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Transcript
00:00Good day, you beautiful people! Welcome to Isa Das Tech, where we do tech in your life,
00:13in style. Today, we're doing a vlog test with the Nothing Phone 2A in Ho Chi Minh City,
00:17Vietnam. If you're new to the channel, these vlog tests are where I bring the phone out
00:21and about to see just how these cameras perform in real-life scenarios. And also, I talk about
00:26my whole experience with the device throughout the day. Now, back to the Nothing Phone 2A. This
00:31is basically Nothing's mid-range phone release, so you know this is going to be at a more affordable
00:37price point. That being said, this is why I'm super excited to see how it performs,
00:42and specifically how the cameras perform on this.
00:56I, again, am holding the mic up to my mouth because there's background music
01:15in this place, so I hope I don't get demonetized. But first off, you can see that Nothing Phones,
01:22even the 2A, these won't have very specific looks to them. I mean, even from afar, you know
01:29that I'm holding a Nothing Phone. What's so nice about this device is, despite it being a mid-range
01:34device, it doesn't feel cheap. Those bumpers are plastic, but they did a very good job in terms of
01:42implementation that it just feels premium. That back, supposedly—oh, did you see that light up?
01:48It's the glyph interface and the notifications. But yeah, that back, super nice. They talk about
01:55how the new back wraps around the back of this phone, and yeah, I really feel like it makes for
02:01such a good look. I also absolutely love the detail they have with the buttons on here. Look,
02:07again, made out of plastic, but looking and feeling pretty classy. Now, I am traveling,
02:12so another thing about this phone though is that it has two SIM slots, but it has no eSIM,
02:17and I usually rely on eSIMs for data when traveling. I had to get a physical SIM for this.
02:23Time check, it's 12.45, and we are at 81%. I started at 10.30am today with 97%.
02:47So one of the things that people rave about when it comes about Nothing phones would be this theme.
02:55It's pretty clean, it's good-looking. I mean, who's gonna say that looks bad? It really does
03:01look good. My only problem with this really is that I need colors on the widgets so that I can
03:07recognize what apps they are, and it's pretty cool because while, yes, I am using the Nothing
03:12icon pack, you can toggle this which says apply to home screen only, and that means on your home
03:18screen, everything looks nice and neat and cool, but when you swipe up, wait, ah, there. You see,
03:24I get my normal colored widgets. Also, another cool thing, I discovered that you can make
03:29AI wallpapers on here depending on, like, different prompts. It's pretty cool.
03:42Now, in terms of camera, this phone has dual 50-megapixel cameras on the back with the main
04:01shooter having OIS and DIS. To be honest, compared to flagships of today, you don't get a lot of
04:08range with these cameras, but I have to say, the cameras that they do have are quite good.
04:13This is walking and talking 4k 30fps with the rear camera 1x. Can do 2x. This is what that looks like
04:231x. There is an option for wide, but you have to stop the clip and then switch to wide on 4k 30fps.
04:34That is a 32-megapixel shooter in that punch hole right there. On selfie photo though, you can do a
04:41wider shot for your selfies. Front-facing camera right now, walking and talking, but this time
04:48around though, you don't have an option for 4k. Neither do you have the option to zoom in or out
04:54when shooting with this camera. And though this can't do 4k, it can do 1080p 60fps this time,
05:01and that's what you're looking at. I also know that a lot of people are gonna be like,
05:04why are you showing us samples? Because you're not gonna be able to export all of these clips
05:08in 60 and 30 and 4k and 1080p. That's not the point. The point is, I'm trying to show you
05:13how consistent the look of the videos are across different settings and resolutions.
05:31Honestly, this is just turning into a little photo walk now, but it's pretty hot, but I'm hotter.
06:02It's 2 p.m. and if you have watched my previous vlog this, you might think that this place looks
06:08familiar because this is our favorite Belgian brewery. Okay, whatever. We've only been to one
06:13Belgian brewery in Vietnam, but we're back here and it's time. Not even a brewery. It says brewery.
06:24But yeah, it's not even happy hour yet, but it's time for afternoon. We're early.
06:30We're early. We like to be punctual.
06:40Holding up the camera so you know it, there is background music again. But
06:43anyway, back to these cameras, those two 50 megapixel shooters. It's not just that doing
06:49all the work. Nothing has their true lens engine algorithm, which basically helps out those cameras.
06:56According to nothing, this was engineered with Google and it should help with Pro XCR. It should
07:00help with night mode shots. It should also help with motion capture. Let me tell you, man. Cameras
07:04these days, it's really the algorithm and the computational photography that do a lot of
07:09heavy lifting. Do we actually have any more features here? So you have an expert mode on
07:15portrait, HDR. Oh, what's this? Glyph fill light? What happens if I turn on the glyph fill light?
07:23Wait. Oh, you get a fill light option. Let's try that later when we're in low light. And then what else?
07:36Oh, also for video. And then there's an action mode.
07:48Like what I really want to check out is if there's like a portrait video,
07:52but it doesn't seem to be a thing on this. Oh, on this camera.
08:01Let's see. Yeah. Someone got the flight. Did you order? Refreshments. What?
08:22So
08:38aside from looking cool, those glyph lights are actually pretty functional so you can do custom
08:43notifications, right? But then there's also that flip to glyph feature, which means that when you
08:49flip your phone, it automatically switches all notifications to the glyph notifications,
08:55and it's silent. Basically a do not disturb type of setting, except you have glyph notifications.
09:01You also have the glyph timer, which allows you to use the glyph lights as a timer. And then there
09:07is glyph progress, which basically means there are third party integrations that allow the glyphs to
09:14work with certain apps. Right now there are pretty limited apps, but can you imagine if like most
09:20apps integrate with a glyph interface? That would be pretty cool. Time check, it's 3 p.m. and we are
09:26at 57%. In terms of usage, as you can see, it's basically a lot of camera and photos. I'm also
09:35getting 2 hours and 25 minutes of screen on time. Now this has a data sim. I've been vlogging with
09:40this. And just a little bit more info on the battery, this charges at 45 watts. It's feeling
09:46like this thing will last me throughout the day. Dinner in Vietnam is not only a feast for your
09:53palate, it's also a feast for your eyes. Is what I would have said had I shot more photos and videos
09:59at dinner, but alas, I was too busy eating. What I did, however, was check the battery throughout
10:05the evening. At 7.36 p.m., we were at 37% with recorded 3 hours and 21 minutes of screen on time.
10:13At 8.02, we were down to 22%. According to this, that's around 4 hours of screen on time
10:21with photos, Google Play Store, Instagram, and camera as the stuff I mostly used while on the
10:28phone. On standby though, the phone lasted throughout the night with me waking up the next
10:33day at 7.30 a.m. and the phone having 19% battery still. Now despite me forgetting to vlog
10:40throughout the rest of my night in Vietnam, I got you. I already shot some low-light footage the night before.
11:04Honestly, it was this low-light performance on these cameras that impressed me the most
11:14throughout the things I've shot on this vlog. Earlier on in the vlog, we discovered that the
11:18glyph lighting can also be used for taking photos and videos. So I decided to try it out to see if
11:24there'd be any difference between shooting without it, shooting with a flash, and shooting with a
11:29glyph lighting. As you can see, there is a marked difference between shooting with a glyph lighting
11:34as fill light on versus just shooting with a phone versus without. We took it a step further and here
11:41are samples without any fill light, with glyph lighting as fill light, with the flash as fill light,
11:48and also with a burst flash. Obviously, the two flash modes don't really look like there's any
11:54difference. So this is sample video of, well, no fill light, no glyph light, no anything.
12:01On the other hand, this is what it looks like when the glyph light is turned on.
12:07And finally, this is what video looks like when the actual flash is turned on as you record video.
12:16That was our time with the Nothingphone 2A in Vietnam. So a few final thoughts. First of all,
12:21I really like how this phone's designed. Like, it looks cool and it's a phone that's fun. It doesn't
12:26take itself too seriously. Some will say that the glyph lights are a gimmick, but from fill lighting
12:31to flip to glyph to even the glyph light timer, I'd say that these have pretty useful use cases.
12:37I mean, it's not necessarily the first feature I'd look for in a smartphone, but it's fun to have.
12:42I mean, it does look really, really cool. So cool that as we're walking around taking photos in
12:48really darkly lit alleys of Vietnam, we even used it as a prop and we came out with
12:53really awesome looking photos.
12:59Camera-wise, the Nothingphone 2A reps very capable shooters. Not the best we've seen on a smartphone
13:04and nothing revolutionary, but very, very capable and even enough to document trips like the one I
13:11just did. I really did think that the Nothingphone 2A did our photos justice. That's it for today's
13:16video. Let me know what you guys think. Let me know what your comments are on the Nothingphone
13:212A. If you want to see how I use my tech on a daily basis, find me online at tisa.us
13:25underscore and Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Until next time!