An eye-catching all-rounder offering with its own caveats!!
Ever since Nothing entered the market, design and a cleaner software experience have been its biggest strengths, thus catching the attention of a lot of buyers out there in the market. We have the flagship number series and then the A series, which targets the mid-range and premium mid-range segment, thus getting all the basic specifications right, but the gap is now much closer between the A and the number series.
Nothing has not moved towards a different direction this year with its latest offering, i.e., the Nothing Phone 4a Pro, as instead of launching its flagship number series like we saw with the Nothing Phone 3 launched last year. This year, they have come up with the Nothing Phone 4a Pro, which provides an almost flagship experience considering its specifications. With the rising prices for smartphone storage and RAM, the Nothing Phone 4a Pro is also on the expensive side.
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro brings a striking design, a good set of cameras, cleaner software performance and much more. So with the premium price tag, can the Nothing Phone 4a Pro stand out in this highly competitive smartphone segment and is it worth buying?
Let's find out in the full review.
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Design:
Nothing has always been experimental in terms of design, and it looks striking with those Glyph LEDs that are placed on the back of each of its smartphones, and this is no different here on the Nothing Phone 4a Pro. The back of the Nothing Phone 4a Pro has a larger rectangular, circle-shaped camera module which houses the three cameras, along with a larger circular module that houses the Glyph LEDs.
The Glyph Matrix display is larger compared to the one on the Nothing Phone 3, and along with that, there is a red LED recording indicator, an LED flashlight and a microphone. There are around 137 pixel LED lights that are much brighter and bigger, with a peak brightness of 3000nits. The LED lights are white in colour, and there are four different brightness levels that you can adjust the brightness of the LEDs to. The Glyph LED lights provide a lot of functionalities like Glyph Mirror, Flip to Glyph, etc.
The camera module is slightly raised, but the smartphone does not wobble when kept on a flat surface. The Nothing Phone 4a Pro is available in three different colours - Black, Silver, and Pink. At the bottom left corner, there is a circular indent which one may mistake for a button; it looks like a cool addition. Apart from the camera module, the rest is an aluminium unibody, which is very rare to see on today's smartphones. Even the side frame matches the back colour, making it feel premium.
The bottom edges of the back panel feature an antenna line that complements the back design and has a contrasting finish for each colour variant. Around the edges, the smartphone has flatter edges and rounded corners, making it easy to hold in the hands. The Nothing Phone 4a Pro comes with an IP65 rating, making it dust- and water-resistant; i.e. it can only survive splashes of water, which is slightly disappointing considering other smartphones in its price segment do come with a proper IP69 rating.
Around the sides, the frame is aluminium and has a thickness of 7.95mm, making it one of the thinnest unibody aluminum smartphone in the market. There are a couple of antenna lines around the sides, which look good. The smartphone weighs around 210 grams, making it lighter to hold in the hands. On the right side, there are the volume buttons and a power button, and the left side houses Nothing's signature Essential key, which offers a different set of functionalities.
The Essential Key enables quick screenshot capture and further use it for intelligent content analysis through intuitive press gestures, which is integrated with the Essential Space application, which acts like an assistant to organise tasks and appointments easily. You can also long-press the Essential Key for voice memo recording while taking a screenshot. The bottom of the smartphone houses the USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a loudspeaker grille, and a dual SIM card slot.
There is no additional slot for a microSD card for storage expansion. The top of the smartphone has only a secondary speaker. On the front, there is a single punch-hole in the display that houses the selfie camera and around the sides of the display, there are minimal bezels to the sides. The display on the front is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i. Overall, the build and design are great and exude a premium feel when held in hand.
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Display:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro sports a larger 6.83-inches 1.5K(1280x2800 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. Since it is an OLED panel, you get great viewing angles, and colours look punchier, with deeper blues and blacks on this OLED display; on top of it, it is a 10-bit panel, so colours look saturated. The display has support for a 144Hz refresh rate, and this is an LTPS panel, not the LTPO one.
As for the refresh rate, the smartphone offers three settings: Dynamic, High, and Standard. If you choose Dynamic or High modes, the display refreshes at 120Hz for most apps, and you can reach 144Hz only in a few graphically intensive games (e.g., Call of Duty Mobile, Genshin Impact, etc.). For example, when you are watching any 30fps video on YouTube, the display refreshes at 60Hz, while playing a game like Call of Duty Mobile, the display refreshes at 144Hz, etc.
You can set application-specific refresh rates also for most of the applications, which can be capped at 120Hz only. When the display is idle or when the always-on display is turned on, the display refreshes at 30Hz only. So the display refresh rate scales between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz only. When you choose the Standard mode, the display refreshes at 60Hz. This is the best mode to achieve a healthy battery life. Combined with the 144Hz refresh rate, you get a 480Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses.
In terms of display brightness, the Nothing Phone 4a Pro can reach a peak brightness of around 5000 nits, which is really good, but it is not all pixels exhibit this level of brightness, as only individual pixels do show this number. With the display set to the High Brightness Mode, the display reaches a peak brightness of around 1600 nits, which is good for content consumption. The display has good visibility under direct sunlight also.
The display of the Nothing Phone 4a Pro has two different modes to choose from: Alive and Standard. If you set the display to Alive mode, colours look vivid and punchier, with deeper blues and blacks, thus covering the DCI-P3 gamut, whereas if you switch to Standard mode, you get more of a natural colour tone, which covers the sRGB colour space. There is also a temperature slider where you can set the display to a warmer or a cooler tone.
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro has support for HDR, so you can easily stream HDR content on YouTube, and the presence of Widevine L1 ensures that you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. There is no support for Dolby Vision, which is slightly disappointing. The display has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that is accurate and fast at all times. Overall, the display is great for multimedia consumption.
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Performance:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset, which is a mid-range chipset based on an efficient 4nm process and is an octa-core chipset which has: 1x2.8 GHz Cortex-A720 core with 4x2.4 GHz Cortex-A720 cores and another 3x1.8 GHz Cortex-A520 cores. The chipset is coupled with an Adreno 722 GPU. This chipset is not a flagship chipset like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 or MediaTek Dimensity 9500s chipset found in this price segment.
In terms of daily tasks, the smartphone handles all of them easily without breaking a sweat, whether it's heavier tasks like rendering videos, playing games, etc., or lighter tasks like scrolling through webpages, streaming social media, etc. In terms of gaming, the smartphone handled most of the heavy games with ease, with some frame drops noticed after a longer duration of gameplay. In BGMI, the graphics can be set to Super Smooth graphics with Extreme frame rates.
The gameplay is smooth, with some minor frame drops noticed, and the gameplay was consistent at 90fps most of the time. After a longer period, i.e. 3-4 hours, there were significant frame drops and stutters noticed, since this is not a dedicated gaming smartphone. Other games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile ran smoothly, with some frame drops at the highest graphics settings. After a longer period of gaming, the back does not feel warmer, which is good.
The smartphone is equipped with a larger 5300mm2 vapour cooling chamber, which dissipates heat faster; still, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset runs cooler at all times, and similar results are reflected in the CPU throttling test, where the smartphone achieved a sustained performance of around 90-95 per cent, which is one of the best figures since it is a mid-range chipset. In benchmark tests, the smartphone performed well.
For network connectivity, it supports good carrier aggregation and all 5G bands. The Nothing Phone 4a Pro is available in three different variants: 8GB RAM with 128GB storage, 8GB RAM with 256GB storage, and 12GB RAM with 256GB storage, where RAM speeds are LPDDR5X and storage speeds are UFS 3.1, which is a slight letdown since other smartphones in this price segment come with faster UFS 4.0 speeds.
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Software:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro runs on NothingOS 4.1 based on Android 16 out of the box. As seen in the past, NothingOS provides a feature-rich experience, and it is no different here either. With the newer NothingOS 4.1, there are a few new additions, like enhanced animations throughout the user interface, flexible sizing for homescreen applications, password recovery for Private Space, redesigned lock-screen effects with widget support and a depth effect for wallpapers.
There are a total of 19 widgets which can be customised, and it covers the essentials like the clock, calendars, contacts, and weather with different styles. The newer addition has to be the Relaxation Hub, which includes three widgets focused on breathing exercises with different modes - Focus, Calm, and Relax- each with a different pattern altogether. The notification shade area and the quick settings remain similar to before, except that the two main quick toggles have switched from a circular design to a rounded square design.
There is a custom icon pack with a monochrome look, and similarly, it applies to the Always-On display, which has very basic functionality where you get a clock and notification icons only. The lock-screen clocks have different styles to choose from and include a Depth Effect. The Nothing X application provides seamless integration with various Nothing products like Ear, Ear(a), CMF Buds, etc.
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro's graphical display-style Glyph Matrix has 489 LEDs, compared to 137 on the Nothing Phone 3. You can set the brightness of the LED lights across four levels, and it provides additional functionalities for various events, incoming calls and notifications. The Glyph interface doubles up with different activities like a volume indicator and Glyph Timer, which uses LED lights at the back as a physical progress bar for the timer.
Flip to Glyph works well to mute calls when the smartphone is flipped. Nothing has also added third-party integrations that make use of the Glyph light for progress. Just like all other user interfaces, there are also a host of AI features, which include the Essential Space and Essential Voice, which is an AI-powered hub that analyses screen contents, captures screenshots, and lets you record voice memos. AI automatically transcribes or summarises audio output, organises dates and times to sync with Google Calendar.
Using the Essential Key, you can send photos or screenshots to the Essential Space by adding text annotations. A long press of the Essential Key lets you record audio along with the captured image. The Essential Recorder is present, which lets you record, transcribe and automatically analyse conversations further. ChatGPT is well integrated within the ecosystem, where there is a dedicated widget that lets you send text, an image, or a voice note to the assistant.
Essential News picks up news from different sources, summarises the news, and also reads it out for better clarity. The gallery app has an AI Eraser feature that automatically detects and removes unwanted objects from images, and you can also select them manually for more control. There is Wallpaper Studio, which you can use to create a wallpaper using custom text as well as images.
Google Gemini is well integrated, and AI tools like Circle to Search work flawlessly in daily usage. In terms of bloatware, there are two or three applications present in the user interface, which means you are getting a clean Stock Android experience. In terms of software lifecycle support, the smartphone will get another three years of Android OS updates and six years of security patches, which is good, but still other brands like Samsung and OnePlus provide better software updates.
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Cameras:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro sports a triple-camera setup that includes a 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX896 sensor for the primary camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 50MP f/2.9 Samsung JN5 sensor for the periscope telephoto camera, with support for 3.5x optical zoom. On the front, there is a 32MP f/2.2 camera for selfies. This camera setup seems to be identical to most smartphones in this price segment that miss out on a telephoto camera.
The images from the primary camera come out with details that look sharper and have a wider dynamic range, with less noise in the background. The colours look natural without any kind of oversharpening in the background. All these images come out at 12MP by default. With the dedicated 50MP mode, the details look sharper, but they do introduce some noise in the background, with the dynamic range remaining wider. The colours look natural, though.
The 2x zoomed images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background. At night, the images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background. The details in shadows look good with no oversharpening in the background. Even the 2x zoomed images taken during the night come out with sharper details and have good dynamic range, with some noise in the background.
The images from the 8MP ultrawide camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with good contrast. The colours look punchier, and there is some oversharpening present in the background. The noise is on the higher side, though. At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with sharper details, good dynamic range and good contrast. The noise is on the higher side, with oversharpening present in the background.
The 50MP telephoto camera looks to be a great addition here, as the images from this camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with almost no noise in the background. The contrast looks good, and the white balance is handled well. These images are taken in 3.5x optical zoom mode. Once you go beyond 3.5x zoom, the details look sharper and have a wider dynamic range and at 7x zoom, the details look good with slightly more noise in the background.
The contrast is good, and colours look saturated at 7x zoom levels. The white balance could have been better. At night, the images taken with the telephoto camera at 3.5x zoom come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range, with almost no noise in the background. The colours look saturated, with no oversharpening in the background. At 7x zoom levels, the details look sharper with punchier colours, and there is no drop in sharpness or contrast either. However, noise is clearly present.
In terms of portraits, the primary camera does a good job in terms of edge detection, and the background blur is well implemented, with natural-looking human skin tones. The dynamic range is good, and noise is very low in the background. You can also use the telephoto camera for portraits also resulting in sharper details and good dynamic range with almost no noise in the background at 3.5x zoom. Also, the edge detection and level of background blur are perfectly implemented.
In terms of selfies, the front camera takes images with sharper details and has good dynamic range with less noise in the background. The skin tones in the selfies look natural, with no such oversharpening in the background. Even portrait selfies come out with proper edge detection and have a good amount of background blur. In terms of video recording, the primary and the telephoto cameras can record 4K videos at 30fps, whereas the ultrawide camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps.
The front camera can record 1080p videos at 60fps, as there is no support for 4K video recording, which is a huge disappointment considering the price of this smartphone. The 4K videos at 30fps from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have good dynamic range, with almost no noise in the background. The colours look saturated in the videos without any kind of oversharpening as such. The 1080p videos from the ultrawide camera come out well, with sharper details and good dynamic range.
However, noise remains on the higher side and in low light, the videos struggle in terms of sharpness, and exposure takes a hit. The 4K videos from the telephoto camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background. At night, both the front and the telephoto camera do struggle a bit in terms of noise. The front camera records 1080p videos, which come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range, with less noise in the background.
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Battery Life:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro sports a 5400mAh battery in India, whereas the rest of the world has a 5080mAh battery. Considering the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset along with NothingOS 4.1, we do expect a healthy battery life. With normal usage that includes streaming social media, scrolling through webpages, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for two days with some charge left, and the standard screen-on time came around 8-8.5 hours, which is very good.
With heavy usage that includes playing heavy games like BGMI, Call of Duty Mobile, etc. for 3-4 hours, rendering videos, taking images and videos using the cameras, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for a single day with some charge left. Just like Samsung, Nothing also provides a dedicated charger inside the box along with its smartphones. The Nothing Phone 4a Pro supports 50W fast charging, so if you use any dedicated 65W fast charger, the smartphone charges at 42W only.
So with either a 65W fast charger or anything higher than that, the smartphone takes around 1 hour 15 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent. There is no support for wireless charging or reverse wired charging as such.
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Audio Quality:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro houses a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately loud and clear with no distortion as such. The audio quality does not feel muffled as such, even at the highest volume settings. There is support for LHDC and LDAC, so you get a great audio experience while using earphones.
Verdict:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro plays a safe role in the budget flagship segment, which is catered to the audience in a different manner as compared to other budget flagships out there. The build and design are solid, with a unique design at the back, just like other Nothing smartphones and one that will catch attention thanks to the presence of Glyph LEDs at the back. The OLED display, along with a set of stereo speakers, is great for multimedia consumption.
In terms of performance, the smartphone handles almost all the tasks thrown at it, but when it comes to gaming, the experience is good but not like other budget flagships that come with more powerful chipsets and offer a much better gaming experience. The software is one area where Nothing smartphones have excelled in the past, and the same is true here also. You get a feature-rich Stock Android experience with no bloatware, and the dot matrix look gives it a good appeal.
The cameras are one area where the Nothing Phone 4a Pro excels, as it gets a proper triple camera setup with the inclusion of a telephoto camera, which most of the budget flagships miss out on. The images from all the cameras come out with good quality, and even the video quality is good. The battery life is good, as the smartphone easily lasts from one to two days depending on usage, and to top that, there is faster charging also. But there are many areas where the smartphone lacks that feel-good factor.
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 is a powerful chipset, but the gaming experience is still not as smooth or on par with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset found on other budget flagships out there. The software experience, though clean and good, is still far behind the competition in terms of software updates, where other brands like OnePlus, Samsung, Google, etc. offer a better software update lifecycle.
The ultrawide camera is the only one that struggles in terms of low-light capability, and the absence of 4K video recording at the front is a letdown. The lack of a charger inside the box is a big concern, as you have to rely on third-party chargers which do not charge at 50W, which the smartphone supports, and the battery life is decent but not as good as some other budget flagships that come with a larger-capacity battery.
So, as an overall package, if you are someone whose main concern has to be the look and the clean software experience, with good battery life and cameras being the highest priority, with decent performance and are not concerned about gaming, then the Nothing Phone 4a Pro is a solid buy out there. But with the rise in prices, the Nothing Phone 4a Pro will be slightly hard to digest, but you are getting a unique smartphone experience in the budget flagship segment.