Nothing Phone (4b) vs Phone (4a): Which One Is Actually Worth Buying

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For most buyers weighing the Nothing Phone 4b review verdicts against the older Phone (4a), the Phone (4a) is still the smarter purchase. It costs roughly £50/€20 more in Europe, and for that premium you get a telephoto camera, a sharper display, a faster Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chip, quicker UFS storage, and IP-rated water resistance the (4b) lacks. The Phone (4b) is the right pick only if your budget is a hard ceiling or you specifically want the redesigned Glyph Bar in the cheapest Nothing hardware ever sold.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Nothing's New Budget Tier

Nothing launched the Phone (4b) on July 7, 2026, alongside the Ear (3a), with UK pricing set at £299 and European pricing at €329, according to 9to5Google's launch coverage. That is only £50/€80 more than the outgoing Phone (3a) Lite, so Nothing has genuinely built a cheaper phone in a year when almost nobody else has. The problem is the phone sitting one shelf above it.

9to5Google's reviewer put the tension bluntly, writing that "it's impossible to recommend buying Phone (4b) when Phone (4a) is better for basically the same price", citing the (4a)'s telephoto lens, higher-resolution display, faster chip, faster storage, and better water resistance for £50/€20 more. That is not a nuanced trade-off. That is a value cliff, and it defines the entire conversation around this device.

The context helps explain why. Nothing publicly blamed "RAMageddon" (the AI-driven memory cost spike hammering the whole industry) for the pricing squeeze, and even cancelled a planned CMF device because of it, per 9to5Google. If you want the wider picture on why component costs are distorting every budget Android launch this year, our piece on how the 2026 memory shortage is reshaping phone pricing covers the supply-side story.

Nothing Phone 4b vs 4a: The Spec Gap That Decides This

This is not a case of two phones separated by rounding-error differences. The Phone (4b) is a measurable step down on almost every core silicon and imaging metric, and the price gap is small enough that most buyers should notice.

• Chipset: Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 with Adreno 810 GPU on the (4b), per TechCabal's launch report, versus Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 on the (4a).
• Storage speed: UFS 2.2 on the (4b), confirmed by 9to5Google, against UFS 3.1 on the (4a).
• RAM type: 8GB LPDDR4X across every (4b) variant, according to TechCabal, where the (4a) uses faster LPDDR5X.
• Cameras: 50MP primary and 8MP ultrawide on the (4b) rear, also per TechCabal, with no telephoto lens. The (4a) keeps its dedicated telephoto.
• Ingress protection: IP64 dust and splash on the (4b) versus the higher rating on the (4a).

The Geekbench numbers back this up. Memeburn reported pre-launch scores of 1,088 single-core and 3,155 multi-core for the Phone (4b), compared with roughly 1,259 and 3,339 for the Phone (4a) on the same test. Memeburn characterises the gap as "real but not dramatic", which is accurate for daily use. It also means you are paying the same money for a phone that will feel slower in three years, when app bloat catches up.

What Nothing Actually Improved on the (4b)

The (4b) is not a lazy downgrade. Nothing rebuilt several things that matter on a phone you touch for six hours a day.

The display is the headline. It measures 6.77 inches at 2344×1088, runs at 120Hz, and adds 1,000Hz touch sampling with 480Hz PWM dimming and an in-display optical fingerprint sensor, according to TechCabal. That PWM figure matters more than the marketing suggests: 480Hz dimming is the frequency at which OLED backlights pulse to control brightness, and higher rates reduce the eye strain and headaches some users experience on cheaper OLED panels at low brightness. Most sub-£300 phones do not disclose PWM at all. Nothing did.

The blue colorway also earned unusually specific praise. 9to5Google's reviewer described it as "my favorite blue since Google's 'Really Blue' on the original Pixel", which is a comparison worth taking seriously from anyone who remembers 2016 Pixel launches.

Battery capacity is where regional buyers diverge sharply. The global model ships with a 5,200mAh cell, but the Indian variant gets an exclusive 6,000mAh battery that Nothing claims is its largest ever, per JAM Online's launch report. Charging tops out at 33W wired with 7.5W reverse wired, and thermal control runs through a 4,400mm² vapor chamber, per TechCabal. Software support is genuinely generous at this price: three years of Android OS updates and six years of security patches on Nothing OS 4.1 running Android 16 out of the box.

The One Thing Every Review Is Missing About the b-Series

Here is what makes the (4b) situation stranger than a normal budget-phone launch: this is the first device in Nothing's new dedicated "b-series" tier, and Nothing has no CMF phone launching in 2026 at all, per Memeburn's strategic analysis. NDTV Gadgets, cited in Notebookcheck's aggregated coverage, described the (4b) as carrying "massive expectations to meet" as a result.

That matters because the same Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip inside the (4b) is also selling inside Oppo and Realme phones in the sub-$238 segment, Memeburn notes. Nothing is charging roughly $330-plus for a phone using budget-tier silicon in a market where competitors ship that silicon $90 cheaper. The design, the Glyph Bar, and the software support are what you are paying the premium for, not the hardware inside. If those three things do not move you, the value case collapses.

The wider market pressure is real. Memeburn cites projections of a roughly 14% smartphone shipment decline in 2026 driven by AI memory demand pushing component costs up, and notes that budget Android brands are absorbing the hardest hit. Nothing's response was to spec down to a cheaper chip rather than raise prices on a higher-spec device, which is a defensible choice but leaves the (4b) exposed on paper.

Nothing Phone 4b Price and Where You Can Actually Buy One

The Nothing Phone 4b price varies more by region than most Nothing launches. UK buyers pay £299 with sale starting July 17, 2026 for Europe and the UK, according to JAM Online. Indian pricing is ₹34,999 for the 8GB/128GB configuration and ₹38,999 for 8GB/256GB, with sale starting July 14, 2026 through Flipkart, Croma, Reliance Digital, and Vijay Sales, per TechCabal.

North American buyers get nothing at all. Nothing confirmed the Phone (4b) will skip the United States and Canada entirely, JAM Online reports. The Phone (4a) reference price has since moved up post-launch, now starting at $421.60 with the (4a) Pro at $527.02, per TechCabal, which places the (4b) firmly below both when converted, but does not help anyone shopping in dollars from a US carrier.

Where the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 Actually Slows You Down

Benchmark deltas mean less than where they surface in real use. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 4's CPU layout runs one Cortex-A720 prime core at 2.3GHz, three Cortex-A720 performance cores at 2.2GHz, and four Cortex-A520 efficiency cores at 1.8GHz across eight cores total, per specs aggregated by Notebookcheck. That layout handles messaging, streaming, browsing, and casual gaming without visible stutter, and Memeburn's assessment matches: everyday apps are fine.

Where you feel the downgrade is sustained load. UFS 2.2 storage takes noticeably longer to install large apps and load into memory-heavy games than the (4a)'s UFS 3.1. LPDDR4X versus LPDDR5X shows up in multitasking with a dozen apps held in memory. The Adreno 810 GPU pared with the older chip will start dropping frames in demanding 3D titles before the (4a)'s silicon does. None of this is catastrophic in July 2026. All of it will feel worse in July 2028, which is the point at which you will still be using a phone Nothing promised to support with security patches until 2032.

Connectivity holds up better. Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 6.0, NFC, dual nano-SIM, USB-C, stereo speakers, and 5G are all present, confirmed by TechCabal and cross-referenced in Notebookcheck's specification listing. Bluetooth 6.0 in a £299 phone is unusually current.

Best Budget Nothing Phone 2026: The Decision Matrix

Use the framing below rather than the marketing to decide.

• If your ceiling is £299 or you want the newest Glyph Bar design: buy the Phone (4b). It is the cheapest way into Nothing OS 4.1 with six years of security support.
• If you can stretch by £50/€20: buy the Phone (4a). The telephoto camera alone justifies the gap for anyone who photographs people or objects at distance, and the faster chip protects the purchase for longer.
• If you already own a Phone (3a) or (3a) Pro: skip both. The (4b) is a lateral or downward move on silicon, and the (4a) upgrade is not large enough to justify replacing a working phone.
• If you are shopping in the United States: neither is officially sold. Look at unlocked Pixel or Samsung A-series options instead, or read our take on the Sony Xperia 1 VIII if premium is on the table.
• If you are in India: the 6,000mAh variant genuinely changes the calculation. All-day battery on a sub-₹35,000 phone with six years of updates is competitive against Redmi and Poco at similar prices.

Tech Girl scored the Phone (4b) at 80/100 and summarised the review as "CMF Vibes at Nothing Price", aggregated by Notebookcheck. That is a fair line. The (4b) inherits the polycarbonate unibody from the Phone (4a) Pro and weighs 210g at IP64, per TechCabal, which is closer to CMF's material story than to the Phone (4a)'s glass sandwich. You are buying CMF hardware DNA with Nothing software polish and Nothing's software support commitment. That is a real thing. It is just not a £299 thing when £349 gets you the (4a).

Buy the Phone (4a) if you can find it at the pre-increase price or close to it. Buy the Phone (4b) if £299 is the number you cannot exceed and you want to stay inside Nothing's software update window until 2032. For anyone browsing broader options at this price point, our smartphones category and buying guides archive cover the current alternatives from Google, Samsung, and Xiaomi.