Nothing launched a new lineup of smartphones and audio today in London, including the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, the Nothing Phone (4a), and the Nothing Headphone (a). Supported by last year’s flagship Nothing Phone (3) and Nothing Headphone (1), this represents the strongest lineup of phones and audio that the company has ever launched. Right now, Nothing has a pretty intimidating portfolio of devices, top to bottom.
I was at the launch event in London’s design district, which is very on brand for the company, and I got to go hands-on with all three devices. There’s a lot of color to the lineup and a lot of power as well. Let’s dive in.
Nothing Headphone (a)
Starting with Headphone (a), you’ll see many similarities to Headphone (1). The highlight of these headphones is their color, available in black, white, pink, and yellow. Of the choices, I find yellow to be the most fetching, but pink could match your phone (see below). The headphones have an IP52 rating and up to 135 hours of battery life, the longest in a Nothing audio product to date.
I didn’t get to spend any time listening through the headphones — mine were shipped to my home back in the U.S. while I’ve been traveling — but stay tuned for our full review. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Nothing Headphone (1) sound out of the box, but after tweaking the EQ, I arrived at a very good sound quality — it just took some work to get there.
What I can tell you is that these headphones have Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and you can personalize the sound in the Nothing X app. Pricing starts at $199, and you can order them online starting today. Note that the yellow colorway will be a limited edition, going on sale on April 6.
Nothing Phone (4a)
Meanwhile, Nothing launched its latest budget smartphone in four colors: black, white, blue, and pink, of which I very much enjoy the blue. The phones run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset with 8 or 12GB of RAM and 128 or 256GB of storage and have a 5,080 mAh battery. There’s a triple camera setup on the back with a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel 3.5x zoom lens, and an 8-megapixel Ultrawide camera. I don’t anticipate the camera quality will be amazing, but it’s great to see Nothing including all three sensors on the back so you can take a variety of shots.
The Glyph Bar continues the tradition on the back of the phone. This is a single LED bar that lights up according to what’s happening. It can flash when a phone call comes in, and show progress on a timer. Glyphs are a fun part of Nothing phones, and I doubt they’ll go away any time soon.
You can order the phone online today for €349, but unfortunately, it will not be available in the U.S.
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
Finally, there’s the star of the show — the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, and this is as close as you’re going to get to a flagship this year. Nothing announced that it was not planning to launch a flagship smartphone in 2026. But, as far as smartphone offerings are concerned, it’d be underselling it to say, “this will do.”
The phone’s design is very on point. Last year felt like Nothing was trying too hard to be edgy and different — or it looked like they were throwing darts at the back of the phone to see where to put the cameras. This year, the design feels more cohesive with a large camera island — not dissimilar in size to the iPhone 17 Pro Max — and that retains Nothing’s signature see-through element. The Essential Key was also moved to the other side of the phone (thankfully) in order to avoid accidental presses.
A lot of the specifications for the (4a) Pro are the same as the 4a — you get the same RAM/Storage options and the same battery size, though the RAM is LPDDR5X in the Pro series. The key differences come in the processor (Snapdragon 7 Gen 4), cameras (50/50/32 MP), and Glyph Matrix on the back.
Speaking of which, Nothing brought back the Glyph Matrix, which I’m personally happy about. Glyph bars and strips in the past have been a bit dubious as to what they meant, but the Glyph Matrix can actually give you useful and reliable information without looking at the main screen, and I’m very into that.
Essential Apps are another new feature of the phone. This is something I haven’t played with yet, but in theory, this is like a mini vibe code on your phone that lets you build small personal tools to get things done on your phone using natural language. This is something I definitely want to dive into with greater detail, leading up to our official review later this month.
Of course, there’s a community element. The Essential Playground also hosts community contributions for Essential Apps, Glyph Matrix toys, and sound profiles for the Nothing headphones. So if you need an idea for a mini app or a Glyph Matrix game, you may find one there to your liking. You can also contribute your own.
Speaking of software, one new feature being introduced is the Smart App Drawer in the app launcher, which attempts to sort your apps into smart groups, similar to how Apple does it on the iPhone. The feature is still in beta, but it was set up on the sample devices Nothing had at the showcase. The app organization uses “the power of AI” to organize your apps into smart categories. We’ll see how well it does with the 258 apps that I routinely install. I don’t see that ending well.
As for the cameras, as mentioned, there’s a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 3.5 optical zoom, and a 32-megapixel ultrawide camera. Overall, this should produce much better results than the cameras on the Nothing Phone (4a), but again, we’ll have to wait for a full review. The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro will start at $499, with preorders available online starting on March 13 and shipping on March 27.
Overall, this was an impressive launch event with three products I can’t wait to get my hands on full-time. Of the three devices, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is the most compelling. It has a midrange processor, but Nothing’s cameras were pretty good last year, so I’m hopeful that it will continue this year. The design is solid, the software is great, and the overall experience looks promising, so I’m pretty jazzed about what to expect.