Review: Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

5

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is not a hardware-maxed phone. It doesn’t have the best camera, the thinnest profile, or the quickest screen. But that’s not what the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is about, either.

This is a journey in design and innovation.

A journey that makes it feel like you’re holding something new and exciting. During our test of the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, it quickly became clear how uniform the selection of mobile phones is today. Very few stand out with anything other than trying to outdo each other by having the best camera, fastest processor, thinnest profile, and ideally as many screens as possible. But with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, it’s the details, the use of symbols, and the different way of thinking that make you take notice. It’s stylish but with usability in focus. And all this at a price far below most phones today.

It has been a while since a mobile phone test was as interesting as the one for the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro.

What is Nothing?

Founder and Swede Carl Pei worked on developing and building up OnePlus before the launch of London-based Nothing. In 2020, he left OnePlus and started Nothing because he felt that the mobile phone and its development had stagnated. Nothing was intended to be an alternative with innovative ideas and take the mobile phone another step in its evolution. And now, 6 years later, the company is still here and currently also offers smartwatches and headphones. These products are also not at risk of being mistaken for anything other than Nothing, thanks to their original appearance and relatively low price.

A first impression – Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Even before we started the phone, it was clear that this is something that stands out from the crowd, even though Nothing has toned down the design slightly with the Phone (4a) Pro compared to previous editions. On the back, you’ll find three cameras, a small red light, and a large pixel screen through which the phone can communicate with the user via Nothing’s own Glyph. We’ll return to Glyph later, but we can already admit it’s clever and stylish. There are four buttons; three do the usual—power on/off, volume up and down, screenshots, and so on.

But on the left side, there is another button that is a kind of quick-screenshot button. It leads to what Nothing calls Essential Space, where you can collect screenshots, notes, and voice memos that are then automatically categorized. Smart, simple, and useful. We will also return to this in more detail below.

In the box (which was very large!!), you get a charging cable and a transparent case that feels a bit flimsy and cheap. But it does its job, and we shouldn’t complain about the gesture. Finally, we must also mention the SIM card pin, which has also been given a characteristically unique look, to say the least.

Hardware and operating system – Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

The processor

Under the hood sits a Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 (full specifications can be found further down), and the best way to describe it is simply good enough. It isn’t lightning fast, but you don’t really notice that this processor belongs to the mid-range of mobile phones either. Perhaps a little, but only if it’s placed alongside a flagship model like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra; then you notice a difference, even if it’s still hard to put your finger on exactly what it is. But standing on its own, it feels perfectly adequate.

The screen

The screen is 6.83 inches (HxWxD (mm): 163.6 x 76.6 x 7.9) with a resolution of 1260×2800 pixels at 450 PPI and sits excellently in a relatively large hand. Nothing specifies the brightness with three Nit values: Peak – 5,000, Outdoor – 1,600, and Typical – 800. And the screen is really bright. If you turn it on in the middle of the night without having lowered the brightness, it feels extremely intense, and outdoors it is never difficult to see. The screen has a refresh rate of 144 Hz with a TSR (Touch Sampling Rate) of 2,500 Hz, which means it flows smoothly and feels fast.

The camera

The camera setup consists of a 50MP main camera, a 50MP periscope camera, and a wide-angle lens. The camera function on the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is not its star feature; it’s not a bad camera, and it can boast being the only camera with which you can get AI upscaling to a full 140x. But if we take a comparative photo with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra and zoom to its maximum (120x), it becomes clear that the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is doing quite a bit of guessing at that point. So, the actual purpose of this special ability is somewhat questionable.

What is far more interesting are its various preset modes with names like Cold Retro Future, Urban, Stretch, Soft Focus, and a few more. Each mode has its own settings and creates an exciting variety. It becomes easy and fun to take interesting pictures where razor-sharp focus isn’t always the priority, but rather where art and image composition are central.

Battery and other hardware

The battery is 5,080 mAh and lasts perfectly well. We get the feeling that it takes a little longer to charge than usual despite its 50W capability, but at the same time, we know that it also saves the battery some strain. What you don’t get, since the new shell is aluminum, is wireless charging. The Bluetooth version is 5.4, and the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro also offers a slot for dual SIM cards. Audio-wise, Nothing mentions quite little about codecs, but we know that it handles aptX, aptX-HD, and aptX-Adaptive, which goes a long way in terms of sound quality.

Operating system

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro runs the Nothing OS 4.1 operating system on top of Android 16. The phone includes three years of Android updates and six years of security updates. There is much to write about the operating system itself, but overall it is a relatively clean OS with a limited amount of bloatware (there’s always a little). Nothing also has a bunch of icon options, including a standard package and many visually appealing alternative options.

Glyph, Essential Space, and some favorites

Glyph

Glyph is somewhat of a USP (Unique Selling Point) for the Phone (4a) Pro. Of course, these days you can find many phones that have two screens, but that’s not really what Glyph is. Simply put, it is an “if that – then this” system. First, you name your rule, choose which contacts and apps should be included. Then you choose a symbol, and when a message arrives that meets all parts of your rule, your chosen symbol appears. This can be applied to almost anything, like calls or specific words. Nothing’s own example is that if the word “warning” comes from any contact, a specific symbol is displayed.

It is ingenious and very useful. Especially if you activate the feature where as soon as the phone is placed screen-down, it becomes completely silent and only signals with the Glyph. And even that is communicated with a diagonal line and a short vibration so that you are sure the sound and vibration are turned off.

Essential Space

Essential Space is a smart place to collect everything you want to remember. Motorola did something similar with Remember this, but it was never quite as accessible as Essential Space, which just, sort of, is there. With its own button to boot. The fact that all entries are also sorted into a category or combined categories makes it very easy to find your captured moments. Again, smart and easy to use.

Some favorites

After a few weeks of use, details emerge that stick and will undoubtedly be missed when they are no longer available if you switch phones. It is also impossible to go through all the small details with a phone like the Phone (4a) Pro. So, below is a collection of favorite features.

• Near the top of the app drawer, a small area is created with apps you have pinned. It’s not the same as the field at the top that presents current apps based on usage. Here, you choose for yourself.
• In Nothing’s photo app, there is a standard folder protected by fingerprint, and just below it, all deleted photos are collected. These are also fingerprint-protected.
• The photo widget is a small circle that cycles to a new image every time you open the phone. Nice.
• If you want to close all open apps, you long-press the front one (after pressing the Android square), and all are collected behind it. Then you just swipe up, and you no longer need to go all the way to the left to clear them all at once.
• The control panel is clear and easily shows what’s going on, which mode is active, and at the top, you can choose to continuously display current connection speed. It’s surprising how low a speed is sufficient for most things—something to consider when choosing a subscription.

The experience – Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

It has been a joy to test the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro. Largely because it was inspiring to get our hands on something that felt a bit new and wasn’t just aimed at capacity. New features, a large collection of sounds that also stand out from the crowd, Nothing’s own icon pack, and smart details throughout.

And looking at the price, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro stands out there too. You pay about 6,500 SEK for the Pro version with 12+2 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. Compared to many phones today, that’s cheap, even among “budget” variants like Samsung’s base model Galaxy S25, which cost 10,500 SEK at launch.

And with that price, there is immediately a built-in buffer zone of accumulated forgiveness for the fact that the processor might not be the fastest or the camera isn’t the sharpest. Because you get so much anyway. We haven’t yet had time to mention playground.nothing.tech, where users around the world can create their own Glyph ideas, share EQ settings, apps, and camera settings. This means the innovative side essentially never runs dry. And it’s fun and stylish.

Why not an app that keeps track of Halley’s Comet, or a clear symbol that shows you’re talking on the phone, or the app Life in Dots (which is Nothing’s signature design look) that shows the year in dots.

The bottom line – Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

This is a really good phone. We hesitate to call it mid-range because it doesn’t quite aim to fit into the measurements we often use to categorize today’s phones. It wants to offer something other than peak performance and aims instead to give us a new experience. And it succeeds. The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is a breath of fresh air with its comparatively modest price alongside its already forgiven shortcomings. It’s fun. Again.

Nothing sent a review unit for this review. The sender of the material has no editorial influence on our tests.

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