Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: The design disruptor moves to the mainstream with a great new phone

For a few years now, Nothing has mastered the art of standing out in a sea of boring glass slabs with the transparent design, the Glyph lights, the avant-garde software aesthetic, even the cheeky branding. To use a Nothing Phone still feels like a design studio has wandered into the smartphone market and started asking questions no one else was.

Yet, identifying as the refreshing, playful and occasionally quirky alternative to the norm can only get you so far, and with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro ( ₹39,999 onwards), Nothing has quietly shifted. The brand is now signaling an interest in making an actual better phone, not just one that’s interesting. With revamps in design, hardware and cameras, this is a mid-ranger that punches above its price point, and one that you should absolutely not be sleeping on.

The Phone (4a) Pro feels barely related to the budget 4a that it was launched alongside, or previous Nothing phones, for that matter. Trading the “look inside me” party trick for a more grounded aluminum unibody design, the (4a) Pro looks and feels premium for the price, particularly in the fetching silver colourway that gives off strong professional retro tool vibes (you get black and pink options as well). And it works—it’s a classy, yet far more normal look that I’d wager many folks would like, opening Nothing up to a wider market. In hand, the slim 7.9mm profile and matte finished edges make the otherwise large phone easy to grip, and there’s a small dimple on the bottom-left corner to help you fish the phone out of the pocket more easily. Gorilla Glass 7i screen protection and IP65 rating take care of accidental drops and splashes.

The switch in materials doesn’t mean that the (4a) Pro has entirely forsaken Nothing’s signature see-through styling, and that signature touch makes an appearance on the device-spanning camera bump. You’re likely to notice the massive Glyph Matrix LED array alongside the cameras, which is over 50% larger and twice as bright than the one on the pricier Phone (3). Granted, you get fewer mini-LEDs and interactions are limited given there’s no glyph button on the back, but it is plenty enough for scrolling text, custom symbols for notification alerts and status/progress indicators, plus some community-provided Glyph Toys. There’s a bit of a bike dashboard cluster vibe going on, but it does instantly mark out the 4a Pro as a Nothing phone.

With so much going on the back panel, it’s good to see Nothing has lavished some attention to the 6.83in, 1260 X 2800-pixel flexible-AMOLED display. Not only does the screen have skinnier bezels than most of its mid-range peers, but it also does one better compared to the flagship Phone (3)—it’s bigger, offers a higher adaptive refresh rate (up to 144Hz) and with a higher peak brightness while playing back HDR content. Coupled with the stereo speaker setup, the (4a) is a solid content consumption device, although some may prefer to dial down the colours to ‘Standard’ if the ‘Alive’ preset is a bit too punchy and vibrant for their taste.

On the performance front, the (4a) Pro is expectedly more of a mid-ranger, with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset only a small step up from the Phone (4a) and about the same as its segment peers. What this translates to is the ability to handle games like Call of Duty: Mobile at high settings, and heavier titles like Genshin Impact at medium settings if you’re the sort for extended gaming sessions; the larger vapor chamber cooling system can only do so much.

Elsewhere, the (4a) Pro is a smooth everyday device, and it is able to reliably handle moderate-to-heavy workloads. Nothing OS 4.1 is clean and free of pre-loaded apps—just Facebook and Instagram—and what it misses out on heavy customization, it more than makes up via extensive widget support (including vibe-coded mini apps called Essential Apps by the Nothing community), a wide array of camera presets, and the AI-organized Essential Space for all your notes and memories.

During my daily use, the 5,400mAh lithium-ion battery lasted well past the five-hour mark, which is good enough for casual gaming, browsing, streaming and social media. There’s no charger in the box for the 50W fast charging, and no wireless charging due to the all-metal body.

When it comes to cameras, the (4a) Pro sports a 50MP primary camera, a 50MP periscope 3.5x telephoto and an 8MP ultrawide, plus a 32MP punch-hole selfie camera up front. The 3.5x optical zoom gives Nothing a solid edge over rivals that opt for sensor cropping to zoom in on the image, and the ability to punch in to near-lossless 7x zoom makes this a rather versatile camera setup. Shots from the telephoto do a good job capturing sharp images in daylight, and they’re no pushovers even in low light (the images come out a little over-sharpened though).

Lining up along the primary shooter—which manages good detail and excellent dynamic range in daylight and social media-ready shots in low light—you get a capable one-two combo, and Nothing’s showing big strides in getting image processing right. The ultrawide and the selfie cameras are just about passable. The community-made camera presets are a must-try.

Verdict

The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is very much still a Nothing device, even as the design and personality matures to cater to a wider audience, making it more practical, accessible and usable for everyday users. At ₹39,999 the (4a) Pro model justifies the added outlay over the 4a, with bumped up performance, better cameras, a premium metal chassis and a useful Glyph Matrix display. Notably, the cameras have gotten better, the software experience is still top-notch, and the performance is good enough for the average user. For long, Nothing has known how to make you look twice, and the Phone (4a) Pro might finally be one that will make you stay.

Tushar Kanwar is a tech columnist and commentator, and tweets @2shar.