone is used for ambient,
05:52noise reduction during phone calls, and picking up better audio during video recordings. We also
05:57have two gold contact pads for the LED flash. The Glyph interface, which I forgot to show you earlier,
06:03is still attached to the phone body. If the 3A Pro survives the teardown, I'll have to show you what
06:07that looks like when it turns back on, which reminds me I should probably turn it off first. Now here's
06:13where we have to be a little more careful. There are 9 visible T5 screws which need to be removed,
06:18but there are also some hidden Phillips head screws just waiting to mess everything up. If you lift up
06:23some of the decorative embellishments you can find most of the screws. These embellishments are designed
06:28to mimic the large ribbon cables that traverse the space between the motherboard and the charging port
06:33board. There are 3 more Phillips head screws on the bottom and 7 Phillips head screws at the top,
06:38one of which is hidden extremely well and I didn't end up finding that last hidden location until it was
06:43too late. But now we all know where it all is and I'm happy to take one for the team. The battery
06:48comes out easy enough. Nice work nothing. Big fan of that. Every smartphone needs to be recycled
06:55eventually and it's nice to plan for the future. Making that 5,000 milliamp power battery easy to take
07:00out makes future material separation and recycling easier. With the battery gone we get a look at what
07:09the real ribbon cables actually look like. The two long ribbons sit right on top of the vapor chamber.
07:14The lower 50 watt charging port board can come out and nothing's loud speaker which has its
07:19waterproofing mesh over the opening as well as has balls inside. A $460 smartphone with balls inside is
07:26a pretty solid deal. To get access to that 50 megapixel telephoto camera I'll unplug the longer ribbon
07:31cables that connect to the motherboard just like little Legos. There are two more small Phillips
07:36head screws holding on the motherboard, one at 3 o'clock and the other up around 10 o'clock. Then
07:41the motherboard can ungoopify itself from the aluminum midframe. Apparently this aluminum midframe
07:46is made from 100% recycled material and is probably what helped the phone stay in one piece during the
07:52bin test. There is an extraordinary amount of thermal paste up in here. Down at the bottom of the frame
07:57we have a super small square vibrator motor, the optical fingerprint scanner, and more waterproofing
08:02mesh over the loudspeaker opening. Grabbing the motherboard with this camera still attached,
08:07remember these upgraded camera units are the main difference between the 3A and the 3A Pro.
08:12Up top is the 8 megapixel ultra wide camera with no OIS. Then we have the 50 megapixel main camera which
08:18does have OIS and the 50 megapixel telephoto with internal OIS. Normally I like to keep these cameras in
08:25one piece, but considering I'm bored today and we already broke the back glass, let's dive a bit deeper
08:31than usual. A zoom lens or zoom camera requires a bit of extra distance between the lens and the camera
08:37sensor. The longer the lens, the longer you can zoom. Instead of nothing making the phone over an inch
08:43thick in just one spot, which would be kind of funny actually, they decided to extend the sensor out
08:47horizontally and use a prism or mirror to redirect the light into the sensor. This isn't new obviously,
08:54it's just new for nothing. The inner portion of the lens rides on magnets to focus the image and just
08:59like on the main sensors that are flat, these electromagnets can also provide internal optical
09:05image stabilization. You can see how the prism, which can be seen from the camera bump, is taking the
09:10image and throwing it horizontally to the sensor that I shattered a few seconds ago. Honestly I think
09:15it's a pretty cool setup and I think nothing is on the right track here with the inexpensive line
09:20of flagship phones. The nothing 3A Pro can accomplish 90% of what a flagship 3 times its price can
09:26accomplish and the plastic frame does not bother me in the slightest. A plastic back also wouldn't
09:31bother me but I do see the benefit of glass and a heavier phone just feels more premium even if that's
09:37all in my head. I did say I would show off the Glyph interface and lucky for us the phone is still
09:41fully functional. Nice work myself. I specifically didn't mention a giveaway at the beginning of
09:49this video so it would be just for those who make it to the end. I'll pick three random people in the
09:54comments who tell me their favorite ice cream or dessert and they'll receive one of my remaining
09:58nothing 3As or the one unopened nothing 3A Pro. Hit that subscribe button and as always thanks a ton for
10:05watching. I'll see you around.
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