Nothing Phone 4a Pro: A Hidden Flaw in an Otherwise Great Phone

[00:00] Before something, there was nothing, and  Nothing just came out swinging against   the big boys with a $499 smartphone  that competes with the best. However,   I did discover a subtle design change—a flaw, if  you will—that's present here on the Nothing 4a  

[00:17] Pro that is not present on other smartphones.  It is just something you should be aware of,   and we'll get to it more in depth here  in a second, literally. And here she is.   It looks kind of like an industrialized, cyberized  iPhone 17 Pro, and I'm here for it, especially  

[00:33] because Nothing appears to just be having fun  with the whole thing, like adding literal games   into the widgets on the main screen. Blasting  some Space Invaders is always a good time. But I'm sure you can imagine my  disappointment when I saw a pedometer  

[00:46] widget and realized it only counts how  many steps I take and is not, in fact,   displaying how many of Epstein's buddies are  in jail. The answer to that question is still,   unfortunately, zero. The cool part  about the back camera shelf, though,  

[00:59] is the circular LED dot matrix. This can display  information like notifications, timers, and music   visualizers. Nothing has a very unique aesthetic  across all of their devices, and I'm a fan.

[01:11] Jumping into the scratch test: on a sub-$500  smartphone, it could really be made of anything.   Plastic would scratch at a level two or three. And  here, indeed, we do see scratches at a level two   with deeper grooves at a level three. Thanks to a  pre-installed screen protector, which I'll remove,  

[01:31] glass would be a five or six, and sapphire—like  we've seen on the back panel of the Red Magic   phones—would scratch at a level eight or nine.  Here on the Nothing 4a Pro, we do see scratches   at a level six with deeper grooves at a level  seven, just like most of the mainstream flagships.

[01:49] One really cool thing that Nothing has done  this year is tell us exactly how much carbon   was emitted during the manufacturing of each  phone. Each 4a Pro produced 50 kg worth of CO2,   which is the equivalent of driving about  150 miles or eating about 25 hamburgers.  

[02:06] but Americans will use anything but the metric  system. The aluminum does feel fantastic, though,   and I think this is the best-feeling  phone that Nothing has ever made.

[02:18] It's down here at the bottom where we  start to have a problem. One question   I get asked an unreasonable amount of times  is: "Will my microphone be okay if I put my   SIM card removal tool in the wrong hole?" And up  until now, with every other phone in existence,  

[02:32] the answer has always been yes; it'll be  just fine. But with the Nothing 4a Pro,   it's very important that you do not put the SIM  card removal tool in the wrong hole, or it will   compromise some of your IP65 water resistance. And  I'll show you exactly how here in just a second.  

[02:48] I'm also curious if this circle on the bottom-left  corner has any uses or if it's just copying the   design language from the CMF phones. And we'll  only find out when we go to take it apart. Making our way up to the camera plateau, we  find that the clear lens over the transparent  

[03:02] hardware and glyph interface is actually made  from plastic, which I'm totally okay with. Yeah,   it might scratch over time, but I would  100% prefer my phone to have scratches   instead of shattering into a million pieces.  So, thumbs up for that. And the camera lenses  

[03:16] themselves are still glass. The top is  the 8-megapixel ultrawide. Then we have   the 50-megapixel main camera. And to the right  of that, we have the 50-megapixel telephoto.

[03:29] And I'm not going to lie: having a completely  metal phone again is super refreshing. Even   if we lose wireless charging, just  knowing I don't have to deal with   shattered glass ever again would be so nice.  Durability is paramount. And also, fun fact:  

[03:42] this drawing is actually the scientific symbol for  nothing. It is literally called the null sign, and   it signifies an empty set. Now I have a "nothing"  on my Nothing. Double nothing. Where was I?

[03:55] Ah, yes, the screen. For a sub-$500 smartphone,  Nothing really threw in the whole kitchen sink.   The 6.8-inch, 10-bit, billion-color,  5,000-nit, 144-hertz display lasts at  

[04:07] about 20 seconds before turning white and then  semi-recovering. What really matters, though,   is the structural integrity, which, with a metal  unibody, Nothing might already have in the bag.  

[04:19] And indeed, they do. The Nothing 4a Pro is  the strongest phone Nothing has ever made.   On par with the rigidity of iPhones,  both when bent from the front and when   bent from the back, the 4a Pro survives  the durability test with flying colors.

[04:34] However, while it's nice that the outsides can  handle the test of time, it's time to scope   out the insides. Starting with the back plastic  plateau, since it does need to come off before the   screen can be removed. I'll just start a little  timer with the glyph interface. This turns the  

[04:49] 137 LEDs into an hourglass, which is kind of fun.  The camera plateau is plastic, so it can melt if   my heat gun gets too hot. But since the plateau  is recessed down into the aluminum and glued,   heat is our only way of softening that adhesive.  Thankfully, we don't have to be ultra-gentle,  

[05:05] though. Since the plastic is not brittle like  glass would be, with the plastic plateau gone,   we can see the CNC-milled aluminum camera  lens bodies that are holding the glass lenses. To release the screen on the other side  of the device, we now have to remove four  

[05:19] silver decorative T3 screws, which then  allow the layer of decorative plastics   and the red-light recording indicator to be  taken off. Then, six more black Phillips-head   screws can be taken out before we can get to  work on the screen. The screen also needs to  

[05:37] be warmed up since it's glued in tight just like  the back. This time, we do enter in from the side   between the plastic edge and the metal frame.  This is both easier and harder than it looks. While I work on that, I do assume that  if you're interested in inexpensive,  

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[06:06] I try to get the screen off in one piece.  Tell is able to take unlocked phones like   this Nothing 4a Pro and add them to the least  expensive smartphone plans I've ever seen,   starting at just $5 a month. Even if you  want unlimited everything, it's just 25  

[06:20] bucks—50 gigs of which are high-speed—and  that includes 10 gigs worth of hotspotting,   free Wi-Fi calling, free international calls  to 60 countries, and international roaming. Getting 4 and 5G coverage without a soul-crushing  price tag is rather refreshing. You can usually  

[06:36] keep your own phone if it's unlocked and  your same phone number when you switch over,   is down in the description. Tello does have  a massive deal going right now where you can  

[06:48] get three months worth of unlimited for just 30  bucks. So, if you're thinking about switching,   And also, thank you to myself for getting the  screen off in one piece. I always like when a  

[07:01] phone survives. With the back panel off, we  can see the ribbon that goes to the rear LED   matrix and NFC coil. There's no wireless  charging, and there really isn't a reason   for that circular design on the bottom corner  either. I'll take out three more screws that  

[07:14] hold down the silver bracket over the battery  and screen ribbon cables. With that gone,   I'll unplug the battery just like a little Lego.  There are seven Phillips-head screws holding down   the loudspeaker over the charging port board.  Before it can be released completely, though,  

[07:27] the battery needs to come out, which thankfully  does have pull tabs that work surprisingly well. The 4a Pro phone that gets released here  in the USA has 5,080 mAh worth of capacity,  

[07:40] but the version that gets released in India gets  an extra 6% capacity boost and sits at 5,400   because why not? Lucky them. Now we have room to  remove the loudspeaker and its antenna wire. And  

[07:52] I guess I could have unclipped it from this end  as well. But the good news is that, even at $500,   this speaker has a whole lot of balls. So far,  it looks like Nothing hasn't pulled any punches. I'll unplug the optical fingerprint scanner along  with the extension ribbon. And remember how I said  

[08:07] earlier that it's important you use the right hole  when inserting your SIM card removal tool? Well,   here's why. The waterproofing mesh that  keeps this phone IP65 water-resistant   can be seen over the loudspeaker opening and  the microphone opening. Except for this time,  

[08:21] for the first time, it is right behind the  hole. Meaning that if your tool goes in,   the first layer of mesh will be punctured. And  as you can see, the tool is indeed the right   size for the hole in the frame. However, it's  not the end of the world if it does get sliced,  

[08:35] since Nothing does have two layers of mesh,  as we'll see in a second. But making that   first line of protection so vulnerable  to punctures is an interesting move. For reference, every other phone we've ever seen  has its main mesh off to the side of the shaft,  

[08:49] like on this Samsung S24 Ultra. If we take  out the charging port board on the 4a Pro,   we can see the 50-watt USB-C port that  can reverse-wireless charge at 7.5 watts,   along with the SIM card tray slot and the  rectangular microphone. And thankfully,  

[09:03] we also see the other secondary moisture barrier  on the side of the shaft. Backups are good,   but two is always better than one. So,  if you want to make sure your first   layer of water protection remains intact, just  make sure your tool goes in the right spot.

[09:16] Moving up to the main board, we can get  a closer look at the cameras. It has two   silver screws holding it in place. With the  board up and out, we can see copious amounts   of thermal paste as well as an extremely  large vapor chamber that helps disperse heat  

[09:28] out through the thin front screen. The top  8-megapixel ultrawide camera does have OIS.   The main 50-megapixel camera also has optical  image stabilization, but the 50-megapixel   telephoto camera does not. Neither does the  front-facing 32-megapixel selfie camera.

[09:44] Overall, I'm genuinely impressed with the Nothing  Phone 4a Pro. It is the best-built Nothing phone   ever made at a price that doesn't break the bank.  And yeah, the repairability isn't all that great   since you need to remove the camera plateau to  get access to the screen. But as long as you  

[09:58] have a case and a screen protector on, nothing  should break on the Nothing in the first place. Let's see if it still works. Nothing. Hit that  subscribe button if you haven't already. We are  

[10:10] almost to 10 million subscribers. Thank you so  much. And of course, don't forget to save some   money with the Tello link in the description. And  thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.