Nothing Phone 3a Review: Design Over Everything?
As of 2025, there are just a few smartphone brands that care about creative design. Gone are the days of refreshing and outlandish Nokia feature phone and smartphone designs that never failed to amaze us with their weird and wacky shapes and form factors. What excited me back then were the new and experimental designs (N-gage, Nokia 7600), where the focus was more on the experience and just doing something differently. Lately, Apple has single-handedly managed to turn every smartphone into a slab with two sheets of glass. Even the most expensive foldables from premium brands appear like boring glass slabs. Apple's iOS and Google's Android may have paved the way for what seems to be an ideal software ecosystem. But we are now stuck with a bunch of boring icons, predictable animations, and transitions that feel far too basic. Clearly, they aren't built to amaze us anymore; they simply exist to deliver and serve a bunch of apps. Nothing as a brand stands out in this sea of, ...
