Nothing Phone (4a) Pro Review: A Close Second

Battery life has been more than adequate. The 5,080 mAh cell easily lasts me a full day, or over seven hours of screen time. I recently broke my leg, so I’m usually sitting in one place and on my phone. I often find myself with 20% left around 9 p.m. or so, and the Phone (4a) Pro managed hours of watching Instagram Reels without issue (don’t judge). It charges pretty quickly, although I still think Nothing should have added wireless charging as an alternative way to top up with power; the Pixel 10a supports it.

Initially when I set up the phone it didn’t connect to my eSIM. I had to manually enable the eSIM feature after setting it up, and then I was able to connect it to my carrier, Google Fi. Luckily, I haven’t had any connectivity issues since. The phone should work on all major carriers in the US, although you may need to do some extra legwork if you use AT&T or Verizon (and their later MVNOs) to get the phone whitelisted on the network.

Three cameras

Photography: Julian Chokkattu

Aside from design, what makes the Phone (4a) Pro unique at this $499 price point is that it’s one of the only phones with a triple camera system: a 50 MP main camera, an 8 MP ultra-wide, and a 50 MP telephoto camera offering 3.5X zoom. I use telephoto lenses on a smartphone all the time, so their availability here on a mid-range phone is greatly appreciated.

I’m quite happy with the results of the cameras. Photos look quite natural and detailed, with pleasing colors and good exposure. The big flaw is that the cameras don’t perform very well in low light, especially compared to the Pixel 10a. They can struggle in high-contrast scenes and are prone to shutter lag, so you need to be very still when capturing. That said, I’ve used the 3.5X zoom so many times that I can forgive these flaws, simply because it’s a rarity on a $499 phone. Hell, the recent $599 iPhone 17e only has one camera.