Hello Community, hope you’ll are doing well, I’m Khushal Jain and I got an opportunity to daily drive the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro for over a month, in this thread I will be sharing my experience with the Phone so without further ado let’s get started.
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What’s in the box?
Here’s everything that came in the box with the Phone
- Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
- C-C cable
- Sim-Ejector Tool
- Protective Case
- Screen Protector (Pre-applied)
- Documents
The phone came with pretty much everything that you had expect, well… except for the power brick, the Phone supports 50W wired charging and the box was missing the power adaptor, I wished nothing gave one.
The C-C cable is of good quality, have been using one since a year which came with (3a) Pro, and it has been holding up pretty good.
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Design - It’s different
Nothing phones were known for their Transparent back design, the glyph lights. This phone changes everything well… kind of - the transparent back is gone, what we have is a camera island which also has the GLYPH MATRIX within it. Even after ditching the complete transparent design on back, Nothing did include small detailing in the camera island, really appreciate Nothing for doing that.
The Phone has an aluminum build, it’s comfortable to hold for long periods of use. The phone felt light to me, after coming from the Phone (3a) Pro, (4a) Pro felt like heaven.
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Battery
The Phone boasts a 5400mAh battery (Indian Variant) and supports 50W of wired charging, it would easily charge up to 55% from 0 in the first 30m and it would take around 67m roughly to get to 100. It’s not the fastest, but more than good enough for me. (I used the 65W CMF by Nothing charger to test the charging speed)
So? How long can it last!?
My usage mostly comprises of WhatsApp, lots of content consumption, like YouTube, reels etc., editing on Canva and other apps, Voice calls also I use my phone mostly to book logistics for business, so location was mostly always on. on mixed use with Wi-Fi-Mobile data, I would come back home with still 30% or more left in my phone. The battery is more than good, it’s well optimized. I never had battery anxiety when I was out with this phone, which is a good thing
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Cameras
Phone features a triple camera setup on the rear side
- 50MP Primary camera
- 50MP W-Shaped Periscope Camera
- 8MP Ultra-wide
I enjoyed using the periscope lens a lot, I like the magnification that it provides. Here are some photos I clicked with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro during my use. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Some photos were clicked using in-built presets in the camera app.
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Glyph Matrix
Glyph lights are gone, well not completely, the phone comes with a Glyph Matrix - 137 mini-LEDs showing complex information like, Time, Essential Notifications, Live Updates etc. It can also be used to show less important but fun things, like moon phase, solar path etc. do I absolutely need it? No. Is it cool and fun? Yes. There are also ton of other options that can be used to show info which can be downloaded from Nothing Playground.
I like how essential notification is taking complete benefit of it; you can set any notification as Essential as essential and set a display for that particular notification type. It was very helpful for me when I was between work and my phone would buzz, just one check at the matrix and I knew if it was important or not to check the phone. Also, I loved the implementation of live updates, in the matrix. Since I book lots of vehicles for delivery, and it was very helpful for me to check updates of the delivery on the go.
It worked with Rapido, Uber, Blinkit.
While I love glyph lights, the Glyph matrix manages to show more information than Glyph Lights, however there is no physical button to control the glyph Matrix, so every time I decided to change the Matrix display from Time to moon phase or solar path, I had to go through the painstaking process of going through the setting and finding the options.
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Essential Space
Essential Space lets users save important information, set reminders etc., on the go. It has received new updates, like it automatically categorizes SS based on the app it was taken on. There is a search option too, and hey! It syncs with other devices as well. I like the new update; however, it still can’t take you back to the source of the SS, for example, if you were reading an article and you liked it. You decide to save it. I wish it could copy the link of the page, so if I had to visit that page again. I could easily visit it through essential space.
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Performance
The phone comes with Snapdragon 7 gen 4 and UFS 3.1 storage speed, for my usage the performance was quite good, switching between apps, multitasking, everything felt fast and responsive. It never slow downed for me, no matter how much I pushed it. I didn’t use this one for gaming, but it handled everything I do quite well. Zero complaints there.
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OS
I have been using Nothing Phones since the first phone was launched, the Nothing OS is one of the reasons why I keep coming back to it, no matter what. The software is simple, usable, intentional. The aesthetics of the OS are very different than other brand’s OS, in a good way. Love the home screen customization, Lock screen widgets. One thing I wanted in Nothing OS was lockscreen customization and now with Nothing OS 4.1, Nothing gave us options to change the size of the clock, add depth effect for clocks etc. Now it’s still in beta and yes, it doesn’t detect edges quite good. I hope Nothing refines it with future updates and give more options like changing the color of the clock style etc.
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Conclusion
The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is a great phone that hits all the right marks.
- Unique Design
- Battery Life
- Great OS
- Excellent Zoom lens
- Good Display
Yes, it has some shortcomings too like, while the speakers are good, I felt majority of the work was being done by the bottom firing speaker, and the audio experience did feel a little off to me. Don’t get me wrong, the speakers are loud and are good. Charger is missing in the box, and if there was a button for controlling the glyph matrix, it would have been a great package. This might not be the best phone for someone who is seeking raw performance for just gaming. But if you are someone who cares about good OS, Design, Cameras, and want to be different in the crowd of boring slab phones. I think (4a) Pro is a great phone for you.
That is all for today guys. Thank you for reading it till this far. Feel free to comment down below, if you have any doubts. Leave a ❤ if you enjoyed reading this review. This review was made possible through the Nothing’s Community review program, Nothing had no editorial input in it, and they are seeing it for the first time, like you. Make sure to follow me, so that you don’t miss out on future threads.
Take Care, Stay Safe, until next time. 😌
