Nothing just added a great Phone (2a) free upgrade to improve cameras and more

I've been using the Nothing Phone (2a) for a couple of weeks as my daily handset now, so it was a welcome surprise to have a pop-up notification upon waking up this morning (12 March 2024) telling me about a new free software upgrade. 

The new over-the-air update, Nothing OS 2.5.3, is available now to all Nothing Phone (2a) users – the handset officially launches today to market via nothing.tech and select partners – and adds a number of camera upgrades specifically, alongside additional features and bug fixes. 

I was thinking just the other day when opening the camera app that it was a little slow, so it's great to see "enhanced camera app loading speed and overall performance" cited as one of the improvements. There are also enhancements to colour saturation and clarity improvements (the latter for the front-facing camera).

But those aren't the biggest benefits in my view: the new software upgrade brings Ultra HDR, "supporting XDR display effect for photos". That means 'extreme high dynamic range' support, which will look even better on relevant XDR displays. Furthermore the optical image stabilisation (OIS) has been optimised too.

The OS 2.5.3 upgrade doesn't only cover camera updates though. Also on the list of improvements are new ringtones, a new Recorder widget, tri-level haptic feedback, better charging adapter compatibility, and a variety of bug fixes for a more stable user experience overall. 

I've just installed the 71MB update and will be exploring the differences made to the Nothing Phone (2a). Given this is clearly one of the best affordable phones on the market right now, to see it improve with a day-one software drop is impressive. I'd best change my ringtone already, as 'woo yeh' is clearly a must-have...