Nothing Phone (2a) vs POCO X6: Best Value for Money Smartphone?

The much-anticipated Nothing Phone (2a) has landed as the brand’s latest budget-friendly offering. This segment is already dominated by smartphones like the Moto Edge 40 Neo, Redmi Note 13 Pro, and POCO X6. I’ve already pitted Phone 2a against the Moto Edge 40 Neo, so you can gauge which is the better stock Android smartphone in the sub-Rs 25,000 segment. Now, it’s time for a detailed Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6 comparison, since I have both devices here at the Beebom office. So, which of the two offers the best value for your hard-earned money? Let’s find out!

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Specs At a Glance

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Box Contents

Nowadays, if you get a charging adapter and cable in the box, that’s more than enough. But, what if you get not just that but also a cover alongside it? You feel like you’ve hit the jackpot, right? Not just the Edge 40 Neo, the POCO X6 also offers a case in the box, and it’s a nice case; not a cheap one.

Not only do you get to see a case but a 67W charger with a compatible Type-C cable in the box. The usual SIM ejector tool and some papers that you’ll never read through are here too.

On the other hand, Nothing Phone 2a (review) embraces all the minimalism that the brand stands for. It only includes a Type-C to Type-C cable, the trademark Nothing SIM ejector tool, and info leaflets in the box. Rest, it’s just crickets in the box. So, yes, you will have to purchase the brand’s 45W charger separately. Or, if you have an existing charger, that’s one problem solved. But, yes, there’s that.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Design

Moving on to the devices themselves, I have with me the Nothing Phone 2a’s Black variant and the Snowstorm White variant of the POCO X6. Now, it goes without saying that the Nothing Phone 2a really stands out in terms of design, with the transparent back and glyph lighting.

Meanwhile, there’s nothing too special about the POCO X6’s design. There’s a pretty, flowing white glittery texture (matching the color’s name) at the back, which is cool and everything. But, not too distinct to make it stand out like the Phone 2a.

Not to mention that I also like the camera module of the Phone 2a more than that of the POCO X6. The Nothing Phone 2a’s camera setup keeps wobbling at bay too, which I like. However, the POCO X6’s camera module placement makes the phone wobble aggressively at the slightest touch.

Also, when I picked up the devices for the first time, I noticed how the matte finish of the Nothing Phone 2a’s plastic frame immediately felt better in hand. It offered excellent grip and a strange sense of satisfaction as compared to the POCO X6’s polished and slippery plastic sides.

Also, these phones are lightweight, with the Nothing Phone 2a being slightly heavier at 190 grams. The POCO X6 weighs 181 grams. Surprisingly though, the Phone 2a feels lighter because of its excellent weight distribution, contrary to the POCO X6’s boxier design.

The button placement of the Nothing Phone 2a is well thought out too. The power button is on the right side of the frame, while the volume rockers are on the left. Whereas, the POCO X6 includes all the buttons on the right side, like the Motorola Moto Edge 40 Neo, and I’m not a fan.

Where the POCO X6 exceeded my expectations is the accessibility department, offering a 3.5mm headphone jack in the bargain. The placement is also pretty good, being located at the top of the frame. I miss the good old addition of one, and it was a breath of fresh air to see it again. Even the more premium POCO X6 Pro in the lineup doesn’t offer one.

Also, the rear panel of both is glass-mimicking polycarbonate (read plastic). However, during my time testing them, I did not put on any cover and did not notice any major off-putting scratches. There were small scratches though if you squinted enough to spot them, and I’d recommend against using these phones without a back cover. Other things like the speaker grille, charging pin, and SIM slot placement are similar; at the bottom.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Display

As for the displays, they seemed identical for the most part. I did like the Phone 2a’s symmetrical bezels on the 6.7-inch display with a Full-HD+ (1084 x 2412 pixels) resolution. Meanwhile, POCO X6 features a 6.67-inch screen with 1.5K (2712 × 1220 pixels) resolution surrounded by thin bezels. Both are AMOLED displays backed by HDR 10+ technology. The POCO X6 also comes with Dolby Vision, which is a cherry on top.

However, I noticed a problem with the POCO X6 during my testing. For some reason, YouTube videos weren’t using HDR to run. I’m guessing it’s a problem with the YouTube app. Due to this, I couldn’t make the Lux Meter we have at the Beebom office =hit the on-paper peak brightness of the phone of 1800 nits. Instead, I could get a maximum reading of 1050 nits. But, if this HDR issue is fixed via an update, this reading might match the on-paper claims.

It was the Nothing Phone 2a’s peak brightness that knocked my socks off. Our Black review unit hit a peak brightness of, wait for it, a whopping 1,750 nits! Yes, you heard that right. Meanwhile, the White variant was hitting somewhere around 1,450 nits. Even so, these numbers are significantly higher than the company’s claims of a 1,300 nits peak brightness. I’m impressed, Nothing.

The on-paper brightness levels on both the devices translated well outdoors as well, for I had no issues in viewing these displays in direct sunlight or brightly lit indoors. But, thanks to the POCO X6’s 1.5k resolution, details were noticeably sharper in everything that I watched, be it YouTube videos or The Batman on Netflix.

However, I will say that the colors on the Nothing Phone 2a’s display seemed a bit more natural to me than the POCO X6’s output, which felt a tad saturated. The viewing angles are, however, equally good on both phones.

Another important thing to note is that the Nothing Phone 2a comes with the always-on display feature. The POCO X6 doesn’t, and neither does the Moto Edge 40 Neo.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Speaker Output

While the displays of both devices are good, a good speaker setup to back it up is much needed. The good thing is that both Pone 2a and POCO X6 come with pretty good external audio output, thanks to stereo speakers.

The Nothing Phone 2a comes with a bottom-firing speaker, with the receiver grille doubling down as the second speaker. Whereas, the POCO X6 has two dedicated speaker grilles.

Despite that, I found the Nothing Phone 2a’s overall sound output to be richer and slightly louder even. From the sound of air bubbles being injected into an aquarium to the bass-heavy Blood Code soundtrack from John Wick 4, the Phone 2a’s speakers just offered more clarity in the highs, mids, and lows. The POCO X6 lacked this balance, and although loud, sounded flat for the most part.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Cameras

Before I get into the real-life camera performance of the two phones, let me take you through their on-paper specifications. While the Nothing Phone 2a features a dual rear camera setup, the POCO X6 comes with a triple rear camera system.

However, the Phone 2a’s sensors are more powerful, thanks to the presence of a primary 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL GN9 sensor with OIS. Additionally, the other sensor is a 50 MP ISOCELL JN1 ultra-wide-angle Sensor.

On the other hand, the POCO X6 includes a 64 MP OmniVision OV64B primary sensor with OIS. The other two sensors include an 8 MP Sony IMX355 ultra-wide sensor and a 2 MP OmniVision OV02B1 macro sensor.

Upfront, the Nothing Phone 2a sports a 32 MP Sony IMX615 sensor. On the other hand, there is a 16 MP OV16A1Q selfie shooter on the POCO X6. With that, let’s check out the camera samples:

Daylight

As you can see from the samples, the ultra-wide-angle sensor on the Nothing Phone 2a captures details better than the POCO X6. You can understand it better when you zoom in on the leaves in the upper left corner. Not to mention, you can further enhance the details by engaging the 50 MP ultra-wide-angle sensor manually on the Phone 2a.

The same thing is noticeable in shots taken by the primary sensors of the Phone 2a and POCO X6. The POCO X6 photos lack sharpness and detailing. On top of that, there’s some strange processing going on POCO X6 that masks the actual colors of a scene. Meanwhile, the Nothing Phone 2a brings out the most natural-looking photos without enhancing the scene in any major way.

Even with the 50mm shots of the two phones, you can see this same problem.

For human subjects as well, the Nothing Phone 2a’s shots mop the floor with those of the POCO X6, offering noticeably more sharpness and retaining the natural skin tone.

Night-time

At nighttime, the lack of detailing is more pronounced on the POCO X6. The edges of the buildings in the photo are blurred out, and there’s a lot of noise in all of these photos. You can also see some unnatural saturation in the images from the POCO X6. The Nothing Phone 2a, on the other hand, manages to retain all the details without overcompensating.

Indoor shots at night showcase similar findings, with the Nothing Phone 2a providing more natural colors while preserving the details better than the POCO X6.

Front Camera

The selfie shooter of the Nothing Phone 2a is better as well. The colors are more accurate and details are well captured. The POCO X6 pictures lack that.

When it comes to portrait shots, both the phones offer good edge detection. So, no complaints on that front. But yes, the POCO X6 did not handle the shadows and lighting as well as the Nothing Phone 2a did.

However, at night with indoor lighting, the POCO X6 takes better looking photos, as there’s some smoothening on the Phone 2a, which I didn’t like. But, as I zoomed in, the Phone 2a’s photos did turn out to be sharper.

Videos

As for videos, both the Phone 2a and POCO X6 can capture 4K videos at 30 FPS. But, somehow, the POCO X6 videos turned out wobbly despite the presence of OIS. I could also see the POCO X6 face some focus-hunting issue, where it was constantly trying to adjust the focus. The Nothing Phone 2a had no such issue, and the videos turned out to be pretty smooth.

Also, both phones can capture front-facing videos at 60 FPS. Again, I liked the videos of the Phone 2a better, which were less wobbly and more natural-looking. On top of that, the Nothing Phone 2a’s microphone quality also seemed better to me.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Performance

Next, let’s go through the performance of the two smartphones. For ease of understanding, I have divided this bit into three sections:

Benchmarks

Going by these benchmarks, it is evident that the Nothing Phone 2a is the more stable of the two. Not only is there a good-looking thermal throttling graph to back this up, AnTuTu and Geekbench scores are slightly ahead too.

What certainly impressed me were the loop scores of the Phone 2a during the 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test. Goes to show that the phone can certainly hold its own under duress. In fact, the Phone 2a benchmarks are at par with the OnePlus Nord CE 3, which is powered by the Snapdragon 782G.

Day-to-Day Usage

Although the POCO X6 may be slightly behind in those numbers, it performs decently in real life. When using both devices on a day-to-day basis, I did not face any major issues. There were minor stutters and lags on the POCO X6, but that’s got more to do with the software it’s running on (more on that later). I had anywhere between 15-20 apps open and when shuffling between them or just casually browsing through the phone, I noticed these stutters every now and then.

On the other hand, the Nothing Phone 2a just did it all a lot better. I honestly can’t think of a single moment where I spotted a stutter even. Daily usage was just a lot more seamless and satisfying on the Phone 2a, thanks to faster app opening times and smoother animations. But, RAM management is pretty good on both phones and they did keep most of the apps in memory successfully without restarting them. That’s always a good thing.

Gaming

With that out of the way, let’s get to the more interesting bit now. While the Nothing Phone 2a is powered by the Dimensity 7200 Pro, you get to see the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 under the POCO X6’s hood.

As we saw in the benchmarks, while the Dimensity 7200 Pro may be slightly more powerful than the 7s Gen 2, I couldn’t see any difference as such. I played BGMI, CoD Mobile, and Genshin Impact on both the phones and they handled it all pretty well. Here’s the maximum graphics settings for these games that you get to see on the two phones:

However, with Genshin Impact being a way more demanding handheld title, you will need to stick with medium settings for a smooth experience on the two devices. You won’t be hitting 60 FPS though, and will still notice micro stutters here and there. But, for the budget, it’s good enough.

I also noticed that the POCO X6 got warm pretty quickly when gaming. Whereas, Nothing Phone (2a) maintained those temps well and managed to stay cooler for longer periods. While the Phone 2a barely went beyond 38-40 degrees, the POCO X6 did hit 45 degrees easily.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Software Experience

Those who are familiar with Nothing OS know what I’m about to say. It easily makes the Nothing Phone 2a come ahead of the MIUI 14-running POCO X6. Yes, you may ask me to wait till HyperOS comes out for the POCO X6.

In that case, let me tell you that we already have the more premium POCO X6 Pro running HyperOS at the Beebom office, and it’s not nearly as optimized as we expected it to be. So, I doubt it will make that big a difference to overthrow Nothing OS altogether.

When comparing it with the near-stock Android-running Moto Edge 40 Neo, I liked the Nothing OS 2.5 better. Not only is the Nothing Phone 2a well optimized with the Nothing OS, it’s also bloatware-free.

And, as for the POCO X6 still running on MIUI 14, the experience is just not good. From jittery animations to a bloatware-ridden UI, the overall user experience just takes a major hit. Here, the Nothing Phone 2a takes an easy win, for sure.

Most importantly, the POCO X6 runs on Android 13 right out of the box. Meanwhile, the Nothing Phone 2a runs on Android 14. So, although both the devices will get 3 years of Android updates, it will be the Phone 2a that will be able to see Android 17.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Battery Life and Charging

In the budget segment, smartphones usually offer pretty good battery backup, thanks to the lack of power-hungry chipsets in them. But, it all comes down to the overall optimization of a phone that makes it more power efficient than others. And, in this regard, the Nothing Phone 2a is just better. For your information, the Phone 2a packs a 5000mAh battery, while the POCO X6 features a 5100mAh unit. So, I put them to the test.

I played 2160p videos on YouTube, streamed HDR content on Netflix, ran benchmarks, and even put in an hour of Genshin Impact gameplay. After all of that, with auto brightness and auto refresh rate turned on, I got almost 7 hours of screen-on-time on the Nothing Phone 2a. Whereas, POCO X6 provided around 5.5 hours of screen-on-time.

I also noticed how as soon as I started playing Genshin Impact on the POCO X6, the battery drained from 52% to 22% in just 1 hour and 10 minutes. Whereas, the Nothing Phone 2a saw just in between 10% to 15% drain. This could also be due to the Dimensity 7200 Pro being based on the TSMC 4nm process node. The POCO X6’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 uses Samsung’s 4nm architecture.

However, the POCO X6 does take the lead when it comes to charging capabilities. It comes with a superior 67W fast charging tech, as compared to 45W on the Phone 2a. When putting them to the test, the POCO X6 charged faster from 10% to 100% in merely 40 minutes. On the other hand, the Nothing Phone 2a took an hour to fully charge the same amount.

Nothing Phone 2a vs POCO X6: Connectivity

On the connectivity front as well, quite a few things are similar between the phones. For starters, both the phones feature a UBS Type C 2.0 port and Wi-Fi 6 support. However, Nothing Phone 2a comes with Bluetooth 5.3 over the POCO X6’s Bluetooth 5.2 version.

Then, there’s the NTFS tech that the brand claims can double the transfer speeds when moving files to a Windows laptop. However, during my testing, this did not work as advertised. Maybe a future update will fix this? Can’t say. Both the phones also come with a Dual SIM (nano+Nano) tray.

It is also worth considering that the Nothing Phone 2a comes with 13 5G bands, while the POCO X6 supports 10 5G bands. I used two of the most used SIM cards (Jio and Airtel) in India to test out the speeds from the same location.

For some reason, the POCO X6 was offering measly download speeds of up to roughly 75 Mbps. On the other hand, with the same SIM, the Nothing Phone 2a hit between 350-420 Mbps. However, the POCO X6 touched 637 Mbps when equipped with the Airtel SIM. That’s a thing to note, I guess?

By the way, the Phone 2a also offers NFC support, while the POCO X6 misses out on that. At least the Indian variant, as the global one offers NFC. This is something that POCO does with its budget phones in India, I don’t know why. You get to see NFC on the POCO X6 Pro India variant though. However, neither of the two phones offer e-SIM support like the Moto Edge 40 Neo does.

Final Verdict: Which Should You Buy?

I think it’s clear by the end of this comparison that the Nothing Phone 2a is the better phone to go for the price that you pay. But yes, consider the following:

• The POCO X6 is available for Rs. 1,000 cheaper with a starting price tag of Rs. 22,999 for the 8GB+128GB variant, as compared to the Phone 2a’s starting price of Rs. 23,999.
• The POCO X6 offers a 1.5K display and a 3.5mm headphone jack (if that’s important to you).
• The POCO X6 provides a charger as well as a good quality back cover right in the box, neither of which comes with the Nothing Phone 2a. And the Nothing 45W charger costs an additional Rs. 2,499, and you’ll also need to get a case yourself.
• So yes, there will be some additional costs involved with the Phone (2a). And if you are on a super tight budget, the POCO X6 understandably feels like a better choice.

Why should you buy the Nothing Phone (2a) over the POCO X6 then? What will you be paying the premium for?

So, essentially, the Nothing Phone 2a brings top-notch software experience (no bloatware or forced built-in apps), a unique design, good cameras, a prolonged battery life, and a more stable processor. Other things like the presence of NFC give the Phone 2a some leverage too.

If you can spare that extra 1,000 bucks, it’s hard to beat the Nothing Phone 2a’s software experience in this budget. Besides, after having used the ad-ridden MIUI 14 on the POCO X6, Nothing OS 2.5 brought much-needed relief. Bloat and ads are just way too littered everywhere in the UI, and I disliked that just way too much.

You also get some additional perks such as the Phone 2a exclusive AI-generative wallpapers feature. By the end of the day, it comes down to what you want from your phone. Once you figure that out, you will know which device to go for.

With that being said, reach out to us in the comments if there’s anything else you would like to know about these two devices. I will clear that out for you. Also, while you’re at it, let me know which feels like a better choice to you.