Nothing Phone (2a) runs on MediaTek Dimensity 7200 ‘Pro,’ more renders leak

Ben Schoon | Feb 20 2024 - 6:59 am PT

The Nothing Phone (2a) is coming soon with a budget focus and, as was reported months ago, the company’s first MediaTek chipset.

Nothing Phone (1) and Phone (2) have both used Snapdragon processors from Qualcomm, but the company is making a shift for this new budget device. The Nothing Phone (2a) will be running atop the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 which was announced almost a year ago. The mid-range chipset supports 5G and is built on the same 4nm process as current flagship Android chipsets.

Nothing, however, says it will be using an updated version of the Dimensity 7200 co-engineered with MediaTek.

The chip, called “Dimensity 7200 Pro,” has the same 2.8GHz clock speed as the 2023 chip, but Nothing says the chip – apparently exclusive to Phone (2a) – is “better tuned” for things like power draw from the display IC and modem which are roughly 10% more efficient. The chip also, apparently, enables Nothing to implement “RAM Booster” for using up to 20GB of device storage as memory, as well as “Smart Clean” which can optimize write/read speeds.

Notably, Nothing’s Carl Pei directly said just hours ahead of this announcement that the Phone (2a) wouldn’t be using the Dimensity 7200. While it’s reasonably clear that Pei was just teasing a custom variant, the tweet was clearly stretching the truth for a little bit of hype.

Nothing Phone (2a) launches in March and is said to cost as little as €349.

Meanwhile, @OnLeaks has published new renders (with SmartPrix) of the Nothing Phone (2a) which are claimed to be accurate. The same leaker previously posted renders of a drastically different design that were retracted and claimed to be inaccurate. The new renders better align with previous leaks found through Nothing’s own software a few months ago.