Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
British tech company Nothing unveiled the latest phone in its third series on Wednesday, bringing its flashy, semi-transparent design to a new audience at a lower-than-usual price. The Nothing Phone 3A Lite is a budget device designed to entice people who like the company’s style, but not the price of its other products.
Available in black and white, the phone is encased in glass, with visible screws defining the Nothing’s signature look. Fans of the brand will be familiar with the flashy Glyph Interface that makes the back of its phones glow to indicate notifications. The Nothing Phone 3A Lite comes with a ‘twist’ to this, which the company calls Glyph Light. It will offer customizable light sequences and other glowing features.
The back of the 3A Lite will feature Glyph Light.
From what we’ve seen of the device so far, it’s likely to be one of the coolest and most unusual-looking entry-level phones to hit the market this year. Phone makers usually reserve the flourishes of design for their high-end models, but whatever, it’s at the core of the company’s DNA.
Don’t miss any of our unbiased technical content and lab reviews. Add CNET As Google’s preferred source.
In terms of other specifications, you can expect a triple camera system with a 50MP main sensor, a 6.77-inch AMOLED display, and a 5,000mAh battery. Unlike other phones in Nothing’s 3 series, the 3A Lite isn’t powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, but instead runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro chipset. Android 15 and Nothing OS 3.5 arrive, with an update to Nothing OS 4.0 scheduled for early 2026.
The Nothing Phone 3A Lite will come in white and black colours.
One initial disappointment with the phone is seeing that nothing sticks to just three years of major Android updates (although it does offer six years of security patches). It would be great to see this phone able to provide its owners with a long lifespan, in addition to a great design at an affordable price.
An affordable phone – but not for everyone
The Nothing Phone 3A Lite will cost £249 ($329) with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or £279 ($369) for 256GB of storage. That’s around £70 cheaper than the Nothing Phone 3A – not a massive saving, but a saving nonetheless. This is great news for people in the UK and Europe who are keen to get their hands on this new model. But it’s not good news if you’re a US resident.
“The 3A Lite will not be available in North America,” a company spokesperson told me. “Given the investment required to localize and scale this specific model, our focus is on markets where entry-level devices are best suited and can serve as an introduction to the Nothing ecosystem.”
This is not the case for other phones that were not revealed this year, which include 3A Pro and the flagship Phone 3 – both available in the United States.
Overall, 2025 was our most productive year to date. Not only did it release a range of new phones across its flagship brand and sub-brand CMF, it also launched its first over-ear headphones, Headphone 1With partner audio brand KEF.
“It’s impressive that nothing has yet managed to launch five phones in one year,” says Ben Wood, senior analyst at CCS Insight. “It underscores their growing scale and determination to have devices across multiple tiers and segments.”