📍Note: I got this device as a part of Nothing Community Review Programme, but Nothing doesn’t hold any editorial right. This review is based on my personal usage.
I’ll covering all the crucial topics point by point.
~ What’s in the box :
***Design: **The design team of Nothing didn’t gave any room for ‘growing on me’ .*
They absolutely cooked with the design with (4a), the phone feels so fresh in hand.
It has got that cool retro & industrial look in it.
They also did few welcome changes like changing the buttons placement basically what you get right now is The Essential key have been moved to the left side whereas the The Power button & Volume buttons are on the right side.
Display: The phone (4a) comes with a huge 6.78″ 1.5k Resolution 120 hz LTPS flexible AMOLED display.
~ Sharpness: The display is clearly the best in (a) series phone yet, the content consumption is great with every details as clear as it could.
~ Color production: The 10 bit panel’s display color tuning is tuned really well and doesn’t make you feel like a midrage display. It has got the correct balance of colors.
📍TIP: Make sure to change the display colour mode to ‘Standard’
Go to settings > Display > Colours > Standard.
~ Outdoor Visibility: The screen can go upto 1600 nits making it great for outdoor visibility & trust it’s enough in board daylight.
The display can also react whopping 4,500 nits peak brightness while consuming HDR contents.
📍Note: The phone (4a) doesn’t support HDR playback on Netflix.
~ Higher PWM diming: The display won’t strain your eyes as it supports 2160hz PWM diming.
- Build: The Phone (4a) feels really sturdy in hand, it is certified IP64 water & dust resistent making it withstand water splashes. The company claim “It can handle submission in up to 25cm of water for up to 20 minutes” plus the display protection is same as their more costly phone (3) i,e Gorilla Glass 7i
Speaker & Haptics: The speaker didn’t disappoint me either, I feel it is quite loud and good for consuming short content or movies. Yes, the depth feels occasionally blend but it does it’s job.
~ Speaking of Haptics it’s tight, strong & accurate. Nothing has upgraded it’s implementation but I still feels the implementation need to cover many area through the Os.
- Software: Nothing Phone (4a) runs on Nothing Os 4.1 based on Andriod 16 and it’ll support 3+6 year of Android & Security update respectively.
~Bloothware update rollout: Happy to say that the Os completely ads free, yes you get Meta apps, Google apps along with Nothing 1st party apps but hey atleast they removed that Glance feature. There were No cheap tricks while setting up the phone for the first time.
~ Os experience: The phone feels really smooth to operate thanks to the upgraded Animation Engine, I have barely noticed frame drop throughout the Os. Also because of the upgraded touch sampling rate the animation feels snappy & elegant. Obviously it’s not that great what Oxygen Os (parallel animation) offers but hey it’s a welcome change.
I can atleast say that Nothing are also serious about their Animation game.
Here is the dedicated thread ofWhat's New in Nothing Os 4.1 Do give a read:
Performance: It is powered by Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 bundled with LPDDR4X ram & upgraded UFS 3.1 storage type.
Believe or not the upgraded storage types brought a potential performance boost. The apps open way fast then it’s predecessor.
~ Gaming : I don’t game often but I did play Delta force, CarXstreet and OH my ! The experience was really smooth. I don’t prefer this phone to heavy gamers, grinding over 3 hours continuous. But for casual gamers it’s capable enough.
📍TIP: Turn off the RAM booster (it comes on by default)
Go to settings> Special Features > RAM booster > Off
Glyph Bar: The Glyph Lights have evolved alot in past few years & with phone (4a) we get to see another version of Glyph Light called ‘Glyph Bar’.
Tbh I didn’t liked the Glyph Bar as much as Glyph Lights. The Red recording light have been included in (a) series with the new nothing phone (4a).
Glyph Bar are 7 square ⬜ ⬜ ⬜ ⬜ ⬜ ⬜🟥 LED’s brighter than its predecessor.
It replicated the features and functions of Glyph Light but in itsown personality.
Glyph Bar features:
~ Ringtone & Notification: Interact with different rightone & notification
~ Essential Notification : Get notified everytime when your prior/essential contacts notify you.
~ Flip to Glyph: Silence you phone by keeping in face down & you get all the notification via Glyph Bar
~ Volume Indicator: Volume Level at a glance
~ Glyph Timer: Visual Timer countdown of you set timer.
~ Glyph Progress: Track your estimation progression from enable apps.
📍Supported app’s: Uber, Zomato, Calendar.
Battery: The Phone (4a) packs 5,400 MAH Li-ion battery & supports 50W fast charging
The company claims that, “ It can maintain 90% of it’s maximum capacity after 1,200 charging cycles.” that’s about 3 years of regular use.
Speaking of SoT I got on my usage are somewhere around 8-8.5 hours.
📍Note: The battery SoT may differ by each ones usage behaviour.
~ That's it for this Discussion, I'll make a dedicate post on camera system explaining about my experience with it.
