Nothing recently launched the Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro, and now the former has been subjected to a teardown on video, which you can see embedded below for your viewing pleasure.
The Nothing Phone (3a), like other Nothing phones, has a fake transparent look that’s made possible by a special layer under the glass back. The Glyph LED lights are part of the upper cover for the motherboard.
The main board has the cameras, of which the main one has OIS. There are rubber gaskets around the connectors on the main board, to prevent water or moisture from entering. The sub-board has the same gasket surrounding the USB port. For heat dissipation there’s thermal paste and a copper vapor chamber (which is significantly bigger than that of the Nothing Phone (2a) from last year).
The battery has two pull tabs which you need to take care of in a specific order (thankfully they’re labeled 1 and 2). If you need to replace the screen, you go through the back, and you get access to the screen cable once you’ve removed the battery.
In the end the Nothing Phone (3a) gets a 4.5 out of 10 repairability score, where 10 would be most repairable and 1 would be least repairable. The device scores the most in the battery replacement category, 1.5 out of 2 possible points, and least in the design (organization and length of time for repairs) and screen replacement categories, in both receiving only 0.5 points out of 2. Splitting the difference are the parts availability and miscellaneous parts replacement categories, in which the handset gets 1 point each out of 2.
If you want to learn more about the Nothing Phone (3a), make sure you don’t miss our hands-on review.
