Nothing Phone (2a) Plus review: What works?
It sounds like I’m complaining about these additions but they’re both decent features of the phone. My problem is that they’re nowhere near enough to justify the additional premium, or even really the existence of the Phone (2a) Plus at all. Because they’re so similar, I’m going to avoid retreading ground covered in my Nothing Phone (2a) review – if you want to see more, you can get the full rundown there.
The MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro is marketed as offering a 10% performance bump over the 7200 Pro but my testing showed it didn’t even manage that. In the Geekbench 6 benchmarks, the Phone (2a) Plus pulled a mere 4% ahead of its predecessor in the single-core results, while the multi-core scores were barely 3% ahead.
Equally, the GFXBench GPU stress test showed that in both the on-screen and off-screen portions, the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus scored a whole three frames per second more than the Nothing Phone (2a). Worthwhile? Sure. Worth (at least) an extra £50? I don’t think so.
The new processor appears to be a smidge more power efficient, as the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus lasted for 28hrs 36mins in our looping video battery test – an hour better than the Phone (2a). When recharging, that extra 5W of charging capacity brought the Phone (2a) Plus to full battery in 56 minutes – around four minutes faster than its predecessor.
The new 50MP (f/2.2) selfie camera certainly isn’t a bad addition but after testing the pair side by side, I’m not convinced that it’s much of an upgrade over the Phone (2a)’s 32MP shooter. As you can see below, the (2a) Plus produces notably warmer images and there is a greater level of detail but I feel that my skin tone is more natural in the Phone (2a)’s image. Overall, the new selfie camera has its advantages but this doesn’t feel like £50’s worth of difference.
The selfie camera can now also shoot 4K footage at 30fps, as well as 1080p at up to 60fps. This is a solid addition but I’d rather have seen 4K/60fps support on the rear shooter to match the Google Pixel 8a.
READ NEXT: Best Pixel phone
#Phone #review #big #Expert #Reviews
source: https://www.expertreviews.com/uk/technology/mobile-phones/nothing-phone-2a-plus-review
