The most voted-for comparison was one between the Nothing Phone 2A and the iQOO Z9. You know what? That was very interesting to me. The main reason why you guys want a comparison between these two phones is because the iQOO Z9, at a much lower cost, has the same chipset, right? I was like, Let’s do this.
Let’s find out if the iQOO at a lower cost is better than the phone 2A, or should I spend more on the phone 2A?
But now when we talk about the build of both these phones, both have a polycarbonate back, of course, but nothing does something very interesting with that polycarbonate back. It has made it transparent, and therefore it looks very attractive. People are loving the design, and compared to that, the iQOO Z9 is regular-looking, right? And you’ve also got two separate halves where the top half is taken up by the glyph lighting pattern and the bottom half is the design inspired by the New York subway, and the glyph lighting is also very functional; you get a progress bar, you get notifications, all of that very useful stuff. So overall, with respect to looks, I definitely prefer the Nothing Phone 2A. Now, come back to the build quality: you get an IP54 rating on both, and for the glass protection, you get Corning Guller Glass 5 protection on the Nothing Phone2A. Now, come back to the build quality: you get an IP54 rating on both, and for the glass protection, you get Corning Guller Glass 5 protection on the Nothing Phone2A. Now, come back to the build quality: you get an IP54 rating on both, and for the glass protection, you get Corning Guller Glass 5 protection on the Nothing Phone2A.
Now, come back to the build quality:
you get an IP54 rating on both, and for the glass protection, you get Corning Guller Glass 5 protection on the Nothing Phone2A. Now, come back to the build quality: you get an IP54 rating on both, and for the glass protection, you get Corning Guller Glass 5 protection on the Nothing Phone 2A, and this one has Dragon Trail Star 2 Plus glass protection. Now, let me just quickly drop this and see which one breaks. It’s quite a drop; obviously none of these will break because both the protections are pretty good, but in general, Corning has a little bit of brand value, and you guys are aware of that. So overall, with respect to looks and durability, I think nothing has a slight bit of an advantage over the iQOO Z9. Now the iQOO Z9 has one thing going for it, and that is the fact that it is slimmer and slightly lighter than the Nothing Phone 2A. Now, does that improve the in-hand feel? I actually don’t think so because I really like the curved, you know, pillowy back of the phone 2A, and the in-hand feel is really, really nice. In fact, I like the in-hand feel of the phone 2a better than the iQOO Z9. And if you’re looking at the ports and buttons, the situation is similar on both: you get a Type-C port at the bottom, you get a dual SIM card tray, and you also get a speaker, grill, mics, volume button, power button, and all of that. So overall, when you look at the design and the build quality of both of these phones, of course you’re paying a slightly higher premium for the phone because it’s got those unique glyph patterns, it’s got a transparent design, and it definitely looks very good. Alright, now let’s talk about the display and multimedia experience because that is where you will be spending most of your time, right?
So on both of these phones, you get the same 6.67-inch full HD Plus AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate as well.
There is absolutely no difference in the metrics. Now, HDR10 Plus is also supported on both displays, but you get HDR playback on both YouTube and Netflix on the, you know, more affordable ICO Z9, whereas nothing doesn’t give you, you know, Netflix HDR, which is a bit of a bummer. Now, another thing is the brightness metric. NothingPhone 2A can reach a peak brightness when you’re watching HDR content of about 1300 nits, and when you’re taking it outdoors in high brightness mode, it can reach 1100 nits. Now, on the ICO Z9, you can reach a peak brightness of 1800 nits when you’re watching HDR content, but iQOO hasn’t provided us with the number for how much brightness it can reach in high brightness mode. However, when we took both of these displays outside, we couldn’t really tell the difference in brightness. Both were equally bright and legible in direct sunlight. Now, brightness is one metric; let’s keep that aside, but what matters more to me, at least, is the color accuracy of the display. And that is where the iQOO Z9 does a fantastic job because in the Pro mode, the color tuning is really, really good. And this is something that iQOO gets from its DNA of tuning displays, along with, you know, what we get with Vivo phones as well. The Pro color tuning is very, very good. In fact, the color tuning is definitely better than the Nothing Phone 2A, that’s for sure.
And of course, it also has the advantage of HDR video playback support on Netflix.
Now, with respect to the speaker quality, the Nothing Phone 2A speakers sound much, much better than the iQOO Z9. Take a listen to it for yourself, and let me know what you guys think. Now, a part of the display is also the in-display fingerprint scanner. And of course, both are extremely fast to unlock; no problem there. And also part of the display is the haptic feedback engine, and the Nothing Phone 2A’s haptic feedback motor is tighter and it’s crisper for sure. So overall, when you’re looking at the display and multimedia experience, what I liked about the iQOO Z9 is that it is tuned really, really well. And that matters to me a lot. And, of course, the fact that you also get HDR on Netflix. But on the Phone 2A, the speaker quality is better. So overall, I would say it’s a bit of a tie, depending on what you pick. But yeah, I mean, this is only if you compare them side by side. But if you’re using these devices, you will be pretty happy with the display and multimedia experience. OK, now, finally, let’s talk about the performance. The iQOO Z9 has the Dimensity 7200, and the Nothing Phone 2A, of course, has the Dimensity 7200 Pro. But after testing the performance on both of these phones, I’m really confused as to which really has the Pro processor. Because here’s the thing: in Antutu, the iQOO Z9 scores more than the Nothing Phone 2A. Even in the CPU throttle test where we engaged 40 threads for 30 minutes, the iQOO Z9 had 94% CPU stability, while this one had 84% CPU stability. So tuning wise, iQOO is doing it better than nothing, that’s for sure. By the way, one of the things I must definitely mention before I forget is that the iQOO Z9 has LPDDR 4X RAM type and UFS 2.2, which is also true for the Nothing Phone 2A. But if you want a higher 12GB RAM variant, then you can buy that only on the Nothing Phone 2A; the iQOO Z9 doesn’t offer that 12GB RAM variant. Now, one of the things that a lot of people were talking about is that the Nothing Phone 2A stutters a lot, but with the 2.5.4 update, definitely those stutters have been removed. Also, Ranjit mentioned one thing that is very pertinent and very important: switch off the virtual RAM mode on the Nothing Phone 2A, and those stutters will stop. We tried it, and that’s actually true. So overall, with respect to the daily usage smoothness of animations and everything, I actually prefer nothing to iQOO’s animations, but still, I mean, that’s just a bit of a toss-up. Now, gaming-wise, both of these phones can play BGMI at 60 fps with smooth extreme graphics, basically, and Call of Duty at 90 fps. So overall, with respect to gaming performance, it’s very good on both, but the iQOO Z9 definitely performs better than the Nothing Phone 2A, and that also comes from the experience of iQOO tuning for gaming performance on many phones in the past, and it does a fantastic job with the Z9 as well.
So your advantages will definitely matter for anybody who cares about performance a lot, and the more affordable iQOO Z9 beats the Nothing Phone 2A. However, the Phone 2A is better than the iQOO Z9 when you look at network and radio connectivity. Now, with respect to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, you get Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, so that’s not a problem. But the Nothing Phone 2A has NFC support, which the iQOO Z9 doesn’t. Also, the Nothing Phone 2A supports more 5G bands, which is 13 5G bands compared to 8 5G bands on the iQOO Z9. So of course, Nothing Phone 2A wins here. Now let’s talk about the battery performance of both of these phones. both of these have a 5000 mAh battery inside and of course the charging speeds are also very similar 45 watt on the nothing phone 2an 44 watt flash charge technology support on the iqoo z9 but here’s the thing the iqoo z9 bundles the charger inside the box which is a huge advantage at that price that too nothing doesn’t bundle that and you have to pay extra for it so that’s a problem now respect to battery performance we noticed that the battery life was very similar on both if you are actually pushing these phones like you know for gaming for videography for photography all of that then you can expect about 6 hours to 7 hours of screen-on-time but if you’re using it like regular usage moderate usage you can easily expect 7 to 8 hours or even more so overall battery performance wise both are better but the fact that iQOO provides the charger in the box I think I will give it a little bit of an advantage here but one area where the Nothing 4 2A unequivocally wins for me is in the software experience because what you get is Nothing OS 2.5.4 now based on Android 14 and Nothing also promises 3 years of software updates and years of security updates for the phone. In comparison, the iQOO Z9 has FunTouch OS 14, based on Android 14, with the promise of two years of software updates and three years of security updates. And I’ve spoken at length about the software experience on both of these phones, but I really love the clean and neat software experience of the Nothing Phone 2A because, of course, the bloatware has been kept to a minimum.
There are really good functional advantages in the form of the enlarged folders and the kind of widgets that are available on the lock screen itself, which is damn nice. FunTouch OS also has a lot of features, but of course, with the iQOO Z9, you do have bloatware apps pre-installed. Plus, even hot apps and hot games are on by default; you can switch them off, but they’re there. So yeah, software experience-wise, for me, the Nothing Phone 2A wins. Now, finally, let’s talk about the cameras. So what do you get on the Nothing Phone 2A? You get a 50MP primary camera, a 50MP ultra-wide camera without autofocus, which has been a huge problem for me, and a 32MP selfie camera. On the iQOO Z9, you get a 50MP primary camera, a Sony IMX882; there’s no ultra wide; and the secondary camera is actually a bokeh or a depth sensor. And on the front, you’ve got a 16MP selfie camera as well. Now, when you look at the primary camera details captured by both phones, both are pretty good if you ask me, but the Nothing Phone 2A captures natural details compared to the slightly oversharpened look of the iQOO. Now, when we talk about colors, the iQOO Z9 is more consistent with the colors. It’s slightly warm, but it is closer to natural compared to nothing. Nothing gets the color itself wrong. For example, the color of the tomatoes here is wrongly captured by the Nothing Phone 2A compared to the iQOO Z9, which gets it right. When you look at the HDR processing, the Nothing Phone 2A’s HDR processing is very, very good. It brings out a lot of details from the shadows, and the highlights are well controlled too. In comparison, the iQOOS shadows are crushed. But I’m talking about HDR processing specifically when you’re shooting landscape shots because when you have a person in the picture, it goes for a toss, and I’ll talk about that really soon. Now, when you’re shooting friends and family, the skin tones on the Nothing Phone 2A are closer to natural. You can see Arnav’s skin tone out here, and the iQOOS Z9 makes it slightly warm. And even when you zoom in and take a look at the details, then the Nothing Phone 2A captures more details than the iQOOS Z9. However, when you’re shooting people against the light, nothing’s HDR algorithm goes for a toss, and you can see a lot of bloom around the face. There is a kind of HDR bloom that we’ve associated with OnePlus phones that exists here. So what the algorithm does here is that the moment it detects a face, it realizes that it wants to brighten it, and therefore it ends up brightening a lot of the scene around the face as well. Therefore, ICO’s natural processing looks very, very good here. And that’s exactly what I was talking about with respect to landscape HDR processing and people HDR processing. And in portrait shots, I don’t even have to say it out here; iQOO’s portraits look way better than the Nothing Phone 2a. Both of these phones can also shoot 2x portraits, and in that too, the iQOO looks better than the Nothing Phone 2a. Because of the depth effect, the depth mapping looks really good, the gradual bokeh looks really good, and the edge detection is also very good. Now, one advantage of the Nothing Phone 2a is that you get the extra ultra-wide angle camera, the 50MP ultra-wide angle camera, but it’s not a very good camera because it cannot do autofocus, and we ended up with a lot of shots that were never in focus. Now, talking about selfies, while the Nothing Phone 2a might have a higher-resolution selfie camera, the processing of the iQOO Z9 is better, if you ask me. Because what I noticed is that the skin tones are closer to natural. Nothing might capture more details, but the iQOO’s pictures look more close to real life. That apart, when you shoot against the light, you know, iQOO’s HDR processing comes in handy, because Nothing’s HDR processing messes up the shot. Also, the portrait selfies look better on the iQOO Z9, and the low-light selfies are also better on the iQOO Z9 compared to the Nothing Phone 2a. Now, with the primary camera on both of these phones, you can shoot 4K 30 fps videos, and nothing shoots at a higher bitrate, so you definitely get more details on offer, plus nothing’s footage looks slightly more organic with the kind of depth information that is captured and the kind of light mapping that is done compared to the iQOO Z9 as well. Of course, the iQOO Z9 also does a fantastic job of shooting 4K 30 fps videos, especially the audio quality, which sounded really, really good, so right now we are shooting the video sample using the iQOO Z9. So overall, with respect to 4K 30FPS video recording quality, technically, the Nothing Phone 2A is better, but the iQOO Z9 could also look good to a lot of people. The other advantage of the Phone 2A is that 1080p 60FPS videos can be captured using the selfie camera, whereas the iQOO Z9 can only do 1080p 30FPS. And in terms of selfie video, when you looked at the quality and the kind of video that was captured, the Nothing Phone 2A’s video looked better than the iQOO Z9. So it’s clear to me from the testing that we’ve done on the cameras that the iQOO Z9 has a more mature algorithm that’s been tuned well for so many years that it definitely doesn’t miss a beat and is slightly more consistent when shooting pictures compared to the Nothing Phone 2a. The Nothing Phone 2a generally struggles with multi-stack processing, which is, you know, portrait mode or HDR.
These are problems that definitely need to be fixed as soon as possible.
Of course, they’ve been issuing updates, but the camera still seems to be an area where nothing can definitely improve. but sometimes there are pictures that the Nothing Phone 2a can capture, which the ICO Z9 cannot. And no, I’m not just talking about the ultra-wide-angle camera; I’m talking about landscape HDR pictures. Alright, overall, if you ask me, the ICO Z9 is a fantastic deal for the 4000 rupees less that you pay for it compared to the Phone 2a. So if in your priority list, performance takes the top spot and the primary cameras, you know, consistency is very, very important, then I would really recommend that you go into for the Phone 2a and pick the ICO Z9 instead. but pick the phone 2A if you’re okay paying extra for the kind of design that nothing has made with it, because of course that takes a lot of effort, and apart from that, pick it if you want a better software experience, that’s for sure. So with that out of the way, I hope this comparison was useful for you to make a decision on which phone you should buy, and hopefully you will also make this decision if you do end up buying one of these phones.
