Nothing Phone 3A Lite strips the Glyph Lights down to the bare minimum

After Nothing’s recent flagship Phone 3 ditched its trademark Glyph Lights in favor of a dot matrix display, the new Phone 3A Lite brings them back — but only one of them. The affordable  phone launches today in the UK and Europe, but won’t get a release in the US.

The 3A Lite features just a single small, round LED in its bottom-right corner, which Nothing says was “inspired by classic notification lights.” It still supports a lot of the same features as the more complex Glyph Light systems though: you can flip the phone face-down to get silent, light-only notifications; set custom light sequences for specific contacts; and use the light as a visual countdown for the camera timer.

The rest of the Phone 3A Lite looks like classic Nothing, available in black or white with a semi-transparent rear and a single red accent. The asymmetric camera layout is unlikely to please every detractor of the Phone 3’s controversial design, though to my eyes this looks much better than that phone. I’m just not sure what’s going on with that big section on the back; it looks tantalizingly like it should pop open for easier repairs and battery replacement, but Nothing has confirmed that it’s only intended to look that way — senior global PR manager Lewis Hopkins told The Verge it’s a “simulated battery design.”

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The 3A Lite is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G, together with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage, though a microSD card slot supports up to 2TB. The 5,000mAh battery should deliver decent longevity, though the 33W wired charging isn’t especially fast. The 120Hz OLED screen is pretty large at 6.77 inches, and the phone has an IP54 rating too. 

The 50-megapixel main camera uses a surprisingly large 1/1.57-inch sensor, with an f/1.8 aperture, meaning photography might be one of the phone’s strong suits. But only from that camera — the 8-megapixel ultrawide doesn’t sound all too impressive, and the third rear lens is only a macro. A 16-megapixel selfie camera rounds out the set.

The Phone 3A Lite is available to buy today in the UK and Europe, where it costs £249 / €249 (around $310) with 128GB of storage, and £279 / €279 (around $350) to upgrade to 256GB. It runs Nothing OS 3.5, based on last year’s Android 15, and Nothing promises three years of major Android updates and six years of security support.