I Tested Google’s Biggest Pixel 10A Rival and It’s a Colorful Bargain

I gave last year’s Nothing Phone 3A Pro a coveted CNET Editors’ Choice Award, so the Nothing Phone 4A Pro had some really big shoes to fill. It makes some dramatic changes to the design, but the new phone packs in a hell of a lot to maintain its predecessor’s reputation. From its solid performance to its well-rounded camera setup, it ticks all the boxes you’d want from an everyday Android phone — and sprinkles in some fun extras like its quirky Glyph Matrix display on the back. 

But the Nothing Phone 4A Pro has a bigger ace up its sleeve: the price. 

At $499 in the US and £499 in the UK, the Phone 4A Pro is unquestionably affordable, coming in at the exact same price as its main competitor, the Google Pixel 10A. While the Pixel has some points in its favor, I mostly preferred the Nothing’s camera performance and I think it’s a much more interesting phone to look at — especially with that rear display. While the Pixel 10A is a safe mid-ranger, Nothing’s phone feels a bit more like a wildcard. It certainly has more personality, and if you like the idea of having something that stands out from the crowd, it’s definitely the one to go for. 

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

Nothing Phone 4A Pro: Pink design with Glyph Matrix

I’ll be honest: One of my favorite things about the phone is its pink color. Yes, that makes me extremely shallow, but I’m honestly 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. Would I like to see the next model go eye-meltingly magenta? Absolutely.

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 over its predecessor. 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. The aluminum feels premium to hold, especially considering the price, but cover up the camera bar and you could be looking at basically any other phone. The bar itself looks interesting, with visible screw heads helping to maintain that industrial feel. It’s also where you’ll find the three camera lenses and the Glyph Matrix introduced on last year’s higher-priced $799 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 for an arriving Uber car. 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. I don’t think it’s a killer feature by any means, but being able to quickly glance at the clock or a timer has been quite handy throughout my testing of the device. And if nothing else, it really sets the phone apart from any others, especially from the Pixel 10A’s simple camera cutout, which I think looks exceptionally dull by comparison. 

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 in water like devices with an IP68 rating. Nothing says the company uses recycled plastics, steel, aluminum and tin in the device’s construction, giving it the lowest carbon footprint of any of its phones.

Nothing Phone 4A Pro: Processor and software

Powering the phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chip along with 8GB or 12GB of RAM. I reviewed 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 enough for casual gamers, even at high-quality settings. 

Benchmark testing puts it slightly below the Pixel 10A, but hardly by much. It’s not the most powerful phone on the market, but it’s got more than enough grunt for all your daily needs.

It runs Android 16 with Nothing’s custom skin on top, which transforms much of the interface into a stark, monochrome experience. I don’t love it, largely because the lack of color cues makes it harder for me to distinguish between 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. 

You’ll find Nothing’s Essential Space onboard, 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 dedicated hardware button on the side of the phone. Press and hold it to take a screenshot of whatever you’re viewing, then record a voice note to remember why it mattered — whether that’s saving important information or reminding yourself to buy something later.

I like Essential Space. It’s genuinely useful, especially for people who think of random tasks throughout the day but forget them by the time they’re actually able to do something about them. I actually set the Action button on my iPhone 16 Pro to record a voice note for these moments. But the voice memos on my iPhone are just stored in a generic list, whereas Nothing’s Essential Space actively tries to make sense of your recordings and screenshots for you by transcribing them and making them easily searchable. It’s by no means the reason to choose a Nothing phone over another device, but it’s a handy extra to play with.

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 both 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. 

Nothing Phone 4A Pro: Cameras

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. That’s a pretty solid lineup of lenses for a budget-focused phone, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at their performance, too. 

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It’s the same story here, with the Nothing Phone 4A Pro producing a much more vibrant shot than the Pixel’s.

I do prefer the Pixel’s effort in this scene, however. The green ivy looks much more natural and emerald in its shot, while the Nothing’s warmer tones have made the leaves more of a yellowy-green. It really comes down to personal preference though: If you want big, punchy colors, then go with Nothing. If you prefer natural tones with realistic saturation, the Pixel is for you.

Nothing Phone 4A Pro: Battery and charging

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 — and below what the Pixel 10A achieved during the same test. 

It is a very intense test, however, and not really representative of how you’d use your phone throughout an average day. Keep things more sensible and you shouldn’t struggle too much to get a day out of it. Keeping the screen brightness down will help, and you’ll probably want to avoid streaming hours of YouTube videos unless you’re within dashing distance of a power outlet. 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?

The Nothing Phone 4A is a rare example of a phone that comes with an affordable price and doesn’t demand you make too many sacrifices as a result. Sure, it’s not the most powerful phone around, but it’ll cope admirably with almost any of your daily essentials, while its cameras put in a great show, delivering vibrant, sharp images from all of its rear lenses. 

I even like the quirky design — especially that pink color — and the seven years of security support is a welcome touch at this price. It doesn’t quite match the Pixel 10A’s processing power and battery life, but it’s not far off, and I think it exceeds Google’s phone in camera quality and design. Neither phone has the best cameras around; you’ll need to look toward the Xiaomi Leitzphone for that but it’ll literally cost you at least three times as much.

For its price, the Nothing Phone 4A Pro packs in everything you’d expect from an everyday phone and is well worth considering if you want a new Android handset that won’t break the bank.