Nothing explains why the Phone 3a Pro ended up with a giant camera

Nothing knows it's not for everyone.

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[Frosty Grin]

In case you were worried, you can also buy Nothing branded apparel, as worn by the most bored-looking model they could find.

They're not bored. They're just expressing nothing.

 

[Holley]

I... really like this phone design. All of theirs, tbh.

I'm not switching, but if I was - it would be to this phone.

 

[Donatzsky]

I noticed the article said that the 3a Pro wasn't a flagship device. Why not? What are its shortcomings? What is their flagship device? Are they releasing a newer flagship with this design aesthetic?

The flagship will presumably be the Nothing 3, which they teased in the video.

 

[Erbium68]

OK, so hear me out -- what if zooming in the camera instead extended the top edge of the phone?

This is an engineering issue. Anything that needs a seal should not slide out into a dirty environment. Otherwise their life will be very short. A rotating seal is not so bad, but a sliding seal will fail quickly unless it is multi-stage and rather bulky.
Buttons are less of a problem because they can be placed outside an elastomeric seal, but that won't work ith a camera.

 

[nartreb]

Not gonna happen. That’s the whole point of these “periscope” cameras that achieve the necessary focal length in the height of the phone, rather than needing the extra thickness.

Thank you! I was wondering why the hell you'd put a periscope on a phone.

Unfortunately, given the tiny aperture and shaky platform, it's safe to assume it's still gonna suck as a telephoto camera.

 

[MechR]

I am a simple man: No headphone jack, no buy.

 

[plastic bag]

In case you were worried, you can also buy Nothing branded apparel, as worn by the most bored-looking model they could find.

I no joke love this.

The modeling, that is. Not necessarily the clothes.

 

[InfiniteJester]

why dont they (and Google, and everyone else) just make the phone flush with the camera bump and use as much of that extra space as is feasible for battery space

like if you want to make your phone as thin as possible, fine -- but if you need to extend out that profile to fit the camera, you've already lost that game and the phone is as thin as possible at the thickness of the camera -- just give me more battery life!

I’m always surprised that no one has actually given this a whirl. I think it would fail in the market, but it seems like a smaller manufacturer would have given it a shot.

I will say that the battery is the heavy part so a proposed “PhatPhone” would weigh a lot. Like more than double the “ThinPhone” it complements.

 

[InfiniteJester]

I'm not going to buy it because Android, but personally, make that bump as big as you want. A better camera has more value than pointlessly making the phone super thin. No lie, I like big bumps.

On this matter I assume you will not prevaricate.

 

[null_interface]

Yep. The real dealbreaker waves and says "over here!" while the chat is about something to do with cameras.

I had to came to terms with this unfortunate market reality and adapted.

 

[InfiniteJester]

It's the Silicon Valley hipstery naming convention taken to the absolute extreme.

My company name is so cool that it can’t be replicated in any medium. Nor can it be perceived by any known sensory system, organic or artificial. It’s wholly conceptual.

That was a brilliant advert - you can easily tell it was English. The Chinese woman and English man to emphasise the UK connection, the British weather, the look of utter boredom and disconnection as an antidote to the typical fashion advert - it's art, genre-subverting.
If you are American and understood it, congratulations, you are more culturally aware than 99% of your fellow citizens.

People have different views of what “brilliant” is, I suppose.

 

[MrCommunistGen]

That may be the worst company name of all time.

Hey, it's better than nothing!... oh wait

 

[zarmanto]

How do I reply to messages from ars staff added to the end of my posts? ...

Hey me too! I pinged @rwhitwam a couple of messages ago. ...

There are ways, and than there are ways. The simplest answer is, hit the "quote" icon in the toolbar of the "Reply to thread" dialog to insert a generic quote box, and then copy/paste their comment into place. The required effort is small and the results look minimally different from conventional quoting:

rwhitwam

"Some people will hate it."

Confirmed.

And then you reply as usual, below the quote block.

 

[Damnicus]

Hmmm. Why not just put the aperture on the edge of the phone* and eliminate the prism?


*Not sure why we still refer to them as "phones" when it is one of the lesser-used features. Around here we call them our "rectangles," as we assume that's how our pets see them (e.g. "they are looking at their rectangles again")

 

[zarmanto]

There are ways, and than there are ways. ...

Also, the more complex answer is to use BB code. It takes a bit more effort, but allows you to make it look and function just like any other quoted passage:

"Some people will hate it."

Confirmed.

 

[CommanderJameson]

Also, the more complex answer is to use BB code. It takes a bit more effort, but allows you to make it look and function just like any other quoted passage:

Or - and go with me on this - story authors could just respond in the comments like normal people.

Some already do! It’s amazing!

 

[Deleted member 1065259]

It really is ugly.

 

[jdale]

That was a brilliant advert - you can easily tell it was English. The Chinese woman and English man to emphasise the UK connection, the British weather, the look of utter boredom and disconnection as an antidote to the typical fashion advert - it's art, genre-subverting.
If you are American and understood it, congratulations, you are more culturally aware than 99% of your fellow citizens.

Boredom and disconnection is the norm for high fashion modeling. So it's not really the antidote to that so much as emulating it.

 

[zarmanto]

Or - and go with me on this - story authors could just respond in the comments like normal people.

That is a parallel issue. I was simply offering to help by providing a direct response to 85mm's question, and you (ahem) seemed to express interest in knowing the answer as well. If you're not actually interested in the answer, that's fine; no point in getting all snarky with me about it.

 

[SinclairZX81]

I’ve never seriously considered putting a phone in my back pocket - I don’t trust them to survive being sat on. Front pocket, yes (even with Pro Max sizes, so far that hasn’t been difficult, at last with the sort of jeans I wear). But even there, as bump gets bigger it’ll eventually be a problem.

I don't sit on the phone. Back pocket is for walking around, and my phone comes out when I sit down. At table, it goes face down over with my keys, and switches itself to "Do not disturb" automatically.

Dunno. Just works for me. Your mileage may vary.

 

[gommer]

Get this device and brand into just everyday phone retail stores, then we'll talk.

 

[Erbium68]

Boredom and disconnection is the norm for high fashion modeling. So it's not really the antidote to that so much as emulating it.

I'm just a pleb, I wouldn't know about that.

 

[L0neW0lf]

I'm waiting for them to make the bump telescope outward when you activate the camera... like a pocket camera from back in the day

I'm glad this will never happen.

But I'm surprised nobody has gone for a ring flash design that completes the circle around the camera housing.

 

[Emon]

I'm not surprised when someone plays it safe and does the same thing as everyone else. If you can't please everyone, then doing the same as everyone else means at least you're not alienating more people than anyone else

My observation over the years has been that product reviewers complain if a device is designed too plainly and if it's too much. If they make it unique, it's "not sleek". If they make it sleek, it's "uninspired."

Who the fuck gets inspired by the design of their phone? I don't mean like, an actual designer appreciating the device, I mean the fact that half the users end up buying a case anyway and don't even see the fucking thing

Oh my favorite thing though is how all the cases have an elevated border around the camera to keep the surface of the lenses safe. Build a bump, hide a bump

 

[gosand]

Any phone I get goes in a case, and if I get a Pro 3 (I have a 2 and I love it) any case I buy will flatten the bump out.

I have a phone with a camera bump, and originally was annoyed that it didn't sit flat even with a case on it. But after using it for a while I realized it was much easier to pick up. I get it now. I have no issues with it getting snagged on my pockets, and the battery is just fine. (Ulefone Note 18 Ultra)

 

[kgb999-again]

There are ways, and than there are ways. The simplest answer is, hit the "quote" icon in the toolbar of the "Reply to thread" dialog to insert a generic quote box, and then copy/paste their comment into place. The required effort is small and the results look minimally different from conventional quoting:



And then you reply as usual, below the quote block.

I've done this myself from time to time. However, that works as a quote not a reply. While the visual result is similar, there are notable technological differences. And it begs the question .... why make users jump through those hoops rather than just do a normal comment reply?

Truthfully, the feature being used here is typically implemented to allow a non-interactive moderator note to be added to a comment (e.g. "Yes, we've verified this person represents a specific entity", or "This assertion fails our fact checking."). Authors using it as a substitute for the "reply" button often does end up being pretty awkward. I certainly wouldn't train users to use it this way.

 

[garapito]

I think Odysseus would have been a big fan of Nothing.

Polyphemus would fucking hate it though.

 

[SPCagigas]

This is a very important design element that needs more attention as these phones get thicker and bumpier.

Yeah, I remember reading decades ago about the hardware engineers for Apple's Newton OMP going to stores throughout California with wood cutouts of the proposed hardware to see how pocketable they were... Now, looking at my OMP, I can't remember ever having pockets quite that large, but hey it was the early '90s...

 

[zarmanto]

This is a quoted post that kgb999-again didn't actually make, which exists solely for the purpose of experimentation. Pay it no mind.

You've prompted my curiosity, kgb999. Can you please indulge me, and check your "Alerts" bell for any indication of this reply? I'm curious as to exactly how much of a technological difference there is between manually BB coding a quote and using the "Quote" button.

(For the purposes of this experiment, I've intentionally linked the fake quote above to one of my own prior posts, since that most directly simulates the scenario that is under test -- that of quoting a moderator note where potentially no posts from that moderator exist in the thread.)

 

[EnPeaSea]

"Some people will hate it"? That's not news; that's the Free Square on every internet discussion bingo card.

I thought the free space was "Nazi" but "I hate it" is definitely as certain as the caller making innuendo of O-69.

 

[EnPeaSea]

I am a simple man: No headphone jack, no buy.

If you still must have wired headphones, they make them with a USB-C end now.

 

[slavensb]

Well, to me, carrying this phone means advertising to the entire world: "I am so stupid that I have been taken in by these fake 'internal' details and blingy LEDs that serve no useful purpose." The fact that the phone is named "Nothing," which means there is nothing substantive about the product, adds to the insult. Yeah, insult. That's the word. I refuse to have anything to do with the device because every time I hear about it, I get the feeling that Carl Pei is insulting our intelligence, and he's expecting us to lap it up.

But that's just me.

Conversely, Everytime I see someone with a brand new "iPhone __ Max" or (especially) a "Galaxy __ Ultra" all I see is someone who paid over $1200-1600 for a phone and I can't help but wonder what makes those things valuable to people (other than them simply being the most expensive version of their respective product lines).

For that price, you could've bought a really decent desktop PC that's a full computer, but instead you bought an underpowered, overpriced, locked-down edge device for serving cloud apps that's only slightly more performant than the phones at ½ the price.

The mind boggles.

 

[Erbium68]

Polyphemus would fucking hate it though.

Not if it had 100% voice control of all functions, though.

 

[zarmanto]

... For that price, you could've bought a really decent desktop PC that's a full computer, ...

Certainly... but you can't carry that desktop PC around with you in your pocket. Very different use case.

Of course, technology does not stand still: cell phones today eclipse the performance of many older desktops. You may or may not remember this... but in 1999 Apple produced a mildly amusing ad describing their (then new) PowerMac G4 as a "Super Computer" which was so powerful that the US government restricted them from exporting it to certain nations. Today, modern iPhones -- made by the very same company -- can run circles around even the last/fastest version of that computer.

The mind boggles, you say? Yes... it absolutely does -- at how much we can accomplish with such tiny pieces of technology.

 

[akamat]

... speaking of cases, all they'd need to do is add some waterproof contacts to the backside, and make a case with an added battery that can be charged with the phone.

Motorola did that a few years ago, with its Moto Mods system that had a battery pack; or could also add a separate Hasselblad camera, projector etc. Unfortunately it was supported in some limited iirc mid-range models, and never really caught on

 

[zogus]

Conversely, Everytime I see someone with a brand new "iPhone __ Max" or (especially) a "Galaxy __ Ultra" all I see is someone who paid over $1200-1600 for a phone and I can't help but wonder what makes those things valuable to people (other than them simply being the most expensive version of their respective product lines).

For that price, you could've bought a really decent desktop PC that's a full computer, but instead you bought an underpowered, overpriced, locked-down edge device for serving cloud apps that's only slightly more performant than the phones at ½ the price.

The mind boggles.

You seem to be implying that you look down on people who pay $1200-1600 for a phone, but Nothing's $500-600 is a-OK. Where is the cutoff point, and why do you feel justified in drawing the line there?

 

[wagnerrp]

Certainly... but you can't carry that desktop PC around with you in your pocket. Very different use case.

Of course, technology does not stand still: cell phones today eclipse the performance of many older desktops. You may or may not remember this... but in 1999 Apple produced a mildly amusing ad describing their (then new) PowerMac G4 as a "Super Computer" which was so powerful that the US government restricted them from exporting it to certain nations. Today, modern iPhones -- made by the very same company -- can run circles around even the last/fastest version of that computer.

The mind boggles, you say? Yes... it absolutely does -- at how much we can accomplish with such tiny pieces of technology.

But... why? Video playback is hardware decoded. You don't need a CPU. 5G is plenty fast and fat to stream games, for the sort of games you're going to be playing on a cell phone, if those promised "unlimited" plans were actually a reality. Web browsers only need power to handle processing all the ads.

 

[Hezio]

Polyphemus would fucking hate it though.

What would they hate?

 

[crosslink]

Also, consumers, on average, have tended to vote for smaller batteries than what the average batteryphile would prefer.

The ones who buy a new phone from their carrier every 2 years.

 

[MechR]

If you still must have wired headphones, they make them with a USB-C end now.

And only one phone family has two USB-C ports (plus a jack), bless their madman hearts. A ROG Phone will probably be my next, if the Xcover7 Pro doesn't come with 8GB RAM.