My First Look at Nothing’s (4a) Series: Midrange Phones…

Nothing announced a slew of products at an event in London, including its next-generation A series phones, which are a significant step up from their predecessors. Here are my initial impressions. LONDON—After weeks of teasing the news, Nothing has fully reve…

LONDON—After weeks of teasing the news, Nothing has fully revealed the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, Phone (4a), and Nothing Headphone (a). While the phones are the fourth-gen versions of the company's midrange devices, the Headphone (a) is a lower-cost version of its unique Headphone (1) product. All are set to do battle with the likes of the Google Pixel 10a, the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, and on the iOS side of the fence, the new Apple iPhone 17e.

With the cat now out of the bag, I had a chance to see everything. Here's what I think. Nothing has always been all about the design. Since its first phone, the company has relied on a unique design language to stand out from the competition. Nowhere is that more on display than with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro and Phone (4a). The Pro is the first phone from Nothing to adopt a metal unibody design, with an aluminum chassis that covers a significant portion of the rear panel.

It's a surprising change-up and looks amazing in person. The camera module has been expanded and now includes the Glyph Matrix we saw on last year's Phone (3). It's a new take on the Glyph design and lets people customize their notifications to a greater degree. I really like the new design. The Pro comes in black, silver, and pink. The Phone (4a) expands its color palette, too, growing beyond black and white to include blue and pink.

The Phone (4a) more closely resembles last year's Phone (3a), but that's not an issue. It's still a unique design that stands out from most others on the market. In fact, it leans a bit harder into Nothing's industrial roots and shows more components under the plastic. I like the redesigned Glyph bar, which sits to the right of the camera module and lets you see lots of notifications and alerts. The build quality on both devices feels much better than older Nothing designs.

The materials and components come together in a more pleasing way and they feel really good to hold and use. Nothing is pushing the specs up a notch on both phones. Starting with the screens, the (4a) Pro has a 6.83-inch AMOLED display with a 440ppi pixel density and a 144Hz refresh rate. It reaches a peak brightness of an astounding 5,000 nits and supports up to 2,500Hz touch sampling for gamers.

It's protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i. The Phone (4a) has a similar screen. It's slightly smaller at 6.78 inches, but it's also an AMOLED with a 2,720-by-1,225 resolution, 440ppi, 4,500 nits peak brightness, and a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. Nothing opted for Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 series chips for both phones. The Pro gets the 7 Gen 4, and the regular model gets the 7s Gen 4. These deliver 27% and 7% speed gains, respectively, over the chips in the 3a series.

The phones share a 5,080mAh battery that supports up to 17 hours of mixed use, including gaming, messaging, music, and video. They support 50W wired charging, which charges them from 0% to 60% in 30 minutes. Neither phone includes wireless charging. Nothing upgraded the camera systems with newer sensors and more software tuning to make for better results. The Phone (4a) Pro has two 50MP cameras on the rear, including a Sony LYT700c main sensor with optical image stabilization and a 50MP 3.5x periscopic telephoto camera with up to 140x hybrid zoom.

A 32MP selfie camera is on the front. The (4a) has a similar 50MP, 50MP, 32MP arrangement, but it relies on different sensors. Both adopt more Google Photos editing tools, such as AI Photo Eraser. Nothing's Glyph UI—a series of light-up LEDs on the rear panel—is part of what defines the style of its phones. Both the (4a) Pro and (4a) have new Glyphs, though they don't stray too far from the company's original intent.

Nothing says that once you learn the simple patterns that indicate different notifications, you can leave the phone face down and know what type of message you received based on the pattern. The (4a) Pro adopts the Glyph Matrix, a round display on the rear panel that hosts more than just blinking lights. The Matrix supports basic animations and lets you customize the widgets that appear. A handful of animations are included.

The (4a) has a simpler Glyph bar that extends vertically from the bottom of the camera module to the top. It comprises 63 mini-LEDs in seven square light zones. Each square can be controlled precisely and illumination with up to 3,500 nits. It can even stand in as a battery meter or a flash for the camera. Both phones ship with Android 16 and Nothing OS 4.1. The company has refined the OS to make multitasking more intuitive, AI easier to find and use, and to enable widget creation via the Playground tool.

Critically, Nothing is improving support, offering three years of Android system updates and six years of security patches. In all, these are significant upgrades for both phones. The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro starts at $499 for 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage, and the (4a) starts at $349 for the same configuration. Each can be ordered with up to 12GB of memory and 256GB of storage at an additional cost.

I expect to have reviews of the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro and Phone (4a) in the weeks ahead, so please check back soon.

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