Another budget Android phone launches this week but it could be Nothing new

If you want an iPhone then your smartphone buying choices are fairly slim. Do you get the iPhone, the iPhone Pro, or the cheap iPhone SE? Easy. With Android, there are hundreds of different handsets to choose from, and some can get very pricey indeed, which is why the budget and mid-range Android market is very competitive in 2024.

From Samsung to Motorola and OnePlus to Oppo, you have a lot of choice if you live in the UK and want a new Android phone. For the past couple of years, London-based tech startup Nothing has also entered the fray with its Phone 1, Phone 2 and Phone 2a, the latter Express.co.uk reviewed recently and loved.

It is a £319 device with eye-catching design, lights you can program through the transparent rear casing and excellent custom software with thoughtful widgets and ways to use your phone less. Even though the Nothing Phone 2a only came out in March, the firm is teasing a Nothing Phone 2a Plus, and it looks as though all will be revealed this week on Wednesday 31 July (see below post on X).

Given the phone is under the 2a branding, we are holding out hope this is another affordable mobile option. Not much else is known about the 2a Plus, but the company is slowly releasing information on X. It confirmed that the phone will run the MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro, a different and more capable chip than the 7200 Pro found in the original 2a.

“This 8-core processor clocks up to 3.0 GHz, making Phone (2a) Plus nearly 10% faster overall than Phone (2a),” the post said.

That doesn’t sound like much, but given the 2a is an entry-level budget phone, a little bit more power wouldn’t go amiss. Hopefully that doesn’t see the price go up substantially.

In the phone world, putting ‘plus’ in the model name usually means the device is a larger or more capable version of a smaller phone, such as the iPhone 15 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus. But according to Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis, the Phone 2a Plus won’t be getting bigger.

“With Phone (2a) Plus, we had the opportunity to create a beefed-up version for savvy users who demand more processing power, and we also made some improvements that didn’t require hardware design changes,” he said in a post on X.

“Finally, we wrapped it up with a new kick-ass variant that reflects these upgrades. I’m super excited about the end result!”

With the new processor confirmed, the rest of Evangelidis’s tease remains cryptic, but it sounds as though the 2a Plus will see spec bumps and perhaps a new colour variant to differentiate it from the 2a. That phone had three ‘glyph’ lights that shine through the casing to show incoming texts, calls and other notifications, but there were fewer lights than on previous Nothing phones.

Although we scored it a solid four out of five in our review, the device was let down by its camera performance. That said, since the review Nothing has pushed out several solid software updates that have looked to improve things, so we have high hopes that the 2a Plus will have a more polished camera from day one.

We’ll bring you all the latest when Nothing unveils the Phone 2a Plus on Wednesday.