Want Nothing’s Transparent Design on a Budget? The 3A Lite Is Its Most Affordable Phone Yet
British tech company Nothing unveiled the latest phone in its 3 Series on Wednesday, bringing its flashy, semi-transparent design to a new audience at a more affordable price than it’s usually known for. The Nothing Phone 3A Lite is a budget device designed to appeal to 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 Nothing’s signature look. Fans of the brand will be familiar with Nothing’s flashy Glyph interface that makes the back of its phones glow to indicate notifications. The Nothing Phone 3A Lite comes with an “evolution” of it, which the company calls the Glyph Light. It will offer customizable light sequences and other light features.
The back of the Phone 3A Lite will feature the Glyph Light.
From what we’ve seen of the device so far, it’s probably one of the coolest and most original entry-level phones on the market this year. Usually, phone makers reserve design for their high-end models, but for Nothing, it’s core to the company’s DNA.
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In terms of other specifications, you can expect a triple-camera system with a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 6.77-inch AMOLED display, and a 5,000 mAh battery. Unlike other phones in Nothing’s 3 series, the 3A Lite is not powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, but instead runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro chip. It arrives under Android 15 and Nothing OS 3.5, with an update to Nothing OS 4.0 planned for early 2026.
The Nothing Phone 3A Lite will be available in black and white.
An initial disappointment with the phone is that Nothing only commits to three years of major Android updates (although it does offer six years of security patches). It would have been great to see this phone able to offer owners real longevity, as well as a cool 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 less 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 want to get their hands on this new model. But it’s less good news if you’re based in the United States.
“The Phone 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, we are focusing on markets where entry-level devices are a more natural fit and can serve as an introduction to the Nothing ecosystem.”
This is not the case for other phones. Nothing was revealed this year, including the 3A Pro and the flagship Phone 3, both of which are available in the US.
Overall, 2025 was Nothing’s most prolific year to date. Not only did it launch a range of new phones under its main brand and sub-brand CMF, but it also launched its first over-ear headphones, Headphone 1, with partner audio brand KEF.
“It’s impressive that Nothing managed to launch five phones in one year,” says Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. “This highlights its growing size and commitment to having devices across multiple tiers and segments”
