For the past 4 days, I was in Ladakh with Nothing India, which wanted us to experience their new device, the Nothing Phone 4b, in the Land of High Passes. The brand has launched this smartphone at a starting price of Rs 34,999. And has offered discounts worth Rs 5,000 during the early days of the launch. We’ve already shared our first-look video across our social media channels, so if you prefer watching a quick overview, you can check that out by tapping here. If you’re here for a more detailed take, here are our first impressions of the new Nothing Phone 4b.
We are yet to test the smartphone completely before I can give you a detailed review, but as far as a quick sneak peek goes, I have some opinions.
Thoughts On Nothing Phone 4b
When I first saw the Nothing Phone 4b variants in person, I got hooked on the colours. Nothing India has launched the Phone 4b in three colours: Blue, Black, and White. All three of these colours, we have previously seen on Nothing phones, but what stood out the most for me was the RCB Limited Edition variant. The kind of red that they have used is quite attractive.
After the colours, the second thing that I noticed was the entire design language, which didn’t feel ‘unique’, something that Nothing is known for. It comes with a polycarbonate body, and while the camera module does include a Glyph Bar, screws, the design language looks identical to other budget phones in the market (except for the colours, obviously).
If I talk about its form factors, the Nothing Phone 4b weighs 210 grams and is 8.6mm thick. Not the lightest, not the thinnest, but during my trip, it did not interfere with my convenience. And the IP64 rating is also a good plus.
While using it indoors, the 6.77-inch AMOLED display on this one looked vibrant and felt fluid with 120Hz refresh rate support. And with Nothing OS, it became more attractive. However, the brightness could have been better. The sun is very bright in Leh, and under this harsh sunlight, the display of the Nothing Phone 4b was not very bright.
Even the bezels on the display, especially the chin, are as thick as what we see on sub-Rs 20,000 smartphones.
For photography, you are getting a dual-camera setup, which includes a 50-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera. The camera samples at 1x came out brilliantly. I like how Nothing has tuned its camera in a way that you can capture the scene in a way that it looks prettier than it actually is.
Even the ultrawide sensor has done a decent job with a 119.5° field of view and sharp details in daylight.
And last but not least, it’s raw power, which we will test in depth later for the review, but purely as per my experience in Leh, the 6000mAh battery impressed me the most. In two days, after constantly shooting videos and clicking pictures, the battery only dropped by 43%. It is also the biggest battery Nothing has put in any of its smartphones.
But the question arises when it comes to the processor – the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4. Yes, the hardware prices are shooting like anything, every gadget is seeing a massive surge in pricing, but still, the ideal price hike for smartphones in India currently is around seven to eight thousand rupees. And on paper, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 does feel like a slower SoC for a Rs 34,999 smartphone.
But then also, Nothing claims that it helps its battery last longer. So stay tuned for our final verdict as we test the device for the review.
