Pink Phones Are In and Nothing’s 4A Pro Is a Great Affordable Option

I liked last year’s Nothing Phone 3A Pro so much that I awarded it a coveted CNET Editors’ Choice Award, so its follow-up, the Nothing Phone 4A Pro, has a lot to live up to. I’ve spent some time with the phone, and there’s certainly plenty to like — from its fresh pink design to its capable processor. But Nothing’s phones have always had one other key advantage: price.

At $499 in the US and £499 in the UK, the Phone 4A Pro is unquestionably affordable, especially considering its solid roundup of specs. Its main competition is the Google Pixel 10A, which is the exact same price and has recently impressed in our full review thanks to its all-around performance (with the $599 iPhone 17E trailing behind in value). It’s too early to say just how the Phone 4A Pro stacks up against Google’s phone, but it’s certainly got enough to justify your consideration. 

Here’s what you need to know about this affordable Android phone.

Nothing Phone 4A Pro: Pink design with Glyph Matrix

My favorite thing about the phone is its pink color. Does that make me extremely shallow? Yes, but I’m fine with that. I love pink gadgets. I managed to turn my cosmic orange iPhone 17 Pro pink with chemicals, and I had a custom pink wrap put on my expensive Leica Q3 43. It’s a subtle pink, rather than hot pink like the old Motorola Razr V3, but it’s a fun color that doesn’t take itself too seriously — and that’s refreshing. 

So many of today’s phones come in dreary shades of black, silver or gray, so I genuinely appreciate when a brand injects a bit more personality into the mix. That said, Nothing has made some significant design changes here. The company is known for its see-through plastic-back phones that show some of the components underneath, along with its “Glyph” LED light patterns. I loved that look on the 3A Pro and the Nothing Phone 1 and 2 before it.

There is still an element of that here, but it’s been gathered up and squashed into the camera bar, with roughly 70% of the phone now being a plain expanse of aluminum. Cover up the camera bar and you could be looking at basically any other phone. The bar itself looks interesting, with some of the visible screw heads that maintain that industrial feel. It’s also where you’ll find the three camera lenses and the Glyph Matrix introduced on last year’s much more expensive Nothing Phone 3. 

The Matrix is essentially a circular dot-matrix display that can display information such as the time, battery level or incoming notifications. But Nothing has opened the Glyph up to allow developers or users to create their own tools, such as a countdown timer to when your Uber is due to arrive. The Phone 3’s Glyph Matrix was touch sensitive, allowing it to use what Nothing called “Glyph toys,” such as spin the bottle, while the 4A Pro’s is simply a display.

I found those features somewhat gimmicky, and the new Glyph Matrix — used as a display rather than an interactive toy — loses little in terms of functionality while offering a better overall experience. Whether it proves to be any more useful remains to be seen. I do also think it’s a bit of a shame that the Phone 4A Pro lacks any of the flashing LED lights the company is known for; even the more affordable Phone 4A only has a modest cluster of lights to alert you to incoming calls.

The phone is IP65-rated, protecting it from spills or taking calls in the rain. That likely makes it as dust-resistant as most other phones, though it may not survive prolonged submersion like devices with an IP68 rating. Nothing says it uses recycled plastics, steel, aluminum and tin in its construction, giving it the lowest carbon footprint of any of its phones.

Nothing Phone 4A Pro: Processor, software and camera

Powering the phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chip along with 8GB or 12GB of RAM. I tested the 12GB model and found it satisfyingly swift in everyday use. Navigating around the Android interface was stutter-free, apps opened quickly, and the graphically demanding game Genshin Impact played smoothly, even at high-quality settings. 

It runs Android 16 with Nothing’s custom skin on top, which transforms much of the interface into a stark, monochrome experience. I’m not a fan, largely because the lack of color cues makes it harder for me to distinguish app icons — an issue I also encountered with the Leica UI on the Xiaomi Leitzphone. Still, you can change the theme to a more typical interface if you also need more color, and I do like the various Nothing widgets you can install and the Private Space that allows you to hide sensitive apps and photos behind a password. That doesn’t make it the most privacy-intensive phone in the world, but it’s a great option for casual phone owners.

You’ll find Nothing’s Essential Space on board, a productivity app the company launched on its phones last year. It’s basically a repository for screenshots and voice notes to help you make sense of your stream of consciousness throughout the day. It uses a physical hardware button on the side of the phone; press and hold, and it’ll take a screenshot of whatever you’re looking at, and you can record a voice note to remind yourself what’s important or perhaps to remind yourself to buy something later on. 

I like Essential Space. It’s actually a useful tool, especially if you’re the sort of person who randomly thinks of things you need to do during the day but never seems to be able to remember that thing again later on when you have time to act on it. It’s by no means the reason to choose a Nothing phone over another device, but it’s a handy extra to play with if you’re already considering the Phone 4A Pro. 

Nothing is promising three years of Android updates and a total of six years of security updates for the Phone 4A Pro, meaning it should still be safe to use in 2032. I’d like to see more generous software updates (the Pixel 10A will get software and security updates for seven years), but the security support is the main thing here, as that directly relates to the phone’s lifespan. 

On the back is a trio of cameras, including a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera. 

I’ve only briefly tested the camera and found it to be decent for the price, but I want to take a lot more test shots, including comparisons against the Pixel 10A, before I give any verdicts. Typically, Nothing phones’ cameras don’t offer image quality to keep photography pros happy, but if you’re after well-balanced shots of your kids playing in the garden, then it’ll likely be ideal. 

The phone packs a 5,080-mAh battery, which the company claims will give you 17 hours of mixed use. That’ll really depend on how demanding you are of your phone; on our streaming rundown test, it dropped almost 10% after its first hour and was down to only 73% after the third hour. That’s well below average. Keep things more sensible, though, and you shouldn’t struggle too much to get a day out of it. It has 50-watt wired charging to get the power back in quickly, though you’ll need to provide your own compatible fast charger. 

Nothing Phone 4A Pro: Should you buy it?

There’s a lot I like about the phone. It’s got enough power for all your everyday needs, its cameras are good enough for out-and-about snaps, and while its design could certainly be a bit more experimental, the pink color and the Glyph Matrix display certainly help it stand out from the crowd. 

But the Nothing Phone 4A’s affordable $499 price tag is the main reason to consider this phone, and from my testing so far, it certainly feels like you’re getting a lot of phone for your money. Sure, if you’re looking for the latest and greatest in phone technology, then you need to look toward the Xiaomi Leitzphone or the Galaxy S26 Ultra. But both of those will cost you at least three times as much, so you have to think: Is a better camera and more processing power really worth it to you? 

I’ll have to leave my final verdict for once I’ve been able to give it the full review treatment, so stay tuned to see how this phone really stacks up, especially against the Pixel 10A.