Nothing Phone (4a) review: It Is Refreshing to See The Company Go Beyond Just The New ‘Glyph Bar’

Nothing has been at the forefront of design, in the Android side of the smartphone world, since the day they launched their first ever product. Yes, the ‘Glyphs’ and the ‘transparent design’ have stood out and for good reasons.

With the Nothing Phone (4a) (and the ‘Pro’ sibling), the company has finally grown up, matured, and evolved into an unmatched mid-range recommendation. The retro design is still a head-turner and that software still feels refreshingly new.

With Nothing’s early mid-range smartphones, it was the design, and to an extent, the ‘Glyph’ lights that made the heavy difference and separated them from the crowd. With the Nothing Phone (4a), it’s now letting the hardware do much of the talking, and that’s a step in the right direction.

Let’s dive in deeper and find out just why I think so.

The retro-design still hits hard

Just flip over the Nothing Phone (4a), or any smartphone the company has ever released, and you’ll see the unique identity that the company has prided itself upon. From clear backs to exposed geometry, and screws (quite deliberate, I must say) and panels, Nothing smartphones are unique bar none.

There is a pill-shaped aluminium camera housing (ala Google Pixel), sits higher and is much cleaner than before. It’s a simple, yet thoughtful design, oozing premiumness despite carrying an inexpensive price tag. The white has all the elements of becoming the default colourway, while the metallic blue carries a style you’d always to be seen with in public.

The Nothing Phone (4a), for what its worth, is lighter than the ‘flagship’ Phone (3). It comes in at 204.5g and 8.55mm thick, and is comfortable to use as a one-handed device.

Going beyond the ‘Glyph’ lights

There’s not a brand-new Glyph light bar. It consists of 63 mini-LEDs, arranged into six zones that sit beside (on the right-hand side) the camera island. It’s far better than whatever Nothing had on the Phone (2a)’s rear panel.

From Uber arrivals to countdowns for meetings, using the new light bar is genuinely fun and useful. There’s also a Glyph Torch.

But, like I said, Nothing has finally moved on from being a design-centric smartphone. The hero of the show is the 6.78-inch 1.5k flexible AMOLED display (1224x2720) with a 120Hz refresh rate and up to 4,5000nits peak HDR brightness. Yes, up a day or two ago, I was binge-watching the IPL and it was an immersive experience. Scrolling is super smooth, text is crisp and colours are vibrant.

Beyond the display, it’s all about the camera. There’s the 50MP main sensor (Samsung GN9), paired with a 50MP periscore camera (Samsung JN5 and 3.5x optical zoom). Alongside these two, sits the 8MP ultra-wide shooter, but that’s one you can just forget about. The telephoto sensor is the one that has made a big jump.

Up front is a 32MP selfie-shooter, which is good for daily use, but nothing exceptional.

Photos from the main sensor are vibrant, and detailed, and don’t overexpose much. Portraits are pretty good, for this price range, even though edge detection could be better.

Is the Nothing Phone (4a) powerful enough?

The Phone (4a) packs in the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 and is paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Compared to its predecessor, the phone feels remarkably speedy and lag-free in day-to-day use.

The smartphone also packs a 5,400mAh battery, and with that, the smartphone easily lasts an entire day of moderate usage. Unless you’re a power user, you won’t have to recharge it at night. I routinely got around seven hours of screen-on-time (SoT) and never got any battery anxiety.

The smartphone supports 50W charging, but sadly, there’s no charger in the box. With the Phone (4a), you can juice it up to 50% in just under 30 minutes. A full charge will take about 70 minutes.

The smartphone ships with Nothing OS 4.1 (based on Android 16). Nothing’s smartphone OS has evolved into a clean, and familiar software experience that is a cut above the rest. Refreshingly clean (almost no bloatware), and with a black-and-white aesthetic, the interface is a joy to interact with on a daily basis. Nothing has promised 3 years of OS updates and 6 years of security updates.

Is the Nothing Phone (4a) worth considering?

The answer is yes. I’m more confident in recommending Nothing smartphones, in 2026, than at any point before. It’s because Nothing has finally grown out of its design-led smartphones into something much more valuable over the long-term.

The Phone (4a) comes with the new Glyph Bar that is genuinely fun to use, the transparent design that we’ve all come to love, a display worth binge-watching on, and is powerful enough for most consumers out there, while comfortably lasting an entire day on a single charge. Also, the 3.5x periscope telephoto lens is a joy to use.

The question to be asked is this: Does the Phone (4a) Pro make more sense as a value proposition, or is saving a few bucks and get the Phone (4a) the way to go? I think the former is the answer, but I’ll have to do some further testing before being able to give out a confident answer.