What you need to know
- Nothing will offer a 50MP periscope telephoto lens on the Phone 3a series, in a first for the company.
- The Nothing Phone 3a will offer four cameras total, with three being 50MP sensors.
- The main and front-facing cameras support 4K video recording.
In typical Nothing fashion, the company is teasing its way toward the official launch of the Nothing Phone 3a series, which will happen Tuesday, March 4. Ahead of that unveiling, Nothing gave fans a preview of the Nothing Phone 3a camera system in a YouTube video comparing it to the latest iPhone 16 camera system. Notably, it includes a few major upgrades over the Phone 2a lineup.
Nothing says that the Phone 3a series will have a 50MP main camera sensor, which is designed to capture more light and more detail than its predecessor. That’s one of three camera sensors on the Phone 3a with a 50MP size. You’ll also get a 50MP front-facing camera and a 50MP rear periscope telephoto lens.
That last bit is important, because we don’t often see high-quality telephoto cameras on midrange phones. The 50MP periscope telephoto lens on the Nothing Phone 3a is said to offer 3x optical zoom, plus 6x “in-sensor zoom” — which likely uses sensor crop to provide optical-quality detail via digital zoom. It’s also aiming to deliver “60x ultra zoom” on the Phone 3a.
The final rear camera on the Nothing Phone 3a is an 8MP ultrawide camera. As such, the Phone 3a’s camera arsenal will include a 50MP main sensor, a 50MP telephoto lens, and an 8MP ultrawide camera on the rear. Then, there will be a 50MP front-facing camera to round out the offerings. On paper, it seems to be a standout camera system for a midrange device.
Nothing adds that all four cameras support Ultra HDR for photos, with the main and front-facing cameras adding 4K recording with stabilization. There’s also what Nothing calls the “TrueLens Engine 3.0,” which “harnesses elite hardware to produce professional-grade, true-to-life photography through a combination of AI tone mapping and scene detection” and “understands every image and tunes it to strike a classic photographic balance with next-generation computational technology.”
This isn’t the first time Nothing has teased out Phone 3a details. It previously teased a return to a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip for the lineup. For more, we’ll have to wait until the official Phone 3a reveal on March 4.
