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, and that’s with more than seven hours of screen-on time. I recently broke my leg, so I’m usually sitting in one place and on my phone. I often end up with 20 percent left by 9 pm or so, and the Phone (4a) Pro has managed to handle hours of watching Instagram Reels without issue (don’t judge). It recharges fairly quickly, though I still think Nothing should have added wireless charging as an alternate way to juice up; the Pixel 10a supports it.

Initially, when I set up the phone, it didn’t connect to my eSIM. I had to manually turn on eSIM functionality after setting it up, and was then able to connect it to my carrier, Google Fi. Thankfully, I haven’t had any connectivity problems since. The phone should work on all major carriers in the US, though you may have to do some extra legwork if you’re on AT&T or Verizon (and their subsequent MVNOs) to get the phone whitelisted on the network.

Three Cameras

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Outside of design, what makes the Phone (4a) Pro unique at this $499 price is that it’s one of the only phones with a triple-camera system: a 50-MP main camera, an 8-MP ultrawide, and a 50-MP telephoto zoom offering 3.5X zoom. I’m constantly using the telephoto cameras on a smartphone, so its availability here on a midrange phone is greatly appreciated.

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