It’s been a while, and the design language is finally changing. It’s not that the transparent, industrial and retro-futuristic aesthetics on Nothing’s phones seemed dated until now, but this switch to a metal unibody indicates an intention to refresh, evolve and appeal to a wider audience. For the UK-based tech company, the Nothing Phone (4A) Pro becomes their first phone with an aluminum unibody design, although the frame and camera surrounds have already been combined to good effect. There’s still familiarity with the broader Nothing experience, which is relevant for existing users looking to upgrade to a new phone.
The Nothing Phone (4A) Pro gives you three spec options and three color options, but it’s worth noting that the troika is pretty closely packed in terms of pricing – ₹Rs 39,999 for the 8GB+128GB spec. ₹Rs 42,999 for 8GB+256GB, and ₹Rs 45,999 for 12GB+256GB. For a potential buyer, it becomes easier to move forward. Maybe beyond the traditional black and silver colors, there could be a case for some more color options with a pink tint that looks more sand pink, just in case you’re interested. It’s their thinnest phone yet, at 7.95mm – although last year’s Phone (3A) Pro wasn’t much thicker at 8.4mm. But well, when it slips into your trouser pocket even a little shaving counts.
The aluminum unibody, which nothing says is aircraft-grade, looks good and feels equally good to hold. The camera island with the glyph matrix that was first seen on the phone (3) is really well designed. The Glyph matrix is comparatively larger, and brighter too – it rates at 3,000 nits with 137 mini-LEDs for nothing. The utility for this is accompanied by notifications, such as customizable symbols for calls from important contacts, volume indicator, battery level guidance, etc. Everything is in its place in terms of ergonomics, and falls to hand. The only learning curve is the placement and exactly the same design of the Volume Up, Volume Down and Power keys, which is easy to mix up if you’re not looking (or the muscle memory isn’t locked in yet).
The Nothing Phone (4A) Pro is also bigger in terms of screen size. It’s now a 6.83-inch AMOLED display with a much higher 2800×1260 pixel resolution – compared with the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro’s 6.77-inch AMOLED 2392×1080 resolution. Also a significant step forward with the protective layer, now Corning Gorilla Glass 7i which current generation phones are increasingly adopting. It’s a really bright screen to look at, even compared to its bigger brother, and colors also look a bit more vibrant to my eyes. Nothing’s OS theming has also been a definite improvement in terms of legibility and contrast. That said, I would prefer the dark mode to be still darker as there are times when it feels more like a dark shade of gray and not completely black.
One might be skeptical about using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chip for a phone at this price (4A) Pro. The looming shadow of Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro+ 5G (prices start) ₹Rs 37,999 for 8GB + 256GB) which is powered by the Snapdragon 7S Gen 4, lending credibility to Nothing’s choice. Between the two, even if there is a difference between lightweight and incremental levels, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 has a higher frequency GPU, better memory bandwidth, and a faster CPU. However, if you are considering the highest spec version of the Nothing Phone (4A) Pro, you may well consider the entry-spec offering of the OnePlus 15R (which is 12GB_256GB). ₹Rs 47,999 with the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip. Lots of priorities.
That said, performance isn’t an issue for the Nothing Phone (4A) Pro. The combination of Nothing’s efforts with the faster UFS 3.1 storage standard, better memory types, as well as the larger vapor chamber, all come together well enough to provide seamless usability as an everyday phone. The results show, because apart from extensive camera use, the back doesn’t really get hot – not even under multitasking load.
I’m not sure the camera is completely perfect, as one would imagine with a phone (4A) Pro. It works quite well for the most part delivering vibrant, detailed and easy on the eyes photos, but will often find itself faltering in slightly tricky lighting scenarios. As such, if you aim the camera to take a photo and it is looking at a light source somewhere in the frame, the exposure will be compromised and a glare will appear on a certain part of the photo. The positive trend I’ve always seen with Nothing is that they will actively listen to feedback and subsequent software updates will almost completely fix these shortcomings.
After all, this is a very capable camera system with a 50-megapixel Sony LYT-700 wide sensor, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera, and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera. The latter is probably the weakest link in the chain, and you’d be better off sticking to the main camera for zoom-in requirements (2x lossless in-sensor, 3.5x optical, and 7x lossless). Both wide and telephoto have optical image stabilization (OIS) and the main camera has plenty of potential with a 1/1.56-inch sensor that’s 24% larger than its predecessor. On a positive note for people like me, Nothing’s TruLens Engine 4 image processing makes minimal use of AI for noise reduction and Night Mode photos – but it doesn’t alter detail, tonality or sense of space, as some of its rivals do.
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro has a much larger battery than its predecessor, at least in the Indian version – it’s now 5,400mAh whereas last year’s phone had 5,000mAh. The genuineness of the upgrade is underlined by the consistent 50-watt wired charging, which charges a nearly drained battery to 50% in about 20 minutes or a little more. In our experience, it easily lasted a day and a half under a normal primary phone workload with some camera usage, but without gaming. I say this often, you’ll still charge your phone every night before you hit the pillow, or before leaving for work in the morning, but it’ll be a much shorter trip to 100% when the Nothing Phone (4A) Pro’s intrinsic frugality becomes very much a reality.
More than anything else, the Nothing Phone (4A) Pro is perhaps the biggest sign yet of a brand presenting a product line with great confidence. There’s more conviction in the design, the upgrades right on the spec sheet have had the desired impact on performance and stability, while battery endurance adds meaningful everyday reassurance. The camera still leaves some room for improvement, especially before software updates inevitably smooth out those edges. It’s perhaps the most complete expression yet of a phone that wants to look different, feel premium, and still deliver value as a serious daily driver.