Why i'm returning my Nothing Phone 3a - very disappointing

Hello and welcome back to a new video. So

I have an announcement to make. I am

returning the Nothing Phone 3a.

Unfortunately, it is going back into the

box and I'm going to be sending it back.

And I've actually gotten myself a

replacement for my broken S10+. So this is

my S10+. I've been using it since 2019,

so it's quite old, 6 years old, and it's

quite battered and smashed up. And I

finally destroyed it the other day, but I

put it into the boot hinge of my car and I

forgot it was in the boot hinge, and then

I slammed the boot down and the little

stud thing that goes into the hole, it

slammed down onto the middle of the

screen, cracking it. So it's still usable,

but I just can't see half the screen, so

not very usable. And, um, I decided to

get the Nothing Phone 3A to replace it

because I thought It's a modern

smartphone, 2025 release, very cheap,

£320, modern features, modern specs.

And yeah, it is a pretty good phone. 50W

wired charging, it's pretty fast, and it's

got widgets and everything. It's got a

nice big screen, uh, 50-megapixel cameras.

Um, everything was great apart from one

thing that has made me decide to return

this and buy— I actually decided to buy

another S10+ because they're really cheap

now. So I got a new refurbished S10+

coming on Monday, and only £130, so that's

pretty insane. £130, it's a third of the

price of the Nothing Phone 3a, and this is

a 2019 flagship, so it's got pretty good

specs. I mean, look at the camera bump.

The camera bumps back in 2019 were

insanely small compared to what they are

nowadays, and I don't really feel like

there's a massive difference in quality

image with the cameras. I think, you know,

it's got 2x optical zoom, wide angle,

everything you need really. And it's got a

pretty good processor because this was the

flagship S10+ of 2019, so it's got pretty

good specs as it's a flagship. This is,

even though it's a modern phone, it's

still a mid-range phone. It's got

mid-range specs. So yeah, everything was

great with this phone apart from one

thing, and that is the third-party support

for the camera APIs. So if you know,

um, Nothing Phone 3A has

3 cameras. Let me show you. So you go to

video, you get your typical, uh,

1x, you got your 2x like that,

and you got your wide angle. So it's got 3

cameras, right? So that's all good and

everything, but you only get access to the

3 cameras in the default camera app. So

when you— so I'm a live streamer and I

like to use a variety of different live

streaming apps. One of my favorites is IRL

Pro. And look, you don't get access

to all the cameras. So you don't get

access to the wide-angle lens or the 2x

optical image— optical zoom video

lens. So for some reason, it's really

weird, I don't know why they do this. I

guess it's because there's so many Android

phones out there, all of the apps can't

possibly have support for all of the

camera lenses from all the different types

of Androids. And, um, on every single

Android that isn't a Samsung, uh, you— on

these apps, the only access cameras you

have access to is the main camera and the

selfie camera. It is so stupid. Like,

what is the point having a triple lens

system with a wide-angle lens when you

can't even choose the wide-angle lens

outside of the default app? And it's not

just Prism Live Studio. I mean, it's not

just IRL Pro. It's also other apps like

Prism Live Studio. So again, we've got

Prism Live Studio here, and,

um, hold on.

So you only get access to the selfie

camera and the main cam. I mean, the main

camera is not even working now.

I don't know why the main— not even the

main camera is working. It's just black.

That's so weird. And also

on— oh yeah, iVCam is

another app I use. Oh, it's not connected.

Well, it's another app I use where you can

connect it to a laptop and use it like a

webcam. And on Samsung, you get access to

all the cameras, the wide angle, the zoom

lens, you get access to everything. But on

this phone, you only get access to the

main lens. It's so annoying. It's really

frustrating because it basically means if

you are a streamer or you need to use

these apps Uh, you can only get a Samsung,

otherwise you won't be able to use the

wide angle or the zoom. It's so stupid

because there's a lot of cool Chinese

Android phones out there. There's a

Huawei, the Xiaomi's, the Oppo's, the

OnePlus and the Honor's, and Red Magic Pro

ROG phone. There's so many cool Android

phones out there with really cool features

like 100-watt wired charging and

7,000 milliamp batteries, internal

built-in fans, and they've got really cool

features and specs, but They all suffer

the same problem that non-Samsung Android

phones have, which is that these other

camera apps, like, uh, you know, any app

where they use the camera, they won't let

you use the wide angle or the 2x camera.

And that's just because the API is not

supported. Basically what that means is

the app needs to have access to the

cameras and it needs to be supported. And

for some reason, I don't— it's like only

Samsung phones are supported. I don't know

why. Maybe because Samsung works with the

apps and Samsung's like, uh, yeah, let us

have monopoly over your app's camera

systems so your apps can only access the

wide angles on our Samsung phones, and

then you block out all the other phones.

Maybe it's like a marketing strategy that

Samsung's done to make people not

want to buy non-Samsung. I mean, it works.

Because I'm not going to ever buy a

non-Samsung phone ever again if I want an

Android. I'm gonna have to send this phone

back, the Nothing Phone 3a, and get myself

another S10 Plus. And it's a real shame

because I actually quite like the Nothing

Phone 3a, but it doesn't do the thing that

I need it to do, which is be a streaming

camera as well as everything else. It can

do everything else fine, but it can't be a

streaming camera for those reasons. And

for those reasons, I'm sending it back and

I'm going to get my S10 Plus refurbished

model. And you think, why don't I just get

like an S22 or latest S24? Why am I

getting such an old phone again? Um,

basically because I had no problems with

the S10 Plus. I've been using this S10

Plus for making videos and doing my work

and everything on it. It works just fine.

I think the cameras look fine. I don't

need 50-megapixel cameras. I actually hate

the 50-megapixel selfie camera on this

because it, it makes my skin look awful,

and there's no beauty filter in the

default camera app on Samsung. Every

single Samsung phone, it has a beauty

filter, skin filter, soft skin smoothing

filter built directly into the camera app.

And I want that because I don't want to be

on camera unless my skin looks nice.

Maybe that's vain, but I just, I don't

feel good when I've got 50 megapixels

highlighting every single blemish on my

face. I'm not, I'm not a supermodel. I'm

not going to wear makeup. You think some

people said, why don't you just wear

makeup? Yeah, as if I'm going to buy

makeup and start putting makeup on just to

make a stupid video when you can get a

skin filter built into the phone. So yeah,

I prefer the cameras on the S10+ just

because they make me look better. And also

the live streaming apps and the camera

apps outside of the default camera app

allow us to use the wide-angle lens,

which the Nothing Phone doesn't. And it's

not the Nothing Phone's fault, it's

basically the fault of Samsung. I don't

know, maybe Samsung has a monopoly over

it. Oh, it's the fault of the app

developers not giving access to other

Android phones to have access to the

wide-angle lens in these other apps. So

it's just like an Android problem. iPhone

doesn't really have this problem because

there's only iPhones on iOS, where

they're— whereas there's so many different

types of Androids. Yeah, so I'm going to

send it back and save myself a couple