A few years ago, there was a question: should you buy a used flagship phone or a new mid-range phone for the best experience? The flagship’s software would go out of date faster, and it might not have the most cutting-edge tech, but it wouldn’t look cheap as quickly as the mid-range phone. Since it was recently a top-of-the-range phone, it would still operate extremely well.

Now, as flagships don’t introduce many new features and mid-range phones continually get faster and better, the decision is obvious: the average person should not buy any flagship phone. The mid-range phones are excellent. In recent pieces, I have recommended that the average person doesn’t need to spend more than $450 on a phone. If they want the best cameras, the Pixel 8A keeps up with the best on the market for a fraction of the price.

If you don’t take photos often or just value premium feel and a big screen, I recommended the Phone (2a) from British start-up Nothing. Though that phone was released only four months ago, they’ve already introduced an upgraded version, the Phone (2a) Plus. Like the last version, it’s a steal.

Though “Plus” usually denotes a larger screen, most wouldn’t want to go much bigger than the 6.7-inch OLED display on the (2a), so the (2a) Plus doesn’t change that. Nor does it have a bigger battery, more cameras, or a fundamentally different design. Instead, it’s the same phone, upgraded in a few core areas for a small price increase of $50.

To start, it now uses the new MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro 5G chip—an overclocked version of the Dimensity 7200 Pro chip on the (2a), which is supposedly 10 percent faster and even more so for gaming. Given that I never found the (2a) slow, that’s not a huge change, but it means the phone can handle the upgraded selfie camera, which has gone from 32 megapixels to 50 megapixels.

Megapixel count is not a big deal—much like the “GSM” of a fabric or whether a leather is “full-grain,” it’s just one indicator of a certain property and doesn’t necessarily mean better quality. However, theoretically, paired with an improved photography algorithm, this would result in more details; but I doubt this will be a fundamentally different shooting experience from the (2a), whose cameras were just fine. Another tweak is the bumped maximum charging speed from 45W on the (2a) to 50W on the (2a) Plus.

These are all small changes, but it’s also just a small price increase, at only $400—$50 more than the base (2a). For that change, you get these small upgrades, double the storage at 256GB, and improved colorways with a purer black and a new beautiful metallic silver look like the phone has come straight out of a CNC machine.

In short, Nothing has taken an already amazing budget phone and made it feel even less budget and even better value for money. However, for American consumers, it still will only be available through their “US Beta Program,” and may have compatibility issues with your network of choice.