Nothing Phone 4a

The handset carries an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer, and aluminium buttons for volume, power, and the Essential Space shortcut, which add a reassuringly solid feel. Nothing has also reworked the button layout. The power button and volume rocker now sit on the right spine, while the Essential Key has been positioned separately, making it easier to distinguish. In daily use, however, the placement feels less than ideal.

The Nothing Phone (4a) introduces a new Glyph Bar featuring 63 tiny LEDs, divided into seven small boxes stacked vertically. While Nothing retains its signature white lights for six out of seven boxes, it adds a functional red light for the first time on a Phone (a) series smartphone. The red light is not synced with the rest of the boxes and is limited to video and Essential Space voice recordings. There is an option to turn the light off within the camera app for video recording.

The Nothing Phone (4a) sports a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with 4,500 nits peak brightness, 100 percent DCI-P3 gamut, 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR 10+ support. It's a flat display with relatively chunky bezels, which seems fine for a mid-ranger. The bezels don't come between the viewer and the viewing experience, which remains identical to its predecessor, the Phone (3a). The only thing that has improved here is the brightness, ensuring easy legibility outdoors under direct sunlight.

In the camera department, the Nothing Phone (4a) features a triple-lens setup headlined by a 50MP Samsung GN9 primary sensor with OIS. It's equipped with an 8MP Sony IMX355 ultrawide lens with an f/2.2 aperture and a 50MP Samsung JN5 periscope telephoto lens with OIS and an f/2.8 aperture. The telephoto camera is the most notable upgrade over its predecessor, and there are some additional presets to shoot images and videos.

At the core of the Nothing Phone (4a) lies the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 SoC, paired with 8GB/12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB/512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This is the decent configuration for a lifestyle-oriented smartphone. The SoC, meanwhile, is Qualcomm's latest mid-range offering. It recently debuted in the country on the Redmi Note 15 Pro+. The Nothing Phone (4a) performance remains identical to that of the Redmi smartphone, both in synthetic benchmarks and real-world tests.

The Nothing Phone (4a) ships with Nothing OS 4.1 based on Android 16. As with previous models, the software experience remains refreshingly clean, free from unnecessary third-party apps or intrusive clutter. The brand's distinctive black-and-white aesthetic remains central to the interface, and you can enable it during initial setup or later through the settings menu.

The Nothing Phone (4a) comes with a 5,400mAh battery, which is approximately 8 percent larger than its predecessor. However, it still falls short of the 7,000mAh batteries that many contemporary devices offer. That said, the smartphone delivers respectable endurance, at least in our synthetic PCMark benchmark test, where it scored almost 15 hours. Our internal testing, which involved an hour of YouTube streaming and gaming, showed a combined 28 percent battery drop. This appears slightly on the higher side, but real-world usage remains fairly normal.