The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro does a better job of differentiating itself from the cheaper Phone (4a) than its predecessor did, but I’d still lean towards the more affordable Nothing phone if you’re looking to buy.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Improved telephoto camera | Only 3 OS upgrades |
| Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 gives it more power than the 4a | Higher price point |
| Enhanced Glyph (if you like that kind of thing) | Battery life could be better |
Score: 3.5/5
 |
Buy The Nothing Phone 4a Pro! | Buy On Amazon |
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Buy The Nothing Phone 4a! | Buy On Amazon |
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In this review
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Specifications
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Design
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Camera
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Performance
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Battery
Nothing Phone 4a Pro Verdict
Ethical disclaimer:
The Nothing Phone 4a Pro used in this review was sent to me by Nothing’s representatives here in Australia for the purposes of review. As always, whether a product is a loan device or a device that isn’t going back makes no difference to my reviews, but I will always strive to be 100% transparent about such matters. I only wish more reviewers held the same kind of belief in being honest with their audiences.
For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
Last year’s Nothing Phone (3a) and Nothing Phone (3a) Pro were good phones, but they were models where I came down strongly on the side of the cheaper (3a) variant, simply because Nothing really didn’t do enough to differentiate its theoretically “Pro” device from the regular version, despite it being significantly more expensive.
Also read:
Nothing Phone (3a) / Nothing Phone (3a) Pro Review
Nothing has clearly taken that criticism to heart with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, because compared to the Nothing Phone (4a), it’s quite a different beast, and that starts at the design stage.
Also read
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is built around a 6.83 Inch 144Hz AMOLED display, a little larger and a little faster than its lower-cost sibling. Bezels are (at least to my eye) minimal, with an in-display fingerprint reader for biometric unlocking.
Controls absolutely mirror those of the Nothing Phone (4a), with volume and power/assistant buttons on the right hand side and the Nothing-specific “Essential” Key – really, folks, this is a button, but I digress – on the left hand side to enable a small suite of note taking and AI functions.
The base of the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is where you’ll find a solitary speaker, USB-C for data and power and the SIM card tray.
Flip it around and you’re faced with quite a different view to that of the Nothing Phone (4a), primarily because the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro has a circular “Glyph” matrix LED display compared to the smaller bar-based Glyph on the cheaper model.
While both phones feature the same number of rear camera lenses (more on this below), the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro places its telephoto lens above its primary wide and ultra-wide lenses, giving the phone more of an iPhone-style feel with a larger camera block at the back.
Flipping the phone around also reveals the use of aluminium in the frame, which does give the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro something of a premium look and feel, and, hopefully down the track, a degree of durability. No, I’m not about to put it into a metal press to find out how much durability, because I’m not into that kind of destruction porn.
I do appreciate the fact that Nothing doesn’t spend any extra time or money on silly colour names for its phones; you can buy the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro in Black (as tested), White or Pink, and those colours look exactly like you might think they’d look.
In terms of durability, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is rated at IP65, slightly above the IP64 rating of its cheaper sibling, but still not at a level where it would be wise to go swimming with it. One pleasing durability factor here is that (at least for the supplied review model) Nothing does include a simple clear plastic case in the box with the phone.
Camera
Most phones with a “Pro” suffix add that precisely because they’ve got specific camera features that put them over and above regular camera phones.
At the $949 price point that the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro commands, you’re not likely to get features that will rival the best that the likes of Apple or Samsung throw into a phone. What you get at first glance seems like an odd choice on Nothing’s part, given that this is a phone that’s being released after the Nothing Phone (4a).
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is built around a 50MP primary wide, 50MP 3.5x telephoto and 8MP Ultra-wide sensor at the rear, plus a 32MP front-facing selfie camera.
At a base level that might appear to be the same as the Nothing Phone (4a), but the devil here is in the detail, and specifically around the telephoto sensor; on the Nothing Phone (4a) it’s a cheaper Samsung sensor, but the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro features a Sony LYT700c sensor that incorporates OIS and provides support for up to 140x hybrid telephoto zoom, up from the 70x on the Nothing Phone (4a).
The practical reality of all of that wasn’t quite as impressive as I was hoping it might be. Don’t get me wrong, it still shoots very well and there is some scope for that expanded zoom, but predictably if you’re shooting up to its maximum range, don’t expect to get particularly good shots out of it.
I’ve always felt kind of odd testing out these extreme zoom cameras, because it’s really hard not to feel as though you’re likely to inadvertently invade someone’s privacy testing them out.
The range on the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro meant I had to adjust one of my standard zoom photo tests slightly, and in doing so I had to be careful to minimise how much I felt like I was, indeed, being creepy.
The ultra-wide lens on the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is its least impressive lens, but it shoots well enough.
As you’d expect, the wide lens is also quite capable in this regard.
The 2x zoom is most likely a crop of that primary wide lens, not the telephoto.
The 3.5x zoom setting is absolutely native to the telephoto lens.
The 7x lens shoots well, but I’m starting to feel like a creep.
Pushing it out to 140x, and the detail issues at this level become evident. Also, nobody is on the seat, so I feel less invasive. Is it just me who worries about this kind of thing? Comment below.
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro Sample Photos
Performance
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is built around a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 processor, a nice performance bump and point of differentiation between it and the Nothing Phone (4a), which runs from a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4.
Nothing produces the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro in three different storage/RAM variants at 128GB/8GB, 256GB/8GB and 256GB/12GB, but it’s only the latter higher-end model that’s officially being sold here in Australia, and that’s the model that’s headed my way for testing, sold at $949 outright.
As yet, none of the big carriers have ever taken on a Nothing phone on contract terms, though given that JB Hi-Fi is the official home of such phones in Australia there’s perhaps scope for a deal there – you’d have to ask in-store, but I suspect you’d just find that you could only get one by buying it outright.
That $949 price point does put it in the upper tier of mid-range phones (or at the bottom of premium-priced models, depending on your perspective), which means that Nothing has a lot of competition for your buying dollar.
To give that some perspective, I ran the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro through some standard benchmarks and then compared it against similar phones available at or around the same kind of price. Here’s how it compared using Geekbench 6’s CPU test:
Also, before anyone complains, yes, I know the iPhone 17e can be had at around this price point. I’ve asked Apple for a review model and been met with radio silence, and I can’t comment on the performance of a phone I can’t actually test out. That’s Apple’s call, not mine, but it is what it is, so all I can highlight (for now) is how the iPhone 16e (which is still available to buy from some retailers, but not Apple obviously) compares.
The results here are not surprising, and it’s good to see the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro outpace both its predecessor and sibling in a straight line CPU shootout. Yes, the Moto Razr 40 is an odd inclusion here, but I’ve included it because you might want to think about folding phones in this space, and it’s currently being sold at around the same price as the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro!
It’s a similar story looking at GPU performance via 3Dmark Wild Life Extreme:
The practical reality here is that while you can get somewhat better performance for your money, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is a phone that performs most everyday tasks quite well, as well as handling most intensive apps such as games or video work with little in the way of real lag.
In terms of updates, Nothing’s not quite up there with the best, promising just three years of OS upgrades and six years of security updates for the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro. Six years is a decent span for the life of a smartphone, but it’d be nice to see them match the 7 year promises made by both Samsung and Google in this regard.
While the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is an Android 16 device, it runs Nothing’s own “NothingOS” launcher, which enables features such as the side-mounted Essential Key and the Glyph interface on the back of the phone.
You do get quite a different Glyph experience to that of the Nothing Phone (4a) with an array of animations to cover matters like quick volume checking or a timer countdown that the cheaper phone wouldn’t be able to manage from its vertical LED bar in quite the same way.
The Glyph is an interesting point of difference for Nothing’s phones, but I’m still waiting to find that use for it that I find truly compelling.
I should point out – and to its credit, Nothing does warn of this as well – that the Glyph interface is very bright and in no way suitable for folks with epilepsy or light sensitivity issues, especially in darkened environments, though you can 100% disable it if that’s you.
The Essential Key still feels… less than essential to me, though workflows here can vary and I can see how some might find it handy to have as a quick Dictaphone style device, or for Nothing’s small suite of AI tools. It’s there, and it functions, but I’m still not exactly enticed by it. If you feel differently, let me know what you use the Essential Key for below – I’d be happy to hear some feedback on this!
Battery
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro follows the lead of its cheaper sibling in battery terms precisely, packing in a 5080mAh sealed battery behind its frame. You might think the slight size uptick for the phone would allow for some more battery space, but no, though looking around online it appears that possibly the Indian market model might pack in a larger battery for… reasons?
To put the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro through its paces, I ran it past my standard YouTube battery benchmark test against the same crop of similarly priced phones. You can read more about my battery testing methodology here, but how did the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro compare?
That battery score isn’t bad – my low-end standard here if you didn’t click that battery testing link is for 90% or better in the first hour – but it’s notable that the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro performed better in this test last year.
Perhaps that’s a consequence of having a faster processor on board. More anecdotally speaking, I’ve certainly managed to get a day’s worth of battery usage out of it, and I could see more moderate users being able to stretch that well into a second day if you weren’t using all that much.
For a phone that only sells in that higher priced bracket here in Australia officially, it is a little disappointing that Nothing didn’t include wireless charging on the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro.
It does support 50W wired charging, but you’ll have to bring your own charger to the party to make this happen, at least for the Australian model as supplied to me.
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro: Alex’s Verdict
My big complaint about last year’s Nothing A-series “Pro” phone was that it did so very little to make it stand out from its much more affordable sibling.
Nothing hasn’t made that mistake this year, equipping the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro with some nice features that do make it stand out beyond photographic capabilities. If you like the Nothing approach and want a nicely powerful device at a fair price, it’s worth considering… but I’d still advocate in favour of the cheaper Nothing Phone (4a) overall.
For most consumers, the Nothing Phone (4a) is likely to be “enough” of a phone to be worthwhile, and unless you do need that extra processing power or telephoto zoom, you’d be spending extra on the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro for… the glyph interface? I’m not so sure that’s a great deal. The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is a nice phone, but I do feel the Nothing Phone (4a) is just that bit better value.
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Nothing Phone (4a) Pro: Pricing and availability
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro retails in Australia for $949 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage; other storage/RAM variants are available internationally but down under (at least at launch) we’ve just got the one option.
|
Buy The Nothing Phone 4a! | Buy On Amazon |
 |
Buy The Nothing Phone 4a Pro! | Buy On Amazon |
If you buy a product using the link above, ART may earn a small commission.
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