Nothing Phone 4a Pro Review: A Midrange Phone That Rivals The Pixel 10a

Nothing takes a different tack pinch its telephone series. For nan 2nd clip successful a row, its midrange entry-level A-series smartphones debuted up of its adjacent flagship device. The institution has moreover warned that we won’t beryllium getting nan Nothing Phone 4 until adjacent year. Until then, nan Phone 4a Pro is present to make an impact, pinch a much restrained design, a little obtrusive camera bump and specs that hit retired past year’s Nothing Phone 3 — each for $499. In 2026, Nothing is genuinely aiming to dethrone nan Pixel 10a.

Hardware

It’s a caller look. That’s often nan lawsuit pinch Nothing’s smartphones arsenic nan institution typically reimagines aliases rejigs what you tin spot done nan clear backmost panel. This year, however, Nothing is making bigger changes: this is its first metallic (aluminum) unibody phone.

With a caller periscope telephoto camera design, nan jarringly heavy camera bump of past year’s Phone 3a Pro is thankfully gone, resulting successful a portion of smartphone that feels — and to some, looks — much premium and much refined than Nothing’s “flagship” Phone 3.

However, compared to nan Nothing phones that came before, it besides feels muted, and a small safe. The playfulness of Nothing has been hemmed successful a little. You mightiness for illustration it, but I’m not judge I do.

Those identifiable Nothing creation flourishes — reddish details, visible screens, tons and tons of circles — are now squeezed into a camera panel. This oblong area pinch curved corners houses a trio of cameras, a “Now Recording” reddish ray and a tweaked Glyph Matrix, which we past saw connected nan Nothing Phone 3.

This caller Glyph Matrix is bigger and brighter, but astatine a little “resolution,” that’s made of 137 mini-LEDs. That’s less than nan Nothing Phone 3’s 489-strong dot-matrix, but nan LEDs present are 100 percent brighter. So bright, successful fact, that I had to move them down to their lowest brightness erstwhile I was utilizing them.The 4a Pro, however, lacks nan rear fastener connected nan Phone 3 that lets you rhythm done Glyph functions. Does this mean nan institution has made it easy to move betwixt Glyph toys and notifications successful nan phone’s UI? Sadly not.

You tin dip into nan Glyph options done nan main settings menu, but to alteration what nan Glyph displays is hidden successful a sub-tab. I besides noticed that nan offering of “toys” was limited, pinch less items than moreover nan Nothing Phone 3 had astatine launch. Hopefully, this will grow erstwhile nan telephone officially launches.

The 4a Pro packs a bigger surface than nan company’s flagship, pinch a 6.83-inch AMOLED surface moving astatine 1.5K resolution. It besides has a higher refresh complaint than nan 6.67-inch Phone 3. And connected apical of that, nan Phone 4a Pro’s show has a highest brightness of 5,000 nits, making it Nothing’s brightest smartphone yet.

I’ve handled truthful galore phones complete nan past 4 weeks that it’s often difficult to discern nan quality betwixt brighter displays. Fortunately, I person nan Nothing Phone 3 (and 3a Pro) to comparison against nan Phone 4a Pro. It’s noticeably brighter, and arsenic we slow get into sunnier weather, a smartphone that’s easier to publication outdoors is ever very welcome.

The Phone 4a Pro besides has improved IP65 h2o and particulate resistance, while Nothing says it's 42 percent much bend-resistant than nan Phone 3a Pro arsenic well. It’s besides almost 0.5mm thinner, if you disregard nan camera bump for those measurements. Factor that successful and nan Phone 4a Pro is almost 1.5mm thinner than its predecessor. This creation alteration besides makes Nothing’s newest telephone consciousness acold little top-heavy than nan 3a Pro. Regardless of nan artistic changes, this is unmistakably refined hardware.

Cameras

Besides nan streamlined camera unit, pinch a caller tetraprism periscopic lens that takes up little space, nan Phone 4a Pro has improved imaging capabilities (almost) crossed nan board. The caller 50-megapixel periscope telephoto lens (which Nothing says besides uses little power) has a 3.5x optical zoom, positive computational photography magic that tin now crank it up to a (mostly unusable) 140x hybrid zoom.

The main 50MP sensor besides features a bigger sensor for improved low-light performance. With an f/1.88 lens though, it doesn’t rather lucifer nan Phone 3’s main camera (f/1.68), some connected insubstantial and successful practice. The array is rounded retired pinch an 8MP ultrawide camera, which sounds for illustration nan weakest link, but I seldom usage nan ultrawide cameras connected immoderate telephone speech from reappraisal testing. Oddly, nan selfie camera is simply a method downgrade successful resolution, pinch a 32MP sensor connected nan 4a Pro, down from 50MP connected nan 3a Pro.

One caller summation was co-developed by Google. Ultra XDR blends Android’s autochthonal HDR processing pinch Nothing’s ain approach, capturing 13 RAW frames astatine different exposures and combining them to present greater move scope and detail. However, arsenic impervious of really new they are, your Ultra XDR images can’t beryllium shared arsenic easily. They do activity pinch Google Photos and Instagram, astatine least. If it’s immoderate consolation, Ultra XDR truthful acold doesn’t look hugely acold distant from emblematic HDR capture. I’ll support testing nan cameras and if I fig retired wherever it really shines, I’ll update this review.

If 1 point disappoints connected nan 4a Pro, it’s signaling video. Switching betwixt zoom levels will often wholly derail vulnerability settings. Even if you grounds connected a azygous camera astatine nan aforesaid focal length, vulnerability levels look highly delicate and struggle to enactment locked. Footage is often muddy and low-light capacity isn’t great, moreover if utilizing nan Ultra XDR video mode. You aren’t forced to strengthen this pinch nan Pixel 10a, but past again, there’s nary zoom connected Google’s mid-range telephone — conscionable a lossless crop. In much forgiving lighting, video is adequate, but value drops disconnected beyond nan 3.5x optical zoom. Still, nan versatility and value of nan still images from some nan main camera and nan telephoto lens put it supra each different smartphone astatine this price.

Performance and software

The Phone 4a Pro is now powered by a much tin processor: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 4. Nothing claims that, successful summation to its ain on-device optimizations, it improved CPU capacity by 27 percent, GPU capacity by 30 percent and AI capacity by 65 percent compared to nan Phone 3a series.

There’s surely a large quality successful capacity while gaming. While nan 3a bid struggled pinch much analyzable games, nan 4a Pro kept up pinch Red Dead Redemption and Diablo Immortal. It’s not nan astir polished mentation of Decard Cain and nan lands of Sanctuary, but it's responsive and playable, moreover astatine 60 fps, pinch only a fewer framework drops.

The Phone 4a has a 5,080mAh battery, astir balanced to its predecessor. It supports up to 50W accelerated charging, a tad faster than nan Pixel 10a, though it lacks wireless charging support, dissimilar Google’s midranger. It’s 1 of nan fewer signs that this isn’t Nothing’s “true” flagship, moreover if it looks nan part.

I was pleasantly amazed by nan artillery life, too. Typically, phones are getting progressively bigger batteries, but arsenic I mentioned, that’s not nan lawsuit here.. However, nan 4a Pro lasted 24 hours successful our artillery rundown test, 5 hours much than past year’s model.

The Phone 4a Pro has each nan package features either coming aliases teased successful older Nothing Phones. Essential Search is simply a system-wide hunt that tin find position successful messages, files and nan remainder of your phone. There’s besides a caller Breathing Break widget; we decidedly request that successful 2026.

Essential Memory is Nothing’s sanction for its inheritance algorithms and analysis, scrutinizing your phone’s contents arsenic good arsenic whatever’s saved successful Essential Space. Nothing has added unreality retention for Space, aimed astatine devoted upgraders, meaning everything you saved connected older compatible Nothing phones tin beryllium transferred over. Sure, it’s a small niche, but it was an early vexation while testing nan Phone 3 aft nan 3a series. If, for immoderate reason, you person to reset your device, keeping everything successful Space backed up elsewhere is simply a boon.

Also, while it’s technically a hardware tweak, Nothing has besides moved nan Essential Key to nan near separator of nan phone, making it acold little apt to beryllium triggered erstwhile you’re adjusting nan measurement and much successful statement pinch different phones and my ain smartphone musculus memory.

One caveat from erstwhile Nothing devices remains. The institution says it will present 3 years of Android updates and an further 3 years of information patches. Compare that to Samsung’s 7 years of Android updates for this year’s S26 bid (and Google’s Pixel 10a), and you tin spot really it falls short.

Wrap-up

The Phone 4a Pro punches good supra its $499 value tag. Nothing has successfully refined its hardware into a much premium, all-metal unibody, losing nan jarring camera bump of its predecessor successful favour of a sleek creation that houses a genuinely awesome camera. The improved camera versatility, coupled pinch its class-leading 24-hour artillery life and a much tin processor, makes this a superior threat to nan Pixel 10a.

However, immoderate of Nothing's signature playfulness has been dialed back. The Glyph Matrix, while brighter, is lower-resolution and its “toys” are disappointingly constricted astatine launch. The deficiency of wireless charging is different motion to its midrange status.

Nothing’s Phone 4a Pro is simply a instrumentality pinch a clear identity, delivering connected nan essentials for half nan value of galore rivals.