This video is sponsored by Chime,
but more on them later. There seems to be a slight shortage
of passionate people in the world. These days we see brands eliminate fun fluffs and frills in exchange for soulless corporate cost cuttings. Nothing, however, appears to be out
here counteracting the improper balance of bland blocks, betwixt its two previous generations of fancy flagships and some sweet looking eccentric earbuds. Nothing has finally dropped a budget phone called the Nothing 2A at $350. And not only has nothing paid rather exquisite attention to packaging detail and the sim removal detail and the charging cable detail, but the detail found in the 2A itself is a prime example of a brand taking pride in their creation and going above and beyond what's expected from a budget phone to make something memorably exquisite. Numerous augmentations tend to thin the margins that pad executive pocketbooks, yet nothing is still here augmenting every possible point, sparing no expense even on their budget device. Well, maybe sparing a little expense since they did bring the Glyph lighting zones from 33 down to 3. But all three of them back here are still very much functional, dynamically showing the volume on the back as well as notifications, timers, and phone calls just like we've
seen on the other Nothing phones so far. And they've even included a screen protector. Under that screen protector,
we can begin the scratch test. Plastic starts scratching at a level 2 or 3. Remember this for later. Glass scratches at a 5 or 6, and sapphire would scratch at a level 8 or 9. We haven't seen
a sapphire phone in a really long time. The screen of the Nothing 2A is made with Gorilla Glass 5. And as we can see, scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7. Super cool that the screen illuminates and dissipates from the power button when it gets turned on and off. Nothing is really, really into creating these cool subtle details. There's a hole-punch 32 megapixel front facing
selfie camera centered under the glass, right below a razor thin stereo speaker earpiece slit with a phone frame that's made from plastic. I guess with the visual design of the 2A being
just as uniquely complex as its flagships, the cost cutting has to come from somewhere. And material cost cutting just makes sense. Plastic is infinitely cheaper
and easier to work with than aluminum. The power button is metal though, and both of the volume buttons. But the entirety of the frame itself is most definitely plastic. Plastic on a smartphone isn't a bad thing though. The USB-C port can charge at 45 watts. And this 2A is IP54 water resistant,
which is basically no water resistance. But if you look at the SIM card tray, you can see the little minimalist dot theme that makes up the rest of the UI, nothing attention to detail in serious unmatched. Slapped into the middle of the transparent back panel are two circular camera lenses, both 50 megapixels. The left is an ultra wide angle camera,
and the right is the normal main camera, both sitting atop a slightly raised plateau. This gradual gradient however is where I realized that where we would normally see a transparent slab of glass, nothing has placed a transparent piece of plastic, which is again far less expensive than glass. And while the plastic will never shatter or break, which is a good thing, it can indeed be scratched. I do like that nothing though has found a way to keep the price down while not giving up their transparent theme. The very first replicating computer worm virus transported over email was made by a guy named Robert Morris back in 1988. It infected thousands of computers and caused millions of dollars in damage, all because Robert just wanted to see what would happen. The worm would slow computers down to the point of unusability. Robert was the first dude ever federally indicted for creating this virus, and he was fined $10,000 given probation and 400 hours of community service, which seems pretty light. Speaking of lights,
the Nothing 2A has 120 hertz, 1300 nits, 6.7 inch 1080p display that can last for about 20 seconds under the heat from my lighter. And even though it's a flexible AMOLED, it still makes a full recovery, minus the evaporated oleophobic coating. And while I have indeed enjoyed
and appreciated this phone thus far, when it comes to the underscreen optical fingerprint reader, it seemed to register my print just fine. But then it came time to unlock the phone. It would just never work, which is unfortunate since I was looking forward to scratching things up some more. Finally, the bend test. With everything entirely made of plastic,
both the frame and back panel, I was nervous when it comes to the structure. But with the hefty bend from the front, we get quite a bit of flex. But the Nothing 2A locks
out and does not catastrophically fold, and we get the exact
same results when bent from the back. The Nothing 2A and its glorious Morris worm survives my durability test, which takes us to the teardown. Plastic back phones are my favorite to take apart since the rear panel is unbreakable. Nothing can go wrong. And nothing is calling the
two colors of their 2A black and milk. And as you can see from the shade of my razor blade, the clear plastic of the black is actually just darkly tinted. Now if you've made it this
far in the video about a budget phone, you're probably the type of financially intelligent person who likes to both save and spend their money wisely. So as we separate the 2A,
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to Chime for discounting another five of my off-road wheelchairs by a thousand bucks. Extremely cool. In addition to the 10 visible screws, there are an additional five screws hidden under the decorative wireless charging coil, which surrounds the two camera units. The 2A has no actual wireless charging. This is all just decorative. The three groupings of LEDs are
attached with one singular ribbon cable, which pops off like a little Lego. The LEDs appear to be organized in pairs, just like we've seen on the Nothing 1 and the Nothing 2. I'll unplug the battery and the screen ribbon. And amazingly, it looks like Nothing has made their battery easy to remove with just a simple rigid plastic pull tab. All 5,000 milliamp hours
of it can pop right out of the phone. So massive thumbs up for that. Plus this battery has the same dotted branding
that we see all over the UI and the SIM card tray. Nothing is consistent, and by nothing I mean
everything nothing does is consistent both inside and out. There's a single
screw holding down the daughterboard. I'll pop out the SIM card tray and unplug the lower stereo speaker, At first glance it doesn't appear to have any balls inside, but peeping out of the little ventilation hole, we do see that the foam
balls do start sticking to the sticker. These help the speaker sound bigger than it actually is. Also down here at the bottom of the phone is the square vibration motor and 45 watt USB-C port, which has a red rubber ring. Following the internal
ribbons up to the main board again, we can pop off two more wire cables and discover that the two main camera units are not actually blocked together in one housing like we see on the iPhones. There's just a cap over two separate individually mounted cameras, which is creative. The front camera is 32 megapixels with no OIS. The left ultra wide angle
camera is 50 megapixels also with no OIS. And it turns out before I can release the main camera, we have to unscrew a standoff,
which is rarely seen in smartphones. We normally only see these types of screws within iPhones that are trying to be intentionally difficult to take apart. All of the circuits appear to be coated with some kind of rubberized glue, but remember,
the phone is still only IP54. There's some
light gray thermal paste on the back, which helps the processor heat dissipate into the metal frame of the two-way and subsequently pass through the front amoled screen. Finally, the
main 50 megapixel camera can come out. This guy
does have optical image stabilization. Now nothing would make me happier than seeing this nothing
turn back on after all it's been through. Personally, I think that more phones should be made out of plastic. It's better for signal strength,
better for durability, and better for wallets. And I think that nothing has
done a great job of making it look good. The transparent decor on the back won't quite go
back the same way it was before the teardown. I'm a technician, not a magician. But surprisingly everything does still turn on and function like normal, which might make me a little magical after all. Let me know what other phones you want to see tested down in the comments. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.
