Redmi Note 15 vs Nothing Phone 3a Lite camera zoom compared

Budget phones are increasingly packing more capable camera sensors every year. And what better way to test that theory than with the recently launched Redmi Note 15 and the Nothing Phone 3a Lite?

So we did exactly that – test the zoom cameras on the two – and ended up with some surprising findings that made us question what camera specs even mean.

Redmi Note 15 vs Nothing Phone 3a Lite zoom test: Specs

First, here’s what the main cam specs look like:

Nothing Phone 3a Lite: 50 MP, f/1.9, 24mm (wide), 1/1.57″, 1.0µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS
Redmi Note 15: 108 MP, f/1.7, 24mm (wide), 1/1.67″, 0.64µm, PDAF, OIS

Looking purely at these figures, you might think the Nothing device has this wrapped up. It rocks a 50MP main shooter with physically larger pixels than what you find on the Redmi. Usually, such larger sensor hardware means it can gather more light, theoretically leading to better natural output with better dynamic range.

The Redmi Note 15 shows up with a very loud 108MP count crammed onto a smaller piece of silicon, though it does theoretically let in more light with its ever-so-slight wider aperture (f/1.7 vs f/1.9). But as the zoom test proves, specs can be deceiving.

Redmi Note 15 vs Nothing Phone 3a Lite zoom test: Actual performance

When we actually took these out for a real-world spin, the Redmi consistently outperformed the Nothing Phone on zoom. The performance gap just gets wider the more you punch in. At standard 1x, things look pretty similar across both displays. But zoom into 2x, and the difference becomes really apparent instantly.

We captured footage of a distant construction crane, and even pushed all the way out to 20x digital zoom, you could still clearly read the text painted on with the Redmi. That level of clarity makes you think it’s from hardware carrying a dedicated telephoto lens.

Why is this happening? Well, sometimes more megapixels can help. It’s possible that having 108 megapixels gives Xiaomi’s image processing pipeline significantly more data to crunch. This enables superior computational tricks like better pixel binning – combining pixels to reduce noise – and AI-assisted super-resolution zoom to keep fine details sharp.

ALSO READ: We spent a week with the Redmi Note 15 5G, and it’s made to keep you entertained

Now don’t get us wrong, the Nothing Phone 3a Lite is still a capable little snapper by itself, and most people would probably be satisfied with its general output. It’s just that Redmi has somehow crammed excellent zoom capabilities into this package.