The Nothing Phone (4a) series was announced last month, Trevor has just checked out the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro and it’s time to get down with the more budget friendly Nothing Phone (4a).
Priced from $649 for their 8GB/128GB model, Nothing has also produced a 12GB/256GB option that sells for $849 – which is the model they’ve sent through for review.
The spec list is impressive with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s gen4 platform running the show with a 5,080-mAh battery keeping the phone powered all day.
Nothing have included a triple-camera array on the rear with a 32MP Selfie camera embedded in the bright 6.78” display on the front.
Beyond the specs you get the very unique translucent rear panel and Nothing’s interesting Glyph notification interface.
It looks funky, has a great spec list, so is it worth your coin? I’ve been using the phone for a couple of weeks now and here’s how it went.
Hardware
Design
The Nothing Phone (4a), like its forbears, comes with a transparent rear panel that shows off the screws and internal components, all of which speaks to my 90’s kid heart. In short, I love it.
It comes in four colour options, Black, White, Pink and Blue, with the Black model sent over for us to check out – and includes a transparent TPU case.
The rear panel features a horizontal camera bar which houses the triple camera array. There’s an LED flash above the camera bar, but there’s also the patented Nothing Glyph Interface on the rear which is a staple of the series.
The Nothing Phone (4a) adopts a Glyph Bar made from 63 mini-LEDs which is 40% brighter than last years.
The bar acts in part as a configurable notification light which lets you assign light patterns for contacts, or even keywords from notifications so you can keep an eye on things at a glance. I used it to show volume level which is neat, but you can tie it to deliveries, timers and more.
There’s also a red LED included as part of the Glyph Bar which flashes as a ‘Record’ notification when you have the video recording.
The front of the phone features the large 6.78” flexible AMOLED display which includes some decent bezels around the sides, and a punch-hole notch at the top for the 32MP selfie camera.
The phone itself is fairly traditional in terms of layout though with the volume and power buttons on the left, but you also get the ‘Essential Key’ on the right.
The Essential key is associated with the Essential AI baked into the Nothing OS. Pressing, or holding this key captures a screenshot or records a voice note, then you can have it analysed for later recall by Essential AI – Nothing intend to have all this accessible across your phone, laptop, desktop so stay tuned – but for now, it’s quite handy to keep all this in one place.
The base of the phone includes the USB-C port, downward firing speaker and dual Nano-SIM tray.
There’s not a lot to dislike on the design, Nothing has used a lightweight plastic for the frame to cut down on weight, and uses Gorilla Glass 7i for improved scratch resistance, so my only gripe is the IP64 dust/water protection – which means the phone can handle being under 25 cm of water for up to 20 minutes – as opposed to the IP68 rating you see on phones in this range.
Display and Audio
The 6.78” display on the Nothing Phone (4a) is a hair larger than last year’s model and comes with a sharper 1.5K resolution. It’s also brighter with a 1600 nit outdoor brightness that can peak at 4,500 nits.
Nothing has used a more rounded display for the (4a), and while they’ve thinned out the bezels from last year giving it a 91.3% screen-to-body ratio, it’s still fairly significant at the sides.
The display is super smooth with a 120 Hz refresh rate, though it’s set to a dynamic profile that auto-adjusts by default. You can switch it to a permanent 120Hz but Dynamic seems to work quite well.
Like most phones these days, Nothing has paired the earpiece with the downward firing speaker for stereo audio. It works fine, but the Bluetooth 5.4 on-board will work better for connecting headphones for better audio quality.
Performance
There’s two real configurations for the Nothing Phone (4a), both powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 4, but one with 8GB RAM and one with 12GB which affects things like multi-tasking. The phones also have a choice between 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 storage, an update from last years model.
Like a lot of manufacturers these days, Nothing has included a RAM Boost which uses unused storage as swap space. I generally leave this on, with the system managing the memory load and it just does its thing.
As usual I ran it through Geekbench and 3DMark and here’s how it went.
Camera
The camera system on the Nothing Phone (4a) is a comprehensive one to say the least. It starts with a Samsung GN9 50 MP wide sensor, with OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) as the main camera, then you get a 50 MP sensor behind a 3.5x Optical zoom which can ramp up to 70x, and an 8MP Ultra-wide sensor with a 120˚ field of view.
The main sensor takes a fantastic shot in daylight, with great details and really crisp details.
Low-light shots offer a decently balanced shot in most situations, except full darkness.
The ultra-wide offers a crisp shot for the 8MP sensor, capturing more with that wider field of view when you need it. Cycling through, the 3.5x Optical zoom works well, and while you can use the 70x digital zoom the results aren’t the best.
Battery and Charging
The 5,080mAh battery is a slight jump in size from last year, and still supports 50W wired charging, but adds in 7.5W reverse wired charging.
Nothing has again omitted wireless charging. Carl Pei, Nothing’s CEO has previously spoken on balancing the requests for wireless charging with cost-effectiveness and it seems it didn’t make the grade again this year.
In terms of battery life, the Nothing Phone (4a) will last a full day with fairly moderate to heavy use. You can wear that battery down fairly quickly if you throw some high-end games at it, but that’s just par for the course.
In terms of charging, the 50W wired charging is fast. Want your phone charged in an hour? Done. This is quick.
Software
Android 16
The Nothing Phone (4a) runs Nothing OS 4.1 which is based on Android 16. The phone includes the March 2026 Security Maintenance Release (SMR), making it up to date straight out of the box.
Nothing has promised software support for the phone with a promise of ‘3 years of Android updates 6 years of security patches’.
In terms of competitiveness, this puts the Nothing Phone (4a) behind Google, who offer 7 years of OS Updates and Security updates for the similarly priced Pixel 10a, Samsung who offer 6 years of OS and Security updates for the recently announced, and cheaper Galaxy A57, or OPPO’s Reno 15F which includes 5 major OS updates and six years of Security updates.
Nothing OS 4.1
Quite simply, beyond the Nothing theming, the OS is surprisingly stock Android.
Nothing has themed the interface a little with what appears to be a black and red themed icon pack to match their branding, which has been applied to their surprisingly few pre-installed system apps.
The few system apps Nothing includes are their ‘Essential Space’, Gallery, an audio recorder which can save into Essential Space and Nothing’s Weather app. There’s also the Nothing X app which is used to set up their CMF and Nothing branded wearables and audio devices.
On the bloatware front, Instagram and Facebook are already present for you to either use or uninstall if you so choose.
Final Thoughts
The Nothing Phone (4a) offers a great option with a range of price points starting as low as $649.
The additional memory and storage at the higher price points make for a smoother running phone, but if you’re after it more for the all-day battery life, camera system or even just that distinctive Nothing design, it’s hard to go past.
There’s small niggles, the lack of wireless charging and thicker bezels around the display, but overall they’re really just that niggles. This is a great performing phone
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
