So before the year 2022 ended, I put up a poll on my YouTube community post…
…and among all, you have voted for these two – the Nothing Phone (1) and the Samsung Galaxy A73 to go against each other. So I have decided to revisit both phones by using them daily to find out which phone is the better phone.
First, let’s talk about each of the phone’s prices; as of January 2023, the Nothing Phone (1) is priced at RM1,999, which is about USD453 for the 8GB RAM and 256GB storage variant
…and the Samsung A73’s price has dropped to RM1,760 which is about USD399. So is the higher price on the Nothing Phone (1) worth it? Well, let’s find out!
Hardware
So the Samsung Galaxy A73 comes with the Snapdragon 778G 5G chipset, while the Nothing Phone (1) comes with Snapdragon 778G+ chipset, where both are 6nm chipsets, and after all the latest updates, both phones did not have any issues when I used it daily.
The A73 was and still has been bug-free, while the Nothing Phone (1) was totally infested by bugs. But after the latest updates, all of those have just gone away.
In terms of how each phone handles heat, I wouldn’t say that both phones ran cool during a very heavy gameplay, but of course there’s no overheating issues, which I will dive in deeper in my gaming review later on, especially how it feels in the hands when you game on these phones for a very long time.
In terms of weight, on paper, the Nothing Phone (1) is heavier and the A73 was about 12.5 grams lighter. Now, that might sound like it’s a lot, but the Nothing Phone (1) did not feel significantly heavier, and like I said before, the Nothing Phone (1) always felt like you are using an iPhone, so if you are coming from the iPhone 12 series onwards, it will be highly familiar to you, where the A73 did feel as good as how the A series from Samsung has always been.
So if I had to choose between which rear finish is better on my hands, my obvious pick would be the A73 as it did feel like a tiny bit less slippery to hold compared to the Nothing Phone (1), and the side frame on the A73 felt nicer compared to the squared design frame that the Nothing Phone (1) had.
But of course, since I do use the iPhone 14 Pro Max as my daily smartphone, the Nothing Phone (1) didn’t feel too “alien” to me, so I guess that this comes down to which type of design that you prefer.
Speaking of design, while I do appreciate how the camera bump was nicely curved to the camera arrays, but we all have to agree on the uniqueness of the Nothing Phone (1)’s design, which was a very refreshing look.
And even if you do or do not use the Glyph interface it does give that very unique look about the phone, so in terms of design, the Nothing Phone (1) wins hands down.
Then if you are like me, who likes to type on the phone when it’s on the desk, the good news is that both phones do not wobble at all, so I certainly loved that about the phones.
Then the placements of the ports and buttons are just a little different, where the Nothing Phone (1) has the volume rockers on the left and the power button on the right
and the A73 had everything on the right hand side but there’s no issues of reaching out to the buttons or having any accidental presses, like how it was when I used the Google Pixel 7 Pro because of how awkward the placing of the buttons were.
Both phones have stereo speakers, while both sounded great, I was leaning towards the Nothing Phone (1)’s audio quality because the bass was a little better and had overall better balance of the music and the vocals without needing to tweak the audio.
So overall, from a hardware perspective, other than giving the speakers a point for the Nothing Phone (1), I’d give a point for the design too, and a point for the A73 for the overall finish and better durability of the phone since the phone is not made of glass at the back; hence it’s more durable in case you drop the phone.
Display
Looking at the phone’s display, the A73’s display size is slightly bigger at 6.7 inches, compared to the Nothing Phone (1)’s 6.55 inches.
The Nothing Phone (1) has a 100 nits lower peak brightness at 700 compared to 800 nits on the A73, and while the brightness difference isn’t really noticeable when using it daily, I found a significant difference if you use the phone under very bright sunlight as there were times where the Nothing Phone (1)’s screen was way less visible compared to the A73 when I use it in a harsh or a very strong daylight situation.
Now while I do appreciate how the Nothing Phone (1) had a more symmetrical bezel and the camera hole punch at the side compared to the middle on the A73, but the thing is that, whether or not it’s a mid-range or a flagship smartphone, Samsung has always been the best in the market when it comes to their displays, and this is the same for the A73.
So yes, if I had to compare it side by side with the Nothing Phone (1), the Galaxy A73 definitely produces an overall better image when consuming videos or any other contents in general.
From a display’s software perspective, it is indeed very nice that there are customized options to change between the saturated and non-saturated mode and even changing the white balance on both phones to cater on which color temperature that you want the phone to be.
Since both phones have up to the 120Hz refresh rate, so using the phone daily for scrolling and navigating between windows was nice and smooth, so I have no complaints of using this phone’s screen when I use it daily.
Both phones have the exact resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels, so it is equally as sharp, but reading text on the A73 was more pleasing to the eye, especially when you do not turn on the Dark Mode, and both have the same Gorilla Glass 5 Protection as well.
What I found nice is that both phones had the perfect automatic brightness adjustments, where usually it’s the POCOs or the Samsungs that does a better job on the automatic brightness, so it is nice that the Nothing Phone (1) joins them to be one of the best adaptive brightness for the display.
So it was a tough choice to choose between the both, but I would say that I would go with the Galaxy A73, which has a slight edge for producing better color reproduction and a slightly brighter display when needed.
Camera
So the cameras on these two phones could be a make or break on your purchase decision, and the question is that, is the bigger sensor on the A73 can beat the Nothing Phone (1) flat?
Well, as a recap of the specs, the Samsung A73 has a massive 108MP F1.8 Main lens, a 12MP F2.2 Ultrawide Lens, a 5MP F2.4 Macro Lens, and a 5MP F2.4 Depth Lens. Yeap, the last two lenses which I call it the “useless lenses”, so let’s see how useful it is.
Then the Nothing Phone (1) has a 50MP F1.9 Main Lens and another 50MP F2.2 Ultrawide Lens. Yeap, just two lenses, but at least they serve a useful purpose, right?
Then as for the front camera, the A73 has a bigger 32MP F2.2 aperture lens, and the Nothing Phone (1) has a smaller 16MP F2.5 lens.
High Megapixel Mode
Let’s start with the High Megapixel Mode; as I predicted, if you don’t zoom into the image, it looks pretty identical to another, everything from the colors to the dynamic range, probably just the contrast on the Nothing Phone (1) was just a tad bit darker on the area of the trees but not hugely noticeable.
But of course, if you zoom in close to about 8x, here is where you can see a sharper image on the A73 due to its higher megapixel count. But as said, not everyone needs to punch in and zoom in close after they have taken a shot.
Ultrawide Lens
To my huge surprise, both pictures for the ultra-wide lens were extremely similar, and if it weren’t for the watermark on the A73, you could not tell which is which, where the focal length and the dynamic range was on point and very same as well. The only slight difference would be the fact that the greens were a bit more saturated on the A73 in the usual Samsung fashion, but not too over-saturated.
Main Lens
Since the images were quite similar on the High Megapixel mode, you can expect similar results for the main lenses, with similar details and colors for both phones. And unlike the ultra-wide lens, the saturation on the A73 was perfectly balanced on its main lens too.
Zoom
In terms of the zoom-in capabilities, what’s interesting is that the Nothing Phone (1) can zoom up to 20x even with a smaller size sensor than the A73, which could only zoom up to 10x.
Another interesting fact is that if you compare the 10x zoom images on both, the Nothing Phone (1) seems to have a cleaner image as you guys can see, which was mind-boggling because the A73 has a supposedly bigger 108MP sensor compared to the 50MP sensor on the Nothing Phone (1).
And even if you go down to the 2x zoom, the Nothing Phone (1) had just a little more texture on the building. It’s a very tiny difference, but yeah, it’s there.
Rear Portrait Mode
Then comparing the rear portrait mode on subjects, both had excellent edge detection on the subject, and the dynamic range on the blurred background was nice and smooth, but of course, the images were just a little saturated on the A73 when comparing both.
But there were times when the A73 couldn’t figure out which object to stay focused on, as seen in this second image of the leaves, where the Nothing Phone (1) did a better job over here. Again, here is where I felt like the depth sensor lens may not do what it is supposed to do.
As for portrait mode on humans, here is where the A73 did a better job when it comes to edge detection, not only for the person’s hair on top but also for the menu he was holding.
However, the skin tones were a bit more natural on the Nothing Phone (1), looking at this particular second photo.
Macro Mode
Then going into Macro Mode, yeah, the lens which I called useless, which a lot of people tend to love, so… okay. So yeah, in this particular first image, the A73 had better details and was sharp from edge to edge compared to how the Nothing Phone (1) was blurry at the edges.
However, sometimes I found it a bit harder to focus on the A73; as seen in this particular second image; and I swear my hands were as stable as it can be.
Night Mode
Ultrawide Lens
Switching over to the night mode, starting with the ultra-wide lenses, I prefer how natural the light was on the Nothing Phone (1), and the images were even sharp too, probably because of the bigger ultra-wide sensor on the phone. And again, my hands were extremely stable and I even waited longer after taking a shot.
Then the details on the sky on the second image were better on the Nothing Phone (1) too, as it was quite soft on the A73 and once again less sharp than the Nothing Phone (1).
But if you do have a significant amount of light, only then the A73 looked nice. But then again, you usually would turn on the night mode when you don’t have enough light, right?
Main Lens
However, you start to see better images on the main lenses on the A73, making it very identical once again, and it was the same even at 2x digital zoom.
Selfie
If you are planning on taking selfies at night, if the night lights are towards you, it will produce some nice images, but if you are taking a selfie with some lights behind you, the A73 will light up the face better, hence having better results in those situations.
Daytime Portrait Selfie
Switching over to daytime selfies on the portrait mode, not only the software processing knew which to keep in focus and which is the background on the Nothing Phone (1) compared to the A73, I also preferred the more natural skin tones that the Nothing Phone (1) had, no matter the lighting was harsh of soft.
VIDEO
[Check out my YouTube video for the sample video footages]
Then as for video, both phones can record up to 4K 30 frames per second.
Ultrawide
The ultrawide video was equally as good, where the A73 was a bit better in terms of the image quality and of course a little more saturated as per usual. The image stabilization was also great, and there were some weird focus issues at the beginning of the video whenever I record a video on the Nothing Phone (1), but after that, it was all good.
Main
Both video footage looked great on the main lenses too and performed very well in my dynamic range test when I pointed the camera against the sun, so it did show how great that these two cameras were.
As for the image stabilization, both were decent, as how a mid-range phone would usually perform without adding the extra stabilization mode that will eventually bring down the resolution as well.
Front Video
As for the front video, the Nothing Phone (1) joins the other Chinese smartphone makers to only give us up to 1080p recording, compared to 4K 30 fps recording on the A73.
So you will have a better video footage on the front camera on the A73; however, the image stabilization wasn’t the best on both phones because I expected it to perform better.
Night Video Main Lens
If you are planning on taking videos at night, I felt that the video on the Nothing Phone (1) was a bit better at low light situations, especially on recording towards the writing of lighted words of “D’italiane”.
Night Selfie Video
And if you are planning to do some vlogging at night, once again, because of its higher recording resolution, the footage looked better on the A73.
Do check out my YouTube video for a short vlogging test!
Battery
As for the battery specs, the A73 has a larger 5000 mAh of battery, which I consider quite necessary for a mid-range smartphone, and the Nothing Phone (1) had 500 mAh less.
Battery drain on the Nothing Phone (1) was better, with 5% battery between them both at the beginning stage of using the phone after it is fully charged.
In terms of the screen on time, after all of the updates, I was getting an average of 7 hours of battery on the A73, and to my surprise, even with a lower 500 mAh, the battery on the Nothing Phone (1) was averaging at about 10 hours plus, beating the A73’s daily battery life test when I was at 10% battery.
Now, these tests are done with the “forced” 120Hz refresh rate and dark mode turned on for both phones.
So I guess size does NOT matter, eh?
Then charging performance on the Nothing Phone (1) is better at 33W compared to 25W on the A73, because the Nothing Phone (1)’s rear is made of glass of course, and the phone also has wireless charging up to 15W and reverse wireless charging up to 5W as well.
So the obvious winner over here is the Nothing Phone (1) when it comes to the battery department.
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Software
So, one of the biggest strengths of Samsung phones these days, including this mid-range series, is how they have promised future Android and security updates even more than Google’s very own Pixel devices.
And Samsung has lived up to its promise because as of the time of my review; the A73 is at Android version 13 with the latest One UI version 5, which I absolutely love and still is my preferred Android skin.
And the Nothing Phone (1) is still at Android 12 with Nothing OS 1.1.7
As much as I did not come across any issues when I used both phones daily; and while the Nothing Phone (1)’s UI was new and refreshing, but there was a sort of familiarity of Samsung’s One UI since it has been in the market way longer than Nothing.
So I would say that if you jump from any other smartphone to the Nothing Phone (1), it might take a little getting used to, and some people have said that the UI was very close to the iPhone’s, and I would totally disagree on that.
This is because in my humble opinion, I feel that the UI is a combination of the OnePlus from the yesteryears and a little pinch of Pixel UI in it.
From a comparison standpoint, I do prefer the slightly more straightforward approach that the One UI has on the A73; for example, going into the settings was way faster on the A73 where you could see the gear icon when you scroll down the notification menu, compared to how you will need to scroll down twice to see the gear icon over there on the Nothing Phone (1).
Again, this is not a huge issue, but it is worth mentioning since this is a comparison video.
And while the Settings menu was clean and straightforward, there always seems like there are more options on the One UI skin, for example, the Connections Menu, and I always love how Samsung puts the “Looking for something else?” below to ensure that you go to where you want to be in a very quick click.
As mentioned, the Glyph Interface is something that I don’t use myself daily and I still feel that it is a bit of a novelty cool feature, so I wouldn’t say that it is a decision-maker of sorts, but then some people do really use it, so it depends on the individual as well.
So from a software’s perspective, I do prefer the software experience on the Samsung Galaxy A73, so here is a point for that, and while there is nothing wrong with Nothing UI, pun intended, I feel that instead of trying to go back with Carl Pei’s time at OnePlus to have that kind of UI, they should have a unique look on its own, just like how the Nothing Phone (1)’s hardware is.
Gaming
So the gaming test was done based on Genshin Impact since it is more graphic intensive.
On the Nothing Phone (1), it performed at best at Medium Settings, 60 fps with motion blur turned off, where the game ran smoothly without any lag or micro stutter; where there were no huge battery drain issues, where it went down about 3% battery after 20 minutes of continuous gameplay, which was great.
To my surprise, I thought that the edges might be a little uncomfortable during a very long gameplay, but the good news is that it wasn’t. Then the phone only became a little warm after about 40 minutes of continuous gaming.
Then the settings were the same on the Samsung Galaxy A73, and the gameplay experience was also very similar to the Nothing Phone (1), and the phone was a little less warm compared to the Nothing Phone (1) at about 40 minutes in, and since the phone had a matte finish at the back, the overall grip was better when I was playing game for a very long time compared to the Nothing Phone (1).
So in my humble opinion, when it comes to gaming, I preferred the gaming experience on the Galaxy A73 just a bit better because of how it was a bit more comfortable to game on and it was less warm during a longer gameplay. And I have to say that the Nothing Phone (1) was a tad bit responsive when it comes to performing those high intensive animations when doing the special moves.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, which should you get?
Although the Nothing Phone (1) was a pretty disappointing phone when it first came out, it is great that all of the software updates have improved the phone’s camera and of course, the huge jump in battery life.
Before the update, I thought that the A73 would totally beat out the Nothing Phone (1) flat, but that was not the case, especially after all of the software updates, and even without the latest Android 13, my pick, if I had to choose between both phones, would be this Nothing Phone (1).
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