A meaningful upgrade that ticks key boxes

Discover the Nothing 4a: a stylish smartphone with enhanced display, impressive camera, and intuitive user experience, starting at ₹31,999.

It’s 2026, we’re seeing a marked increase in smartphone prices as the industry grapples with a RAM shortage and rising input costs. Nothing’s ‘a Series’ devices have typically battled in the sub ₹30,000 price band. The brand’s newest Nothing 4a has just dropped with a starting price of ₹31,999. That brings us to the obvious question, does this device deliver a user experience that justifies the price hike over last year’s Nothing 3a?

The short answer is yes. Nothing has leaned heavily on design to break the clutter, the Nothing 4a is a case in point. It’s one of the best looking smartphones you can buy right now with a range of colours including a standout Pink colourway. The 4a sticks with Nothing’s trademark industrial and transparent design. Nothing has also improved the ergonomics, the device feels better in your hand than the 3a.

The camera bar has moved slightly and looks even more refined than its predecessor. We also liked the redesigned Glyph Bar that opts for an uncomplicated layout. You get six vertical LED squares that are made up of 63 mini-LEDs. Nothing offers a host of customisations for its popular Glyph interface including alterations to the brightness of the LED squares. Nothing tells us that the 4a is submersible in up to 25 cm of water for up to 20 minutes.

The phone is IP64 certified for dust and water resistance but there are smartphones in this price band that offer better ingress protection. Nothing has moved the Essential Key (that allows you to capture screenshots that the phone can organise with its AI solution) to the left spine. This is a good ‘move’ given that we’ve often accidentally ended up pressing this button (that was previously on the right spine along with the volume rocker) while looking for the power button.

This is one area where Nothing has made a significant change over the Nothing 3a. The 4a sports a 6.78-inch LTPS flexible AMOLED display (1224 x 2720 pixels / 440 PPI). This 1.5K display is a marked improvement over the Full HD display from last year. It peaks at 4500 nits with an outdoor brightness of 1600 nits. Colours are punchy, the display offers excellent visibility even under direct sunlight.

While the display supports HDR support for YouTube, it still doesn’t offer this option for Netflix yet. I watched an episode from the second season of Kohrra and the lack of HDR support didn’t really impact the viewing experience that was complemented by the dual stereo speakers. Nothing’s hasn’t built its sales pitch around chipset performance or your need for speed. The 4a is propelled by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset.

The device comes in three storage options – 8GB/128GB, 8GB/256GB and the top-end 12GB/256GB version that we tested. The device aced everyday tasks and notched a respectable score of 3,376 in our Geekbench (multi-core) test. It’s not the fastest in a segment that also includes options such as the OnePlus Nord 5 but it’s all the firepower most users need. The device runs on Nothing OS 4.1 powered by Android 16.

It’s one of our favourite custom versions of Android with a minimalist interface that complements the phone’s industrial design. But there are brands that offer more customisable options with their versions of Android. We would have like to see more than three years of Android OS updates. Battery life gets a boost with a 5,400 mAh battery that lasted a whole day in our tests with moderate to heavy usage.

The device offers 50W wired charging (there’s no charging brick in the box) that powers device to 100 per cent in just over an hour. Nothing has raised the bar with the triple rear cam on the 4a. The highlight is the 50MP Samsung JN5 periscope lens that offers 3.5x optical zoom and 7x in-sensor zoom. It’s one of the only mobile shooters at this price point to offer a 70x ultra zoom option. We put this zoom lens through the scanner; results were quite impressive up to 10x zoom.

The camera set up also includes a 50MP (f/1.88) primary lens and an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide lens. The Nothing 4a delivers a solid camera performance in optimal light. Portraits are sharp with good edge detection, the 4a shoots better lowlight images compared to the 3a. However, lowlight images with the ultra-wide lens were not in the same league . This is not unusual at this price point. There’s also a 32MP selfie shooter in the mix.

The Nothing 4a comes with quite a few thoughtful upgrades over the 3a. It sticks with the same appeal that has worked with Nothing’s legion of fans that prioritises user experience and a unique approach to smartphone design. The device comes with enhancements that cover most bases including an improved display and a versatile rear shooter making it one of the best buys in the ₹30,000- ₹40,000 price segment right now.

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