Nothing can have missed a flagship launch this year, but the brand has not been slack with its popular Phone (a) line. The company has now come up with the Nothing Phone (4a) with a number of significant upgrades after the success of the previous generation. The new model is associated with a revised Glyph Bar design, a higher power Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset, better display brightness, and a periscope camera system, which is meant to reinforce its stance in the competitive mid-range market.

I have had a few days with the Nothing Phone (4a) to understand how these improvements affect the actual performance. Is it really unique compared to competitors or is it a mere incremental change? Let’s find out in this review.

An In-Depth Review on Nothing Phone (4a)

Wondering what the Nothing Phone (4a) is and whether it is a good reliable smartphone to use on a daily basis? The device comes with the trademark clear design of Nothing, a new Glyph Bar lighting system, a colorful AMOLED display, and a powerful Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor. It is designed to suit those users who desire the smooth performance to browse, socialize, play games and entertain. This review will discuss the design, performance, camera features, price in Bangladesh and general experience of the Nothing Phone (4a).

Box Content

This is what you get inside the Nothing Phone (4a) box:

• Nothing Phone (4a) Smartphone
• USB Type-C cable
• Protective Case
• SIM ejector tool
• User manual

The company is simple and minimal in the interior of the retail box of the Nothing Phone (4a). The Nothing phone (4a) handset, USB type-C charging cable, SIM ejector tool, and safety information and documentation are included. The phone also includes a screen protector that is already applied to the phone to protect it at that time, not to mention the protective case that will ensure the phone is not damaged by day-to-day scratches and drops.

Design & Build Quality

The Nothing Phone (4a) does not carry on with its tradition of eye-catching design, but this time the company has perfected the formula to seem a bit more minimal and mature. The phone also has the same transparent back cover which shows some of its industrial design. Nonetheless, rather than imitating the very design language of the prior generation, Nothing has redesigned the surrounding space of the camera module and has also created a new Glyph Bar and substituted the traditional Glyph pattern of lighting with a thinner visual object.

The camera module that is in the shape of a pill is still familiar, but the new plate that surrounds the camera module is oval and coil-shaped, which provides the back with a new identity. The first is the fact that the phone lies flat on a surface and you can respond to the messages or use the phone without picking it up every now and then.

Regarding the build, the phone has Gorilla Glass 7i on the front, a glass back, and a plastic frame in between. Although the device is made of materials that keep it solid, the total weight of the device is 204.5 grams, which is a little heavier than competitors. Fortunately, the flat sides and the matte frame finish gives it a good grip and minimizes fingerprints on the sides.

The smooth back panel, however, is prone to smudges, particularly darker colour variants. Fortunately, Nothing has provided a clear protective cover in the package to guard against scratches and daily usage.

The phone is 164 mm high, 77.6 mm wide, and 8.6 mm thick and has an IP64 rating of dust and splash resistance. It comes in Pink, White, Black, and Blue, and the soft Pink finish is the most original and the most fashionable.

Display

The Nothing Phone (4a) has a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen that builds on the promise of the brand to provide an exciting viewing experience in the mid-range market. It has a 1224 x 2720 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+, which provides smooth scrolling and crisp images in daily applications. The display has a pixel density of approximately 440 ppi and an aspect ratio of 20:9, so regardless of whether you are watching videos, browsing social media, or reading articles, the display is crisp.

The peak brightness of up to 4,500 nits is also one of the major advances in this year that greatly improves the visibility in the outdoors. The text and content can be read easily even in broad daylight without having to keep on changing the brightness. Corning Gorilla Glass 7i also provides extra protection to the screen against small scratches and drops.

The phone comes with the display profile of Alive, which enhances colours slightly to make them appear more vivid and stimulating, but not too saturated. The Standard profile may be activated in the settings menu to allow users to have a more natural colour tone.

The screen is in a punch-hole format with fairly prominent bezels, though they do not often disrupt the experience of viewing the screen. The panel has a screen-to-body ratio of 87 percent, which is still immersive enough to use it in consuming media.

In audio, the stereo system of speakers provides fairly loud audio with equal tuning. Although the highs are marginally more pronounced and the maximum volume is slightly muddier, the listening experience is pleasant to both videos, music and gaming.

Camera

The Nothing Phone (4a) is fitted with a triple-camera, which is aimed at providing versatility in various shooting situations. It consists of a 50MP primary sensor with aperture f/1.9, a 50MP telephoto, and an 8MP ultra-wide lens. The device has a 32MP selfie camera on the front side, which can take detailed selfies, as well as make video calls with clear results. The back camera setup is also OIS enabled, HDR enabled, and capable of recording up to 4K, which provides the phone with a good base in photography and video recording.

Daylight Photo:

The primary camera is a 50MP and it does a great job in good lighting conditions, producing sharp images with ample detail. Foliage, building and fabric patterns are sharp without being over sharpened. The colours are usually more on the natural side as opposed to the saturated colours, which contributes to a more realistic appearance of the outdoors setting. Dynamic range is also taken care of and the camera is able to retain the details in the bright highlights as well as in the darker shadows.

Low-light Photo:

The Phone (4a) is able to maintain a decent level of detail in low-light scenarios, particularly when night mode is turned on. Optical image stabilisation together with software processing aids in minimising blur and ensuring clarity. The noise is kept at a manageable level and the camera is good at balancing the exposure without making the darker scenes too bright.

The 50MP telephoto camera on the Phone (4a) is one of the best things that can be mentioned, as it allows optical zoom and a greater variety of framing options. The sensor also works well in portrait photography and offers decent subject separation and a nice background blur. The detection of edges is accurate most of the time, but there may be irregularities at the edges of hard to detect features such as hair strands.

The 8MP ultra-wide camera is helpful in capturing the landscape, architecture, and group shots, as it is able to widen the shooting perspective. Although not as detailed as the main sensor, colour consistency is relatively similar, so that ultra-wide shots can be easily integrated with the shots taken with the primary camera.

The front camera is a 32MP with a sharp selfie with the correct skin tone and dynamic range. It is also a little bit wider in terms of the field of view, and it is handy to use in group selfies. On video, the rear cameras can record in 4K, and the front camera can record in 1080p at 30fps, providing smooth and stable video that can be used in social media and creating everyday content.

Performance & Software

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset (a 4nm processor) that powers the Nothing Phone (4a) is an efficient mid-range processor. It is combined with 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and with up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage, which gives it quick app loading and enables multitasking. On paper, this setup appears to be balanced well on a smartphone that is not aimed at a flagship power but at the daily functionality.

The Phone (4a) is used in everyday life and performs such routine tasks as browsing, social media, and media consumption without any apparent hiccups. The transition between different apps is also fluid, despite having a number of applications running in the background. The chipset does throttle slightly during stress testing when heavily loaded, but otherwise has a consistent overall performance with no significant slowdowns.

Gaming is quite decent, but the phone is not intended to be played in the long-term competitive games but in the casual to moderate ones. Games such as BGMI can be played without problems, and although the phone starts to heat up after the long gaming sessions, it does not cause significant drops in the frame rate. All in all, the gameplay is not too complicated to the majority of users.

The smartphone operates the Nothing OS 4.1, which is based on Android 16, on the software side. Just like nothing gadgets would, the interface is clean, minimal, and devoid of any pre-installed applications that are not needed. The UI is still characterized by the unique monochrome design language of the brand that gives the system a distinct visual identity unlike the traditional Android skins.

Nothing OS also adds some quality-of-life features, including smoother system animations, a Smart App Drawer to make the system more organised, and the ability to use different ringtones on dual SIM cards. Although the software experience is typically consistent, there are usually small glitches in some third-party applications, probably because of optimisation.

AnTuTu Score & GeekBench Score

We also considered the benchmark performance of the Nothing Phone (4a) to determine its raw performance. The smartphone runs on the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset, which provides it with decent results in terms of a mid-range phone and easily reaches the million-point mark in synthetic tests.

The Nothing Phone (4a) in the AnTuTu benchmark scores approximately 11,37,324 points, which is a good score based on the CPU, GPU, memory, and UX performance. This outcome makes it competitive in the upper mid-range segment and proves that the phone is powerful enough to perform daily multitasking, play games, and applications.

When testing the phone on Geekbench, which is a test of CPU performance, the phone scores a single-core result of approximately 1,276 and a multi-core result of approximately 3,364. These figures demonstrate how the processor can be used in both single-task tasks and more demanding multi-threaded tasks.

Battery & Charger

The Nothing Phone (4a) uses a 5,400mAh lithium-polymer battery that offers reliable performance on a daily basis. Although there are some more recent models that are beginning to provide even larger batteries, the capacity here still provides a moderate performance and efficiency to a mid-range smartphone.

In normal everyday use, the phone can easily last a whole day with activities like browsing, scrolling social media, messaging, streaming, and gaming every now and then. The average user must have the ability to go to bed with some charge left, whereas the heavy users may require a last minute charge in the evening. On the whole, the battery life is not impressive, but rather trustworthy.

To charge, the device has 50W wired fast charging that can charge the battery rather fast when it is combined with a compatible charger. The battery can be charged in approximately an hour, which is also convenient to its users who require a quick charge before going out.

Nothing Phone (4a) price in Bangladesh

Nothing Phone (4a) is sold in Bangladesh as an unofficial release. The 8GB RAM + 128GB version is priced at BDT 41,000 and the 8GB + 256GB version can be priced at BDT 45,000 depending on the retailer and availability in the market.

The price of the device might be slightly different between the online stores and the local mobile markets since the device is not officially released in the country yet. 

Final Word

The Nothing Phone (4a) continues the brand’s philosophy of blending distinctive design with a clean software experience. With its refreshed Glyph Bar, vibrant AMOLED display, capable Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor, and versatile camera setup, the phone delivers a balanced package for everyday users. While it may not lead the segment in raw power or battery life, the overall experience remains polished, stylish, and enjoyable for daily use.