ARTICLE AD BOX
New Delhi: Recently, Nothing has introduced its most-awaited and most impressive device in India. Nothing has recently announced its Nothing Phone 4b, its latest “b” series device. But now we are here to solve that question. It’s easy; it’s just a closer look at its software, display, battery life, performance, camera capabilities, and design.
Software
When it comes to software, budget phones may not receive the same treatment as flagships and end up with a less enjoyable experience. The Nothing Phone 4b isn’t like that. It runs Nothing OS 4.1, based on Android 16, with the same visual and animation styles and similar apps that are seen on the higher-end devices from Nothing.
Notable software features are:
- Smart app drawer: Organizes installed apps into folders automatically, based on context.
- Essential Search: Users can even dial contacts, perform calculations, or access information like a weather report from a search bar, without launching various applications.
- Essential Space: User can set reminders or save notes associated with the item or thought.
- Smart screenshot organization: screenshots are automatically organized into categories and text-searchable in the Essentials app.
- Lock screen widgets: icons like vibrate mode and hotspot setting widgets are locked directly onto the lock screen.
There are only two pre-loaded third-party apps, Facebook and Instagram, both of which can be deleted, and no lock-screen ad or “glance” style of screen. Summarizing, this software experience is mostly similar to Nothing’s flagship app.
Display
Although numerous budget phones this year have shipped with LCD display screens, the Nothing Phone 4b comes with a 6.67-inch Super AMOLED display. Out-of-door visibility was adequate even after prolonged exposure to the light of day, and also brightness, color rendering, and sharpness were good indoors. The only significant design mismatch is that the bottom bezel is a bit bigger than the top, giving the display a slight imbalance. Interestingly, the phone has stereo speakers instead of the single speaker found in much of this range, which is an improvement, although sound separation could be improved.
Battery
The Nothing Phone 4b contains a 6,000mAh battery, the biggest size in their numerous to date releases of any phone. With mixed applications such as gaming, content viewing, and photos, it provided a total of approximately 10 hours of screen-on battery life on a single charge. The charging rate is 33W, with an estimated 30 minutes to get to 50% capacity. The smartphone can even charge other portable devices including wireless earbuds with 7.5W reverse wired charging. Like most newer phones, there isn’t a charger in the box.
Performance
It comes with a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset and UFS 2.2 storage. During testing, we were once again unable to obtain AnTuTu benchmark results, though results from the Geekbench 3 software seem to have been fairly similar compared to the other devices utilizing the same chipset. Whereas, in a real-world test, RAM management was good: after locking and unlocking the phone, eight apps left running in the background reloaded almost instantaneously from memory. For lighter titles, the Gaming Performance was decent, with BGMI running at up to 90 fps, no glitching seen, and Delta Force running around 45 fps, which was the most noticeable limit for the hardware.
Cameras
The rear camera on the Nothing Phone 4b is a dual-camera setup with both lenses active, with no third lens dedicated to depth of field. From the main camera, the pictures displayed natural skin tones and colors with occasional variations from shot to shot, even though the lighting and conditions were kept the same. There was some background noise on the photos when they were taken in low-light conditions, but they were still readable. Clap Door’s rear-facing camera is limited to 30 fps 4K video. Moreover, the phone offers a split-screen or dual-view video mode for reaction-type material, but in that mode, only videos recorded at 1080p resolution are supported. You can shoot 1080p videos with the front camera, too.
Design
The Nothing Phone 4b comes in white, blue, and black, with a dedicated special edition for the team RCB (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) that will be sold from Nothing’s store in Bangalore on launch day on June 7. On the design side, the phone carries some features from both the Phone 4a and 4a Pro models, such as the circular camera module, camera plate, and Glyph light bar, but also dispenses with the totally transparent back panel found on previous models of the “a” series. The build features an IP64 water and dust resistance rating to help resist light rain and splashes, and a polycarbonate back.
When the user defutes an important message, like a message app, the Glyph interface will light up and stay lit until the user takes care of that message, and other less important app notifications will only flash as the user receives them.
Final Thought
Nothing’s “A” series phones have been the brand’s budget line over the last few years. The series saw its price hike and a lack of a new offering by the CMF this year meant that there was a void in middle price segment for a Nothing-branded phone priced at ₹15,000 to ₹30,000. With a distinctive design, solid battery life and near-flagship software, hailed as a “battery-saver’s dream” at such a time when ultra-battery-friendly software versions are relatively obscure in the budget arena, the Nothing Phone 4b seems a plucky answer to that void.
English (US) ·