Nothing Phone 4a vs Phone 3a: Price in India, Specifications Compared

Nothing Phone 4a was launched on March 5 at the UK tech firm's latest launch event in London, alongside the more powerful Nothing Phone 4a Pro. The standard Phone 4a offers several hardware improvements over last year's Nothing Phone 3a. It runs on a newer Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chip, with improved CPU and GPU performance compared to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 used in the previous generation model. The new phone also offers a larger battery and updated software. Both phones have AMOLED displays with up to 120Hz refresh rates, matching triple rear cameras and similar dust and water resistance ratings.

Here's how the Nothing Phone 4a and last year's Nothing Phone 3a stack up against each other, in terms of price, specifications, and features.

Nothing Phone 4a vs Phone 3a: Display, OS

Nothing Phone 4a: The new model has a 6.78-inch (1,224x2,720 pixels) LTPS Flexible AMOLED display with up to 120Hz of refresh rate, up to 4,500 nits of peak brightness, and 2,160Hz PWM dimming. The display has Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection as well. The handset runs on Android 16, with Nothing OS 4.1 out-of-the-box. It will get three years of Android OS upgrades, which means it is expected to receive Android 19, alongside six years of security patch updates.

Nothing  Phone 3a: Last year's model came with a 6.77-inch full-HD+ flexible AMOLED display with 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 3000 nits peak brightness and 2160 Hz PWM dimming rate. It has Panda Glass protection.

The Phone 4a launched with Android 16-based Nothing OS 4.1, and it is assured to get three years of OS updates and six years of security patches. Last year's model shipped with Android 15 with Nothing OS 3.1 skin; similarly, Nothing promised three years of OS upgrades as well as six years of security updates for this model, too.

Nothing Phone 4a vs Phone 3a: Chipset, Battery

Nothing Phone 4a: Nothing has used the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset in its Phone 4a. This chipset is coupled with Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, up to 12GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 onboard storage.

Phone 3a: The Phone 3a arrived with a 4nm octa-core Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC paired with up to 12GB LPDDR4X RAM and up to 256GB UFS 2.2 storage.

Phone 4a
Photo Credit: Nothing

The Nothing Phone 4a arrives with a slight upgrade in battery capacity. It packs a 5,400mAh battery with support for 50W wired fast charging. The company claims that the handset can charge from 1 percent to 100 percent in about 64 minutes. The Phone 3a carry 5,000mAh battery with 50W wired fast charging support. It is said to charge from one percent to 100 percent in 56 minutes.

Nothing Phone 4a vs Phone 3a: Cameras, Dimensions

Nothing Phone 4a: In terms of optics, Phone 4a has a triple rear camera unit, including a 50-megapixel main shooter with a Samsung GN9 1/1.57-inch sensor and optical image stabilisation (OIS). The camera setup also includes a 50-megapixel periscope camera with a Samsung JN5 1/2.75-inch sensor with up to 70x zoom capabilities and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera with a Sony IMX355 sensor. For selfies, it has a 32-megapixel front-facing camera.

Phone 3a: The camera setup of Phone 3a includes a 50-megapixel Samsung 1/1.57-inch main sensor with OIS, an 8-megapixel ultra wide-angle camera and a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom. It boasts a 32-megapixel selfie shooter.

The Phone 4a is a little thinner and heavier than the Phone 3a. The new model measures 163.95x77.57x8.55mm and weighs about 204.5g, while the Phone 3a measures 163.5 x 77.5 x 8.3mm and weighs 201g. Both phones offer an IP64 rating for dust and splash resistance and include the Glyph interface. The Phone 4a's updated Glyph Bar interface boasts 63 mini-LEDs and six zones.

Nothing Phone 4a vs Phone 3a: Price in India

Nothing Phone 4a: Price of the phone starts at Rs. 31,999 for the base variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 8GB+256GB and 12GB+256GB RAM and storage models are priced at Rs. 34,999 and Rs. 37,999, respectively. You can get the phone in Black, Blue, Pink, and White colourways.

Phone 3a: It came with a relatively lower price tag of Rs. 22,999 for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage option. The 256GB storage variant with the same amount of RAM costs Rs. 24,999. It is available in Black, Blue, and White colour options.