Say what you will about Nothing, but the company certainly has bold and recognizable designs. The new (4a) series arrives with the latest evolution of those designs and shakes up the formula of the (3a) series.
Nothing Phone (4a) and Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
The (3a) and (3a) Pro from last year were largely differentiated by their cameras. The new Pro model still offers a better camera than its vanilla sibling, but only just – instead, it now also stands out with a bigger display, faster chipset, better build and a Glyph Matrix similar to the Phone (3) flagship.
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro drops (3a)’s plastic frame and brings a metal unibody design. It’s also slimmer at 7.95mm (down from 8.4mm) but weighs the same (despite using metal instead of plastic). The phone is rated IP65 – Nothing couldn’t quite hit the requirements for IP67, so it claims that the phone can survive submersion down to 25cm for 20 minutes (instead of the usual 100cm for 30 minutes).
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
The Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4. Compared to the 7s Gen 3 chip that both the (3a) and (3a) Pro used, this promises a 27% increase in CPU performance, a 30% boost in graphics and a 65% jump in AI performance.
Nothing equipped the phone with fast LPDDR5X RAM, 8 or 12GB, and, as promised, UFS 3.1 storage in 128GB or 256GB capacity. Compared to the UFS 2.2 of the previous models, the new storage has up to 147% faster read speeds. For sustained performance, Nothing mounted a 5,300mm² vapor chamber over the chipset.
Like we mentioned above, the Pro has a new display – a 6.83” 144Hz OLED panel. It peaks at 5,000 nits of brightness, which is modulated with 2,160Hz high-frequency PWM dimming. The display has a resolution of 1,260 x 2,800px (up from a 1080p+ resolution) and is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i.
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro has a 6.83” 144Hz OLED display
The camera system features the 50MP Sony Lytia 700c sensor in the main camera (same size as last year, 1/1.56”) combined with an f/1.88 lens with OIS. The main cam can record 4K 30fps Ultra XDR video, which is “similar to Dolby Vision.” The periscope has a 50MP Samsung JN5 sensor (1/2.75”) and a 3.5x OIS lens, which can be extended to 7x with in-sensor zoom.
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro has a 50+50+8MP camera
The ultra-wide camera didn’t get any love – it’s the same 120° 8MP unit with a Sony IMX355 sensor as last year. The front camera is worse off than before – it now has a 32MP 1/3.42” sensor, down from a 50MP 1/2.76” sensor on the (3a) Pro.
The Nothing Phone (4a) has a similar set of cameras – a 50MP main with an f/1.88 OIS lens is the one notable difference as it uses a 1/1.57” Samsung GN9 sensor instead of the Sony sensor. The 3.5x 50MP periscope, 8MP ultra-wide and 32MP selfie camera use the same hardware as the Pro. Last year, the (3a) got stiffed with a shorter tele lens (2x vs. 3x on the Pro) and a lower resolution selfie module (32MP vs. 50MP). This year it’s just the main camera that is different. Oh, this one can only do Ultra XDR at 1080p 30fps, it can record 4K 30fps videos but without the extra XDR colors.
The Nothing Phone (4a) has almost the same camera setup as the (4a) Pro
The vanilla model misses out on a chipset upgrade almost entirely – the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 is technically a generation newer than the 7s Gen 3 of the last model, but it only promises a 7% increase in CPU and GPU performance and 10% better efficiency. A promise is a promise, so the vanilla phone still gets UFS 3.1 upgrade (256GB). However, it uses slower LPDDR4X RAM (8/12GB) and it doesn’t have a vapor chamber.
While the (4a) uses a different display from the Pro, it’s a definite upgrade over last year’s display – the 6.78” OLED panel now has 1,224 x 2,720px resolution (up from 1,080 x 2,392px) and can reach 4,500 nits brightness (up from 3,000 nits). It’s protected by the same Gorilla Glass 7i as the Pro (double the scratch resistance of last year’s Panda Glass) and has a refresh rate of 120Hz.
Nothing Phone (4a)
The vanilla (4a) claims a lower IP64 rating (vs. IP65 on the Pro), but it still has that odd 25cm for 20 minutes submersion rating. More importantly, it misses out on the upgrade to metal and has a thicker 8.55mm plastic body.
Both the Nothing Phone (4a) and (4a) Pro have 5,080mAh batteries – the tiniest upgrade over the 5,000mAh batteries of their predecessors. The units for India are an exception to that as they will have 5,400mAh capacity.
Either way, the phones support the same 50W wired-only charging as before. Nothing claims that the battery will retain at least 90% of its original capacity after 1,200 charge cycles (which is better than the usual 80% claim from other makers).
We should talk about the back. The (4a) Pro has a Glyph Matrix – a circular dot matrix display consisting of 137 LEDs. That is well short of the 489 LEDs of the Phone (3) Glyph Matrix, but in some ways it is more practical – the circle is 57% larger and the LEDs are twice as bright, reaching 3,000 nits. This can make for a pretty good flashlight.
(4a)’s Glyph Bar and (4a) Pro’s Glyph Matrix
The vanilla (4a) has a Glyph Bar. Instead of the free-form arrangement of previous models, the LEDs are now lined up in a bar with 6 segments plus the red recording LED below them. There is a total of 63 LEDs and they can achieve up to 3,500 nits of illumination, that’s 40% brighter than the (3a) Glyph Interface.
Both phones come with Nothing OS 4.1 (based on Android 16) out of the box. Nothing is promising 3 OS updates and 6 years of security patches. That’s the same support window as the (3a) models.
Nothing Phone (4a) in Black, White, Blue and Pink
Pre-orders for the Nothing Phone (4a) begin today, March 5, and open sales start on March 13 (Friday next week). The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro arrives later – pre-orders will start on the 13th and open sales on the 27th. You can find the phones on nothing.tech and select partners.
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro in Black, Silver and Pink
The prices for the two phones are below – and yes, those are US prices for the Pro model. This makes it the first Phone a-series model to be available in the US. The vanilla model will not be available, however.
| Europe | UK | India | US | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nothing Phone (4a) | ||||
| 8/128GB | €350 | £350 | ₹32,000 | – |
| 8/256GB | €390 | – | ₹35,000 | – |
| 12/256GB | €430 | £400 | ₹38,000 | – |
| Nothing Phone (4a) Pro | ||||
| 8/128GB | €480 | £500 | ₹40,000 | $500 |
| 8/256GB | – | – | ₹43,000 | – |
| 12/256GB | €550 | £550 | ₹46,000 | $600 |