Just days after I got my iPhone 16e, Apple’s (less) budget (than ever before) iPhone, Nothing is out here with new their new budget phones, the Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro. These models start at $379 and $459 respectively, so they certainly undercut the new iPhone, so let’s take a look at what the differences are and whether they make the iPhone 16e look silly.

Disclaimer

I feel like I have to mention this a lot, but it’s worth saying again that for a lot of people, they want an iPhone and they aren’t shopping for Android phones, so these differences are moot. Much like you, dear reader, likely buy a Mac and don’t spec comparison shop with whatever the current Windows options are on the market at the time, many people know they want an iPhone and don’t have any interest in what specs an Android alternative gets them. Switchers do exist today, but many, many people have settled into their platform of choice and it’s going to take a lot to get them to move at this point.

In fact, I’m old enough to remember when Apple fans were adamant that speeds and feeds didn’t matter as much as software back when Apple was losing the performance battle for many, many years. But I digress…

Performance

Both Nothing phones have the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC, which is a functional chip, but it’s certainly not cutting-edge. This is par for the course with budget Android phones, and it’s a clear difference from what chip Apple puts in their cheaper iPhone. According to Geekbench scores, the A18 in the iPhone 16e has 3x the single-core performance, and just shy of 3x multi-core performance as these Nothing phones. While the performance difference likely won’t be a massive difference in basic phone tasks today, the performance gap will make a much larger difference over the coming years, and it will be easily noticeable today on higher end tasks like playing games.

Also to put this in perspective, these Nothing phones have Geekbench scores just behind the iPhone XR. This is honestly an astonishing performance gap.

Displays

If the last category was a blow away win for the iPhone, then we’re swinging the other way on this one. The displays in the Nothing 3a phones would make me much happier than what we’ve got in the iPhone 16e, although we’re not talking about gaps as massive as the performance ones above.

Both Nothing phones come with an OLED 120Hz variable refresh rate display (effectively what Apple considers “ProMotion” on their devices). They advertise the same 800 nits peak SDR brightness, but much higher 3,000 nit peak brightness in HDR mode compared to the 16e’s 1,200 nits, although Linus Tech Tips couldn’t get them to go over 1,400 nits in their testing. So brightness seems like a wash to me, but the doubled refresh rate is lovely, and is a reminder of how cheap good, high-refresh rate displays can be in 2025. Apple’s really the only company still making 60Hz displays, besides the $100 phones that come in a blister pack from Walmart.

Side note, I do miss the always on mode when using the 16e, and I assume that the Nothing phones support this, but I can’t see it on their spec sheets or in the reviews I’ve seen, so I’m not sure here.

Finally, while we’re on the display, let’s mention the size of these things, which is huge. These phones each have a 6.77” display and have the same physical size to the millimeter as the iPhone 16 Pro Max. People generally like big phones, so this is probably okay for most folks, but those of you who like a small phone are not served by these Nothing phones at all. Also, the bezel is perfectly symmetrical on all sides, which I know has been a sticking point for a lot of people who are used to iPhones that have been symmetrical ever since the iPhone X.

Cameras

I can’t say much here since I’ve only just started testing the 16e camera and I’ve not used the 3a cameras at all, but on paper the 3a phones are going all out. While the iPhone has a single 48MP camera without macro support, the Nothing ones have 3 cameras each: main, ultra-wide, and telephoto. This three-camera array certainly gives users more options when shooting, although I won’t speak to the quality of the photos since once again the early looks don’t weigh into them much and I can’t see first-hand.

Also, the 3a Pro has the same 3 camera classes, although they’re slightly different. The 3a has a 2x telephoto lens while the 3a Pro goes to 3x. Also the main sensor is a little higher quality, although the impressions I’ve seen from people who have them indicates there’s not much of a gap.

Battery

This is another category where I can’t rightly tell you which is better, but both Apple and Nothing advertise their battery performance in terms of playing video, and both companies say their phones will get you 26 hours of video playback. I’ve found the 16e in its first few days to be quite capable of getting me, a heavy phone user, through a day, and I’d expect these Nothing phones to do the same, but that’s all I can say without using them of having good data from reviewers out there yet.

Capacity

The 3a marketing page says it starts at 128GB, although as of writing I can only order a 256GB model, and the 3a Pro only comes in a 256GB variant. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16e starts at 128GB which is getting on the quite low end in 2025. Bumping the iPhone up to 256GB to match the Nothing phones puts it at $700, or twice the price of the 3a, which puts us squarely into completely different price brackets.

Personally, I like that the Nothings start at 256GB for much less money. While 128GB might be fine for some, others will run into storage issues as their photo library and iMessage history could easily use up half of their storage before installing their first app. We’re not at the bad place we were when Apple was selling 16GB iPhones for way longer than anyone else, but I do hope this is the last iPhone that starts at 128GB.

Design

It depends what you prefer, of course. I personally think the iPhone 16e is unexciting, but very clean and quite a nice object on its own. I also think the 3a looks pretty rad with its distinctly Nothing design language. Then there’s the 3a Pro, which respectfully, I think looks awful. I really, really, really hate the massive circular camera plateaus, and I think this one is worse than most. To each their own, but I think the 16e has a good simple design, the 3a has a good loud design, and the 3a Pro just looks a mess.

The details

The iPhone 16e has wireless charging, but no MagSafe. Meanwhile, the 3a and 3a Pro don’t have wireless charging in the first place.

The Nothing phones seem to have faster wired charging, going from zero to full in one hour. I’m not sure how fast the 16e can charge, but I’m pretty confident it would take more than an hour.

All phones support Wi-Fi 6, not the newer 6E or 7.

The Nothing phones have Bluetooth 5.4 while the iPhone has 5.3.

All phones have NFC.

The iPhone only has an eSIM, the Nothing phones only have a nano-SIM with no eSIM option.

The iPhone does not support mmWave, and I don’t think the Nothing phones do either, although their spec sheets are not very human readable for this section.

Nothing promises 3 years of Android updates, while I’d expect Apple to give the 16e 5-6 years of updates if history is anything to go on.

Final thoughts

These new Nothing phones look pretty nice, and they certainly provide a meaningfully lower cost option for people for whom $600 is more than they’d like to, or even can spend. I think the Nothing phone wins the spec war on displays, starting storage capacity, and camera flexibility, and I think the iPhone wins on performance in an actually astounding blowout. The rest comes down to taste – do you want iOS or Android? Do you want a huge phone or a smaller phone? Do you want a clean physical design or a loud one? Do you want one really good camera or do you want more flexibility, even if the cameras likely aren’t quite as good? I can’t answer for you, and there isn’t one answer for everyone, but hopefully this post gave you an idea for how these two new phones stack up.