Nothing Phone (4a) review: Plenty to like, but hard to love
Nothing has built its identity around standing out. From the transparent design to the now-iconic Glyph lights, its phones are meant to be conversation starters in a market full of lookalike slabs.
Oddly enough though, despite all the visual flair, I didn’t find the Nothing Phone (4a) particularly exciting. That’s not really the phone’s fault; it just never quite clicked with me. It’s a competent midranger with plenty going for it, but throughout my time using it, I never found myself reaching for it with much enthusiasm.
Glyph Bar isn’t that exciting in person
The translucent design makes its return, continuing Nothing’s signature aesthetic. At this point though, I think I’m personally starting to feel a little bit of ‘transparency fatigue’. Nothing has done a good job establishing a recognisable design language, but the novelty isn’t quite what it used to be for me.
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what not; I’m sure plenty of people still love the look. If you’re already a fan of Nothing’s industrial aesthetics, the Phone (4a) won’t disappoint you.
The biggest visual change is around the Glyph Interface—or rather, what’s left of it. The elaborate lighting setup has been simplified into a single vertical Glyph Bar beside the camera module. It packs 63 mini LEDs across seven square lighting zones, each capable of reaching up to 3,500 nits of brightness, making it 40% brighter than the Phone (3a)’s Glyph Interface. Nothing also says the design eliminates light leakage, making it easier to see outdoors.
Personally, I don’t think the Glyph Bar feels as necessary or as cool as the implementation on the Phone (4a) Pro, but it’s a neat little addition if you enjoy the extra bit of personality it brings. And when Nothing said they made it brighter, boy do they mean it because at full brightness it was actually quite glaring; I ended up leaving it at medium for most of the review. As before, I can set it to act as a notification light for calls and texts, as visual cues for a timer as well as a volume indicator.
Up front, you get a sizeable 6.78-inch AMOLED display with a sharp 2,720 x 1,224 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It’s a perfectly good screen for doomscrolling social media or binge watching YouTube, with vibrant colours and crisp visuals. My only real complaints are that the bezels feel a little thicker than I’d like, and I noticed the phone doesn’t always stick to 120Hz while scrolling, making the experience feel less smooth than expected.
Mild performance bump, middling software support
Powering the Phone (4a) is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor, mated to 12GB of memory and 256GB of storage. It’s a capable enough midrange chipset that handles everyday use without much trouble, but it’s not much of a leap over something like last year’s Phone (3a) Pro.
If anything, it’ll handle day-to-day tasks just fine, while gaming performance is respectable too. It can run more dmanding mobile titles like Where Winds Meet reasonably well, although you’ll have to settle for medium settings and frame rates below 60fps if you want a smoother experience.
Out of the box, the phone ships with Android 16 alongside Nothing OS 4.1, which is basically the real highlight of any Nothing phone. While I do wish Nothing promised more than just the three major Android version updates, I still genuinely enjoy Nothing OS itself. It’s clean, slick and fairly customisable, reminding me of the early Android days when everyone was tweaking icons, widgets and home screens to make their phones feel uniquely theirs.
Battery life, however, left me somewhat underwhelmed. The 5,080mAh battery isn’t small by any means, but it delivered fairly average endurance during my testing. By the time I was getting ready for bed after a full day of use, I was already dipping below the 20% mark more often than I’d have liked. There’s support for 50W support at least, though no charger in the box sadly.
Decent cameras, if not groundbreaking
In the camera department, the Nothing Phone (4a) comes with a 50MP, f/1.9 main camera using a Samsung GN9 sensor, a 50MP, f/2.9 periscope telephoto with 3.5x optical zoom on the Samsung ISOCELL JN5 sensor and an 8MP, f/2.2 ultrawide along with a 32MP, f/2.2 front camera.
Overall, the experience is that the Phone (4a) provides a decent enough point-and-shoot experience, especially with the main camera. It’s easy to forget that that’s generally the main way 80% of people will ever use a smartphone to take photos with, and in this regard the Phone (4a) does it well, with photos generally showing good colour reproduction, mostly not too noisy, high level of detail and good dynamic range.
However, the 2x zoom is pretty mediocre, with a very soft and fuzzy look to them. At native 3.5x telephoto though the Phone (4a) does quite well for what is essentially a midrange smartphone. There’s a solid amount of detail here for a zoomed in shot, and the colours are again fairly true to life. Ultrawide is passable enough, and in general the Phone (4a) will do the job for IG stories and taking pictures of your dog and dinner.
Nothing against it, just not for me
The Nothing Phone (4a) isn’t a bad smartphone—far from it. It simply wasn’t a phone that resonated with me.
It’s available in a single 12GB RAM + 256GB storage configuration for RM1,999. Personally, I find that price a little steep when there are competing devices offering stronger value for money. That being said, if you’re someone who genuinely appreciates Nothing’s unique design language, enjoys the customisation offered by Nothing OS, or simply loves having the Glyph Bar as a fun little feature, I can absolutely see why this would be an appealing buy.
Not every phone has to appeal to everyone, and perhaps that’s exactly what the Nothing Phone (4a) is—a phone with a clear identity that’s meant for a specific type of user, even if I’m not one of them.
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