WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 When Nothing's founder and chief executive left OnePlus to found a new company, it seemed crazy. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:13.000 I mean, who would leave the protective umbrella, not to mention, near unlimited resources of Oppo, 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:17.000 to do your own thing, much less to do nothing? 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:25.000 And yet, with the recent news that OnePlus is rumored to be ceasing global operations in the imminent future, 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.000 it's starting to look like a pretty smart move. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:35.000 And today, I've got their latest not flagship, specifically that, the Nothing Phone 4A Pro. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.000 So it's part of their A-line, meaning it's more budget compared to the non-As, 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:42.000 but it isn't part of their CMF budget brand. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:46.000 But it's pro, so it's like, better budget. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:50.000 Can we call it that? It's for your better budget lifestyle, your BBL. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.000 Let's go with the cute pink one. This is my cute pink BBL. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.000 How long are you gonna sit in on that joke? 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:01.000 Hello? I love how many products come with a free IQ test these days. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:08.000 There we are. Probably the biggest benefit that nothing boasts for the phone for a pro is its gaming prowess, 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:13.000 which doesn't make a ton of sense if you just look at the spec sheet, 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:19.000 because it actually uses the same processor as the Nothing Phone 4A non-pro, 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:22.000 is what you might think, if you didn't look closely. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:27.000 See, Qualcomm's branding for their processors has gotten shockingly confusing lately. 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:31.000 I'd forgive you for seeing Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 and thinking, 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:36.000 well, what the heck, nothing? Why did you downgrade from the Snapdragon 7S Gen 4? 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:40.000 Surely the S is for speed. Well, no, it turns out the S is for slower. 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:45.000 The non-S is clocked higher and has a significantly better GPU, 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:51.000 which helps drive the up to 144 hertz 1080p plus class display 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:54.000 that can reach up to 5,000 nits peak brightness. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:59.000 Where do you want to put the asterisk in the edit? Should we put it here, here, here, or here? 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:02.000 Now the second spot looked nice. Okay, we're going to put it here. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:05.000 We'll get to that later though. First, let's have a look at the star of the show, 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:10.000 which, as you might expect from Nothing, is of course their latest take on their Glyph interface. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:17.000 This is the Glyph Matrix. It has 137 mini LEDs and is designed to do everything from showing a custom icon 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:22.000 when you have a particular person calling to having a progress bar for your Uber pickup. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.000 It can also be a clock, show battery status, or be used as a timer countdown. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.000 Isn't that just another clock? Also on the back, we have a 50 megapixel main shooter, 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:34.000 50 megapixel, three and a half times optical tetra prism telephoto lens, 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.000 and a mystery meat ultrawide. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:42.000 Seriously though, nothing doesn't give a spec for this. We had to get the 8 megapixel spec from a third party. 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:47.000 Why? Also got a flash and actually a really pleasing construction. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:52.000 Very, very, extremely iPhone-like. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:57.000 But in a good way. Nicely rounded, wobbles on your table like you like, 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:00.000 actually quite a bit better than some of the recent iPhones, 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:03.000 thanks to the wider camera bump here. It seems quite usable. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:07.000 Dude, my Fold 7 has been driving me bananas. 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:10.000 Look at this. Are you seeing this? How could we not see it? 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:14.000 It's like I could practically do like a kickflip with this thing without even... 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:17.000 Oh, that would be gnarly. We'll look at it a little closer in a second. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:23.000 First, let's have a look at what's included in the package. Nothing knows that there is no accessory ecosystem for their products, 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:26.000 so they give you a clear plastic case. Thank you, nothing. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:30.000 You also get a USB-C to C 2.0 charging cable. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:36.000 That's to go with the USB 2.0 charging port, a SIM removal tool. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:40.000 And that's it for the accessories is what I would say if I didn't notice 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.000 that there does in fact appear to be a pre-applied screen protector. 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:47.000 You'll love to see it. Outside of the phone, we've got a noise-canceling mic up here, 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.000 your peace speaker here. Ah, yes, the essential key. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:58.000 This takes you straight to your essential space, which is pretty much a quick way to annotate voice memos on top of things like screenshots and photos. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:03.000 It can also be used seriously, though, like old-school voice recorder style 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:08.000 where you flip the phone upside down, hold it, and record a memo to yourself. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:12.000 Future line is here. Holding the button to record works in any orientation. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.000 What this note was about was their flip to glyph, 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 which is putting it down, holding the button, 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 and then this cute little red recording light goes on, 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 and it does this. And then you can hold it again to turn it off, 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.000 maybe for like recording an interview or something. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:32.000 It uses AI to record a transcript or summary and can be synced with your Google Calendar to remind you later. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.000 At the bottom, we've got our SIM tray, charging port, and speaker. 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:38.000 And then over on the right, we've got our volume rocker and lock button. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:42.000 Wow, is it ever iPhone-like? And I don't find it all kind of like the same these days. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:48.000 I get it. I haven't talked about RAM. It gets either 8 or 12 gigs of RAM with 128 or 256 gigs of storage, 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.000 which is pretty well aligned with its positioning as a budget flagship. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:55.000 It's got Wi-Fi 6, which is not the latest and greatest, 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:58.000 but probably good enough for a phone, as well as Bluetooth 5.4. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:03.000 As for NFC, it was a little confusing. The 4A seems to have it except not in India, 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:06.000 and then the 4A Pro seems to have it everywhere. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:09.000 Nothing. Can you just make this more clear? That'd be great. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.000 On the subject of things that are clear, let's talk about the front glass. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:15.000 It's using Corning's Gorilla Glass 7i, 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.000 which is yet another product with a confusing name. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:22.000 What is 7i? I can find almost no independent analysis of it, 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:25.000 with pretty much everyone just quoting Corning's press release, 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:30.000 which is to say that it is 7th generation glass, but for an intermediate device. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:34.000 So like a mid-range device. Which means what exactly? 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:38.000 How does it compare to Victus? I understand that companies are afraid to tell me 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.000 that one of their products is worse than the other, 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:45.000 but they also really, really want me to believe that one of them is better than the other. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.000 You see the problem here, right? You gotta tell me what's worse about this one 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:54.000 so that I understand what's better about Victus. Anyhow, let's have a look at what's under that glass 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:58.000 after this quick message from our sponsor. Alright, I guess we'll get to using it in a sec, 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:01.000 but this gives me a perfect opportunity to talk about system updates. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:07.000 Like other economically conscious devices, nothing is not offering the longest of software support Windows for this device. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:11.000 It's not bad. Three years of Android and three years of security. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.000 But when you're in a similar price bracket, 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:19.000 something like a Pixel 10a, that is a little tough when Google's offering 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:22.000 what was it, seven years, I believe, of full software updates. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:25.000 So I'm really counting on nothing OS and the essential button 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:28.000 to elevate the experience, which isn't impossible. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:32.000 Pixel OS is not the clean stock Android 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:35.000 that it once was. This is taking a really long time. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:38.000 So hear me out. Let's just show you the black one. Oh, I like the black. 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Actually, this is nice. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:45.000 Wow. Other than that, definitely with Marquez on this one, 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:51.000 the black one is a fingerprint magnet. Pink is quite serviceable as far as fingerprint rejection goes. 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:55.000 Guess my BBL stays pink after all. Nothing OS. 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.000 It's been a while. I love the look in theory. It's so cool. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.000 In practice, I kind of rely on the colors of my icons 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000 as a visual cue for quickly finding them within folders. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:07.000 But your muscle memory mileage may vary on that. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:10.000 Let's fire up the display. Let's talk about that. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Yep. That's HDR, all right. 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:16.000 Unfortunately, what it isn't is 5,000 nits. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:19.000 We were able to reach about the same as last generation, 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:23.000 so in the 1,500-nit range in regular content. 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:29.000 In order to achieve 5,000 nits, we actually had to use a specific file that nothing provided, 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:33.000 and we had to watch in portrait mode. So take it for what it is, 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.000 a marketing bullet point that ultimately doesn't affect the fact 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:39.000 that this is a pretty nice viewing experience. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.000 For most people, this will still probably be 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 one of the nicest displays in your house. Let's check out the speakers. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:48.000 Oh, I think it's got an amplified earpiece too. Yeah, it does. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:51.000 Not always a given on non-flagships. 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:55.000 Really not bad. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:58.000 Past about 70%, it gets kind of distortion-y, 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:02.000 but that's about 70%. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:05.000 It's pretty freaking loud and pretty freaking good. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:08.000 That's a really pleasant surprise. Coming back to the visuals, 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:13.000 as you'd expect from a high refresh rate display, scrolling is nice and smooth and natural, 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.000 although it is worth noting that while nothing does boast 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.000 up to 144 hertz refresh rate, you are not going to get that in all games. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.000 We found that most games were capped at 120 hertz 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.000 for high refresh rate and some even ran as low as 30. 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:30.000 It's because even though it does have a really strong GPU 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:34.000 for a mid-range phone, it is still a mid-range SoC. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.000 To nothing's credit though, the cooling on this mid-range SoC seems to be extremely 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:43.000 well-managed. They're using a vapor chamber, and we found that from our first run of Wildlife Extreme, 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:46.000 all the way to our, what would we do, 20 runs or something like that? 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:52.000 It never throttled. So beware of, oh, this flagship phone is so fast, 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:56.000 compared to a mainstream phone, as long as you don't play your game for longer 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:59.000 than 10 or 20 minutes. At least you'll get consistent performance 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:02.000 out of a device like this. Biometric authentication is handled 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:06.000 with an in-screen fingerprint sensor. Remember when this was like space age technology 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:12.000 and now it's on quote unquote budget phones? I'll never forget that showcase behind like the main 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:15.000 CES show floor in this little booth where they're like, 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:18.000 oh, you're not going to believe this. And I didn't. 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:21.000 It was incredible. Now we just take it for granted. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:24.000 All right. Yeah, it's quick. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:27.000 Look at how quick it is. Never lose the sense of wonder, guys, 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:30.000 just because something is, you know, mainstream now doesn't mean we should stop appreciating it. 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.000 Let's talk camera. We have a new set. Our new set is way better. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:37.000 Oh, okay. Yeah, that's good that that did a little bit 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:41.000 of processing on that image. Wow, it hates your sweater, Sean. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:47.000 I mean, I'm doing it a lot though. Skin tones are a little funky in some cases. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:51.000 Also, you've got a little bit of kind of like wide line of style distortion over towards 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:54.000 the edge of the image here. It's par for the course, guys, again, you know, 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.000 let's never lose track of the miracle that is 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:00.000 these incredible high fidelity recording devices 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.000 in our pockets. It's not the best camera I've ever seen on a phone, 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:07.000 but it's not bad. Ask for the telephoto. Yeah, that's pretty good. 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:10.000 Oh, actually your skin tones are way better 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:15.000 on the telephoto too, Lucas. He looks sickly in this one. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.000 Do they claim OIS on the telephoto as well? 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:22.000 Because there is a fair bit of stabilization happening. I just don't know the topical. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:26.000 Yeah, OIS and EIS. What I'm bound to be less impressed by is 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:32.000 what is it they claim up to 140x zoom? It's so zoomed, you actually need like a context viewfinder 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:35.000 so you can know exactly what the crap it is that you're looking at. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.000 The electronic stabilization is pretty impressive. Whoa! 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.000 It actually looks like AI generated like text 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:52.000 like the older AI when it couldn't do real text. Okay, but what if I just used the 3.5x telephoto and cropped it? 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:55.000 Yeah, I think this is more readable than what we had before. 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.000 Yep, I can read this. I could not get the word Commodore out of that before. 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:05.000 Now that I know what it is, I can see it, but here I can actually read it. 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:08.000 It's such a simple test. You'd think phone manufacturers would do it. 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:12.000 Hey, let's try out the... Ooh, take better selfies with glyph mirror. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:17.000 Sure, I'll try it now. I don't know if it'll do anything about like the crow's feet, 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:21.000 but hey, I'm going to try anything at this point. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:26.000 Oh, obviously we don't have a ton of resolution here. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.000 If I wink an eye, is it changing? 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:33.000 A little bit. Let's try to take a picture. I assume I use the volume key. 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:38.000 Oh yeah, they're right. That is better. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:42.000 In all seriousness though, I think I'd rather have a full color viewfinder 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:46.000 if I'm trying to take a selfie. I'm going to actually try to take a good picture. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:53.000 Did I take a picture? Dude, I feel like a complete boomer right now. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.000 Okay, that time I took a picture. What the crap is going on here? 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:02.000 This picture is like crazy like softened 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:05.000 with what looks like a bunch of fake bokeh. 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:08.000 Is this their Ultra XDR? It can't be. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:13.000 So Ultra XDR is their kind of high dynamic range thing. They take what was like 12 exposures or something like that. 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.000 Oh, sorry, 13. Okay, so high dynamic range pretty much. 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:22.000 I just, I wasn't in portrait mode. I'm so confused why it went and it did portrait modey things. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:26.000 More realistic look. Okay, I'm going to turn Ultra XDR off 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:29.000 and see if I get a normal freaking looking picture of me. 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:33.000 This, the bokeh actually looks real and somewhat natural. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.000 Here it's obviously done in post and here it also looks done in post 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:40.000 and I don't understand why that would be. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:43.000 Huh, very confusing. And I guess I can just avoid the whole thing 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:47.000 by just using the selfie cam. Yes, there's just a normal selfie. 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:50.000 Like seriously, does this look like A.I. Linus or what? 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:55.000 Well guys, your mileage may vary with the camera. To be clear, it's not like I can't get good results out of it. 00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:00.000 There's some good looking pictures here. It's just, you might need to play around with the settings a little bit 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:03.000 and find what works for you. I just want to do a quick video recording 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:09.000 to see if it has that classic Android jitter. This is not a useful amount of resolution, nothing. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:13.000 So have you guys seen those cool like rear displays that you can get for some phones? 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:18.000 This is not that. Okay, definitely some anomalies 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.000 and a little bit of that classic Android hitching. 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.000 You can really see it doing weird sharpening stuff actually 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.000 with this, it doesn't know what it is and it doesn't know what to do with it. 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:33.000 The light was like... At this price, it's not going to be an iPhone 17 Pro though. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:37.000 We've got to be realistic. And that also applies to battery life. 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:40.000 We got just over 17 hours in our endurance video playback test 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:43.000 and as for charging, nothing claims up to 50 watts. 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:47.000 We didn't see 50 watts for more than a very short period of time 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:50.000 but it's worth noting that this is actually pretty normal 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.000 to have a charging curve like this. Labs did a wonderful article on it 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:57.000 and we did manage to see a full charge of the 5,000 plus mAh battery 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:01.000 in about 65 minutes, which I think is like super reasonable. 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:04.000 No wireless charging though. Pixel 10a has wireless charging 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:07.000 and that's a big feature for some people. I still plug my phone in every night 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:11.000 but I think I'm the weird one now. Let's try out the essential button. 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:15.000 I made a screenshot. This is a screenshot of my desktop 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:20.000 that I wanted to save for posterity and that's in my essential space now, which I believe is this. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:23.000 You know what's funny is this is actually really close 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:27.000 to the photo app that I want. I had this idea I talked about on WAN Show 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:30.000 and apparently there is some stuff that's kind of similar to this. I haven't tried any of it yet 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.000 but the idea was like I take a picture 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:38.000 and then I go blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and then that's stored in the metadata for that picture 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.000 so that when I'm looking at it again later 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:46.000 I could like see the context of it. Hey, this was that time the kids did that funny thing. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:51.000 To be clear, this can take photos like that but I would want something that's baked right into the metadata of the photo file 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:54.000 not some third-party app that... 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:57.000 I mean hey, I'm wishing nothing nothing but the best. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.000 I hope that they succeed and exist forever but they might not so I don't want to put all my metadata in that. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:08.000 I made that mistake with Ken and Zoom Browser. I had a bunch of like detailed, almost like a journal 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:12.000 attached to all these pictures in my Zoom Browser reformatted by computer and it was gone. 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:16.000 Note to self, the essential app actually seems kind of cool. 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:21.000 It's just really tough for me to lock into a function like this 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:24.000 that is not necessarily going to be supported on my next phone. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:28.000 That's something that Apple does a really good job of having continuity in their ecosystem. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.000 Maybe there's an opportunity for nothing to make this app available 00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:35.000 but you know as a paid app across the rest of the Android ecosystem 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:41.000 I don't know, I can't tell them how to run their business but what I can tell you guys is to subscribe to ShortCircuit.