It's no CMF bargain, but Nothing's cheapest phone to date is a proper budget alternative to the cookie-cutter likes of Samsung
At a glance
Expert's Rating
Pros
- Standout design
- Solid battery life
- Good main camera
- Clean and alternative software
Cons
- So so ultrawide camera
- Restricted Essential Key
- Short OS software support
- Only 128GB storage option
Our Verdict
If you’re looking for a budget phone that’s not one of the typical, boring options, the Nothing Phone (4b) is a great option. There’s a lot to like here, just make sure you’re okay with limited storage and a shorter software support period than some rivals.
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Best Prices Today: Nothing Phone (4b)
The CMF Phone 3 Pro might have been cancelled as the follow-up to our favourite budget phone, but Nothing has launched a new B-series instead.
With no budget-priced Google Pixel on the market and samey devices from the likes of Samsung and Motorola, can Nothing take the crown?
I’ve been living with the £299 Phone (4b) for the last few weeks to find out. Sadly, this one hasn’t launched in the USA, so you’ll have to look elsewhere – from Nothing, this would be the Phone (4a) Pro, now reduced to $449.
Things I love
I’m pleased to report that there’s lots to love about the Nothing Phone (4b) and my favourite aspect is the design. It’s got the firm’s distinctive look, which, at the back, can’t be confused with rivals.
It’s really refreshing to see something totally different, especially when the likes of Samsung just keep pumping out seemingly the exact same phones every year.
Chris Martin / Foundry
The Phone (4b) is fairly clean overall compared to some of its stablemates, with the camera module getting all the eye candy. I love the visible screws and metal, which appeal to the part of me that always wanted the transparent Game Boy model.
This is also where the Glyph interface lives – Nothing’s set of lights which can give you various notifications and has various other uses. I love it, especially when the similar HiLight feature on the Pixel 11 phones has arrived with barely any use cases.
I’ve got the white model, but you can also get the device in black or blue (there’s no pink option like the Phone 4a).
Chris Martin / Foundry
Battery life and charging are next on my love list. The Phone (4b) managed over 17 hours in our usual PCMark for Android test, which is very impressive. It’ll last you a day of solid use and 33W fast charging is quicker than rivals.
You don’t get an adapter in the box, of course, but I managed to get it from dead to 42% in just 30 minutes.
Performance is also typically smooth throughout the interface (with a caveat I’ll mention in the next section). It certainly doesn’t feel like a budget phone most of the time. You can even play higher-end games if you’re happy to turn the settings down.
Chris Martin / Foundry
The 50Mp main camera is also solid, pumping out shots comparable with some mid-range phones. Photos in good light come out crisp and colourful for the most part. You can even shoot smooth video in 4K resolution, too, aided by optical image stabilisation (OIS). The selfie camera is also decent, although it doesn’t have a wider-angle option, which can be useful.
I also like Nothing’s approach to software on the whole. It’s unusual and provides buyers with something different to what is a sea of pretty similar options in the budget market.
The dark look might divide the crowd and admittedly, it’s taken me a bit of time to get used to. However, Nothing doesn’t force you to use this style and you can opt for a more typical Android interface if you prefer.
Chris Martin / Foundry
Either way, AI isn’t shoved in your face and the phone isn’t crammed with bloatware, which is refreshing and rare.
Ironically, the dark-themed interface doesn’t show off the capabilities of the large AMOLED screen. I haven’t mentioned this until now because it doesn’t really stand out from the crowd like the 4b’s other features.
It’s certainly not bad; I like it, but it’s very similar to what you can find on similar-priced rivals like the Galaxy A27.
Things I don’t love
Although I love the design of this phone, it is worth a brief note that the ‘CE’ legal information on the back does mar it somewhat. It’s something we’ve seen plenty of times for most brands, but there are also ways of hiding it.
Also, I’ve found that I don’t use the Essential Key. It’s for capturing screenshots and voice notes, but that’s not particularly useful to me and you can’t natively customise it to do something else instead as you can on rivals with similar buttons.
Moving on and I’m not keen on the fingerprint scanner built into the display. It works well enough, but it’s positioned too low down, close to the bottom edge of the device, making it awkward for me to reach. To be honest, in a budget phone like this, I think a fingerprint scanner mounted into the power button works better.
Chris Martin / Foundry
I’m also not too fussed about the ultrawide camera. I prefer a telephoto these days and don’t find much use for wide-angle shots. That, and the ultrawide here is a typical budget phone affiar, whose quality is noticeably worse than the main camera.
I understand phone makers featuring multiple rear cameras so the device seems fancier but I’d personally rather just have one even better main shooter.
While I love the operating system, it’s worth noting that Nothing only promises three years of OS updates (although it’ll receive six years of security patches). That’s half of what Samsung offers, so the long-term value is lower here.
The performance caveat I mentioned in the previous section is primarily that I find scrolling on the Google Discover feed jerky. Whether this is the processor or the 120Hz refresh rate of the display not kicking in is unclear. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, I find it jarring to the point where I just stop scrolling.
Chris Martin / Foundry
It’s also a shame that the phone only comes in one model (in the UK anyway, as 256GB is an India exclusive) – 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Storage is a particular issue, as it may not be enough for some users and it doesn’t have a microSD card slot like some rivals.
Should you buy the Nothing Phone (4b)?
It’s not the no-brainer bargain of Nothing’s CMF sub-brand cheap phones but the Phone (4b) has a lot going for it.
If it fits your budget, it’s worth going for if you crave stand-out design in a sea of meh – with the design extending to software. Not only does the phone look great, the Glyph lights at the back are genuinely useful.
Nothing also offers solid main and selfie cameras, long battery life, faster charging than rivals and a decent screen.
The downsides for me are mostly quibbles rather than dealbreakers and you may, unlike me, love the Essential Key. Objectively, the key downside is that you only get three years of OS updates, where rivals like Samsung offer double this.
Key rivals to consider:
Specs
- Nothing OS 4.1 (Android 16)
- 6.77-inch, 120Hz, Super AMOLED
- Optical in-display fingerprint sensor
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset
- 8GB RAM
- 128GB storage
- Cameras:
- 50Mp main sensor w/ OIS
- 12Mp ultra-wide
- 16Mp selfie camera
- Up to 4K@30fps video recording
- Stereo speakers
- Dual-SIM (Nano)
- Wi-Fi 6
- Bluetooth 6.0
- 5200mAh battery
- 33W wired charging
- 164.4 x 78.2 x 8.6mm
- IP64 certified
- 210g
- Colours: White, black, blue
