British tech company Nothing unveiled the latest phone in its 3 series on Wednesday, bringing its signature flashy and semi-transparent design to a new audience at a more affordable price than it’s usually known for. The Nothing Phone 3A Lite is a budget device designed to tempt people who love the company’s style, but not the price of its other products.

Available in black and white, the phone is encased in glass, with visible screws that define Nothing’s signature look. Fans of the brand will be aware of Nothing’s flashy Glyph Interface that makes the rear of its phones glow to indicate notifications. The Nothing Phone 3A Lite comes with an «evolution» of this, which the company is calling the Glyph Light. It will offer customizable light sequences and other glowing features.

From what we’ve seen of the device so far, it’s probably one of the coolest and quirkiest looking entry-level phones to hit the market this year. Usually phone-makers reserve design flourishes for their higher-end models, but for Nothing it’s at the core of the company’s DNA.

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In terms of other specs, you can expect a triple-camera system with a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 6.77-inch AMOLED display and 5,000-mAh battery. Unlike the other phones in Nothing’s 3 Series, the 3A Lite isn’t powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, but instead runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro chip. It arrives running Android 15 and Nothing OS 3.5, with an update to Nothing OS 4.0 scheduled for early 2026.

One initial disappointment in the phone is to see that Nothing is only committing to three years of major Android updates (albeit it’s offering six years of security patches). It would have been great to see this phone able to offer owners true longevity, as well as a cool design at an affordable price.

An affordable phone — but not for everyone

The Nothing Phone 3A Lite will cost £249 ($329) with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or £279 ($369) for 256GB of storage. That’s around £70 cheaper that the Nothing Phone 3A — not a massive saving, but a saving nonetheless. That’s great news for people in the UK and Europe who are keen to get their hands on this new model. But it’s less good news if you’re based in the US.

«Phone 3A Lite will not be available in North America,» a spokesperson for the company told me. «Given the investment required to localise and scale this specific model, our focus is on markets where entry-level devices are a more natural fit and can serve as an introduction to the Nothing ecosystem.»

This isn’t the case for the other phones Nothing has unveiled this year, which include the 3A Pro and flagship Phone 3 — both of which are available in the US.

In all, 2025 has been Nothing’s most prolific year yet. Not only has it released a range of new phones across its main brand and CMF sub-brand, it’s also launched its first over-ear headphones, Headphone 1, with partner audio brand KEF.

«It’s impressive that Nothing has now managed to launch five phones in one year,» says Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. «It underlines its growing scale and determination to have devices across multiple tiers and segments»