Nothing CEO Carl Pei stated that the Nothing Phone 3a will have a 25 percent faster CPU.
Nothing Phone 3a is teased to get a quick shutter button for the camera
Nothing Phone 3a series is set to be launched on March 4. Ahead of the launch, the company has shared key information about the upcoming smartphones. Nothing CEO Carl Pei revealed that the handsets will be equipped with a Snapdragon chipset. In comparison, its predecessor, the Nothing Phone 2a series was powered by MediaTek Dimensity processors. The smartphone brand also highlighted that the upcoming series will get significant CPU and neural processing unit (NPU) upgrades. The latter will improve the on-device artificial intelligence (AI) processing.
In a community post, Pei announced the decision to move away from MediaTek for the upcoming Nothing Phone 3a series. He said, “I'm happy to announce that we are going back to the Qualcomm Snapdragon series with the Phone (3a).” While the CEO did not reveal any details about the mobile platform that could be used for these phones, he did claim that the CPU will be 25 percent faster and the NPU will be 72 percent faster than the Phone 2a Plus.
An earlier report claimed that the Nothing Phone 3a could be equipped with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset. It is also said to feature a 6.8-inch full-HD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The smartphone could also arrive with Nothing OS 3.1 based on Android 15. It is likely to retain the Glyph interface as well.
Separately, the Nothing Phone 3a is also rumoured to sport an additional button on the right side of the device, which could be for the camera. Other theories speculate that the button could be an action button, used for on-device AI or even have a multi-toggle function.
The company has also stated that the Nothing Phone 3a series will be assembled at its manufacturing plant in Chennai. The facility has more than 500 employees, among which women make up 95 percent of the workforce, the company said. It is unclear whether the assembled units will be sold exclusively in India or will also be exported to other markets.
Catch the latest from the Consumer Electronics Show on Gadgets 360, at our CES 2026 hub.