Nothing’s new Phone (4a) Pro reinvents the mid-range and updates its design approach

Is it time to ditch the high-end phone and return to the middle ground? Three weeks in the company of Nothing’s defiantly different but strikingly uncompromised new Phone (4a) Pro raise questions about the validity of pivoting to the best, the fastest and most expensive when it comes to smartphones. We’ve already seen how the Phone (4a) makes do with less and yet doesn’t seem to be a lesser experience.

At a time when the fast-rising price of memory is really cramping manufacturers’ ability to offer year-on-year increases in performance and capability, and when nebulously defined AI feature sets are being touted as the latest in must-have technology, perhaps it is time to step back from the upgrade cycle.

Devices like the new Phone (4a) Pro are designed to do precisely that. Sufficiently different in form factor and interface to make a statement, while not requiring the kind of onboard silicon horsepower to drive through class-leading improvements in display, processor speed and performance, the (4a) Pro is a big phone with modest specs but high ambitions.

Available in three colours – black, silver and Nothing’s new soft pink colourway – the (4a) Pro makes a virtue of its thinness (it’s the company’s most slender device to date at a shade under 8mm). The design approach has also been massively simplified, with the all-body transparency familiar to fans of earlier Nothing devices now confined to the camera and Glyph module. The rest of the unit is plain, practically unadorned metal.

The imaging unit is led by a Sony main camera, the 50 MP Sony LYT-700C sensor to be precise. As well as optical image stabilisation, the sensor is larger and better able to deal with low light systems, as well as having a swifter autofocus. Computational photography (Nothing’s TrueLens Engine 4) has reached a new level of sophistication; a Night Mode shot, for example, involves merging seven frames into one to ensure exposure is balanced across the entire scene.

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Sample images taken with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Sample images taken with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Sample images taken with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Sample images taken with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Sample images taken with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

There’s also a periscopic telephoto lens. The digital zoom can go up to 140x, while the optical zoom is 3.5x. The (4a) Pro also introduces new editing options, styles and presets. The moving image is also well catered for. 4K video at 30fps comes as standard, with 120fps slow-motion video also available in HD.

The Glyph Matrix also continues to evolve. On the (4a) Pro it’s become larger and more of a display than that found on the Phone (3). The amount of things you can do with it has also expanded, with Glyph Tools that include a clock, battery indicator, the phase of the moon and path of the sun and a countdown timer, amongst other things. A huge suite of pixellated icons is available to assign to make notifications more personal.

The horizontal form factor of the 3D-contoured plastic camera bump mirrors the shape of the acclaimed Headphone (1). The whole unit is IP-65 rated (which theoretically means the (4a) Pro will survive full submersion for up to 20 minutes. The asymmetrical form of the bump also means the phone isn’t completely stable when set down on its back.

So far, so good. In daily use, the (4a) Pro hasn’t missed a beat, nor – crucially – has it felt like a major step down from Phone (3) or even Google’s most recent Pixel. The most glaring omission is the phone’s lack of a DisplayPort Alt Mode via USB-C – in other words you can’t run video from the phone to an external display or a pair of smart glasses – Google’s new Android desktop mode is a use case in point. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s the kind of added functionality that elevates a smartphone to a true do-it-all companion.

How much you make use of the tips, tweaks and widgets included in Nothing’s OS 4.1 – an overlay on top of Android 16 – is up to you. The native Nothing launcher screen retains its purity, with more customisation functions than before. It’s a curious mix of tweaker’s delight and a self-consciously stripped back interface with fewer distractions than the average smartphone’s screaming notification fest.

All in all, the Nothing (4a) Pro does practically everything all but the most power-hungry user demands. It’s an object lesson in how we can step back from the cutting edge to refocus on the finer things in life.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, from £499, Nothing.tech, @Nothing