Nothing Phone (4a) Review: Polishing an Already Solid Formula

Nothing’s A-series phones have usually struck a chord with balanced pricing, while still keeping the brand’s odd but extremely attractive-looking design and flashing lights for everyone. With the Nothing Phone (3a), they managed to live up to that expectation, and this year, with the Nothing Phone (4a), they seem to be building on the same philosophy with some practical changes. The Phone (4a) now comes with a slightly bigger battery, and more importantly, there’s a new periscope telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom that was earlier exclusive to the Pro variant. I’ve been using the phone for an entire week; here’s my Nothing Phone (4a) review.

PROS

• New Glyph Bar is interesting and subtler than before
• Versatile 3.5x periscope telephoto camera
• Sharp 1.5K AMOLED display, 120Hz refresh rate
• Clean and smooth Nothing OS experience
• Good and loud stereo speaker setup

CONS

• Performance upgrade over Phone (3a) is fairly minor
• Only IP64 rating
• Competition offers bigger battery
• Video recording limited to 4K at 30fps
• No charger in the box
• No NFC support

Design, Build and Glyph

The Nothing Phone (4a) is a departure from the Phone (3a) in terms of looks and design. While it still maintains the core philosophy of the naked look, the 4a now has a mixture of white and metallic-looking internals, which adds contrast. The camera module looks similar and is placed in the same area, but is slightly more compact. Apart from that, you get the usual barrage of exposed screws and the Nothing logo on the bottom left.

Now, instead of three individual curved Glyph LEDs, the Phone (4a) has a Glyph Bar right next to the camera module, attached to the edge of the phone. This is an array of six white shining individual LEDs and a single red LED that blinks whenever a video is being recorded. In total, there are 63 mini LEDs (9 in each) and individual LEDs inside for different brightness levels. Compared to the earlier Glyph design, this approach feels a bit more subtle and restrained, which also makes the back panel look cleaner. You get the same settings inside the Glyph Interface, like volume indicator, Glyph Timer, Glyph Progress, and Flip to Glyph.

Besides this, the Essential Key is now moved to the left side. The right side has the individual volume rockers and a power button. The port and speaker placements remain the same. The Phone (4a) still, sadly, only offers an IP64 rating, just like the Phone (3a). Nothing claims the phone can withstand 20 minutes in 25cm of water depth, but I would highly suggest keeping the phone away from water bodies. A higher IP rating would have been better, considering phones at a cheaper price offer IP68.

Cameras

The Phone (4a) gets a triple camera setup at the back with a 50-megapixel primary camera and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera. The new 50-megapixel tertiary camera now gets the periscope telephoto treatment, offering 3.5x optical zoom, 7x in-sensor zoom, and a maximum zoom level of 70x. The front camera remains unchanged from last year at 32 megapixels.

Photos captured in daylight come out bright with a good amount of detail. Colours lean slightly towards the saturated side, where blues in the skies appear more pronounced, and greens also receive the same treatment. The shutter speed is quick whenever there’s sufficient light in the environment, though post-processing can sometimes take around 2-3 seconds. Overall, the photos from the primary camera look very similar to what the Phone (3a) delivered, so you won’t really notice a drastic change here, and the same applies to the ultra-wide camera. The downgrade in detail from the ultra-wide camera is quite noticeable since it uses only an 8-megapixel sensor. In slightly lower light conditions, noise also starts creeping in fairly easily.

The periscope telephoto camera, however, brings some meaningful improvements. The 3.5x optical zoom offers more versatility when taking photos, especially portraits of people, since it shoots at around an 80mm focal length, which works well for this type of photography. Skin tones appear natural, details are good, and the edge detection in portrait shots is quite accurate.

In low light, the Phone (4a) automatically toggles night mode, allowing more light into the image, which makes photos look brighter. However, you need to hold the phone steady because the shutter speed slows slightly. Images still manage to retain a good amount of detail and do a decent job of controlling noise. That said, the cameras don’t do a great job of controlling lens flare when a strong light source, like a street lamp, appears in the frame.

As for video recording, the Phone (4a) still only supports 4K at 30fps. If you want higher frame rates, you’ll need to switch to 1080p, where the phone can also shoot slow-motion footage at 120fps.

Display Quality and Speakers

The Phone (4a) gets a 6.78-inch AMOLED display on the front. One noticeable upgrade over the Phone (3a) is the bump in resolution. The 4a now offers a 1224x2720 pixel resolution with a pixel density of 440 PPI. It’s still a 120Hz LTPS panel, so whenever there’s no movement on the screen, the refresh rate drops to 60Hz to help save battery.

Nothing also claims a peak brightness of 4,500 nits and an outdoor brightness of 1,600 nits. In my HDR video testing, the phone reached a maximum brightness of 1062 nits, while the lowest brightness recorded was around 04 nits. This definitely helped when scrolling through reels at night since it didn’t put much strain on the eyes. The Phone (4a) also supports an always-on display.

Display quality remains excellent for watching movies and TV shows, with deep blacks and good viewing angles if two people are watching content on the same screen. On Netflix, the phone does not support HDR playback, but it does retain Widevine L1 certification, which means content can still be streamed in 1080p.

The stereo speakers also get quite loud at around 85–90% volume and deliver a rich output, especially when watching movies, as the mids sound detailed.

Performance

The RAM options are 8GB and 12GB, and the storage options are 128GB and 256GB. It uses LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 3.1. The Phone (4a) is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4, which is a very minor upgrade over the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 found in the Phone (3a). That isn’t really an issue since the A-series has never focused on delivering powerful performance, and the 7s Gen 4 still does a decent job. In daily usage, the phone runs smoothly when opening multiple apps, switching between them, scrolling through Instagram, and then jumping to YouTube Shorts — the classic brainrot pattern — without any stutters or lag.

Interestingly, AnTuTu v11 appears to be blocked on the device since it refuses to display the score despite the network being connected, even after multiple attempts. However, when installing AnTuTu v10, the phone returned a score of 871,858. That said, I would recommend not taking this number too seriously for now. I will update this article once AnTuTu begins working properly on the Phone (4a).

Geekbench 6 ran without any issues and returned a single-core score of 1275 and a multi-core score of 3316, which is a small improvement over what the Phone (3a) delivered. In the CPU Throttling test, the graph largely remained green with minor hints of yellow, and the phone throttled to about 35% of its peak performance, which is still fairly good.

While gaming isn’t exactly the Phone (4a)’s main strength, it still performs well enough. In BGMI, the phone supports Smooth + Ultra Extreme settings, which means the game can run at up to 120fps. That’s impressive, especially since some phones powered by higher-end Snapdragon 8-series chips, like the POCO F7 and the OnePlus Nord 5 in the same price range, still haven’t fully optimised BGMI for that setting.

Overall, the Phone (4a) brings only an incremental improvement in raw performance over last year’s model. However, for its intended audience, it still manages to deliver a balanced and reliable experience in everyday use.

The Phone (4a) comes with Nothing OS 4.1 based on Android 16 out of the box. The UI remains largely the same, with the classic Nothing approach when it comes to widgets, wallpapers, and icon packs. The Phone (4a) will receive 3 years of Android updates and 6 years of security patches, which is the same update policy offered on the Phone (3a). However, in this same price range, phones like the OnePlus Nord 5 offer 4 years of Android updates.

Battery and Charging

The Phone (4a) gets a decent upgrade in battery capacity over the Phone (3a). It now packs a 5,400mAh battery, which can easily last an entire workday, although you will likely need to charge it again around 6:30–7 pm, depending on when you start your day and how heavy your usage is. Nothing is also not using any form of silicon-carbon battery technology here. Because of this, unlike some phones that manage to offer larger battery capacities without increasing thickness, the Phone (4a) sticks to a more modest battery size.

On the charging front, the phone supports 50W wired charging, which takes a little over an hour to charge the device fully from 0%.

Verdict

The Nothing Phone (4a) feels more like a refinement of an already solid formula rather than a major upgrade over the Phone (3a). Nothing hasn’t tried to reinvent anything here. Instead, the company has focused on making a few practical improvements — a slightly sharper display, a bigger battery, and most importantly, the addition of a periscope telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom. That last change alone adds a bit more versatility to the camera system, especially for portraits and long-distance shots.

At the same time, much of the experience remains familiar. Performance sees only a minor bump with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4and aspects like the IP64 rating and ultra-wide camera still feel fairly average for this price segment. The new Glyph Bar also changes the visual identity, though whether it’s better than the older design will likely come down to personal preference. I personally like the more subtle approach here.

Overall, the Phone (4a) still delivers a balanced smartphone experience with a unique design, clean software, and reliable day-to-day performance while staying unique in its own way. However, if you already own the Phone (3a), this isn’t a must-upgrade device unless the new telephoto camera or larger battery specifically appeals to you. For new buyers in the Rs 30,000 price segment, though, the Phone (4a) shapes up to be a sensible option.