Google Pixel 7a vs Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Google Pixel 7a

Google

8.4

Best mid-range phone of 2023 — flagship cameras at $499

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Nothing

8.5

The $499 phone to beat

Google Pixel 7a

What Reviewers Agree On

Same Tensor G2 chip as the Pixel 7 + 8GB RAM — no performance compromise vs the flagship
First A-series Pixel with wireless charging (7.5W Qi) and a 90Hz display
64MP main + 13MP ultrawide cameras — meaningful upgrade over the 7a's 12MP predecessor, near-flagship quality
Pixel AI features (Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Real Tone, Live Translate) trickle down at $499
6.1" compact OLED in aluminum frame at 193g — pocketable and well-built
$499 starting was a $50 increase over Pixel 6a — strong value vs $599 Pixel 7

Pros & Cons

Google Pixel 7a

Pros

Same Tensor G2 chip as the Pixel 7 + 8GB RAM — no performance compromise vs the flagship
First A-series Pixel with wireless charging (7.5W Qi) and a 90Hz display
64MP main + 13MP ultrawide cameras — meaningful upgrade over the 7a's 12MP predecessor, near-flagship quality
Pixel AI features (Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Real Tone, Live Translate) trickle down at $499
6.1" compact OLED in aluminum frame at 193g — pocketable and well-built

Detailed Comparison

Cameras

Google Pixel 7a

64MP main (new) + 13MP ultrawide camera duo with Tensor G2 processing — best cameras at this price point in 2023. Pixel AI features (Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Real Tone) trickle down at $499.

Cameras: 64MP main (f/1.89, OIS), 13MP ultrawide (f/2.2), 13MP selfie — meaningful upgrade over Pixel 6a's 12MP main.
Pixel AI features (Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Real Tone, Night Sight, Live Translate) all included — flagship Pixel software at $499.
Camera quality near-identical to Pixel 7 in daylight; Pixel 7's larger sensor wins slightly in low light.
No telephoto — Super Res Zoom (digital upscaling on 64MP sensor) substitutes; works up to 8x but quality drops past 2-3x.

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Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

What Reviewers Agree On

The new metal unibody makes the 4a Pro look and feel more premium than Nothing's own £799 Phone 3 — the slimmest, most 'pro'-feeling Nothing yet.
The 6.83-inch 1.5K 144Hz AMOLED is the best display Nothing has ever shipped, with strong real-world outdoor visibility around its realistic 1,600-nit figure.
The dual 50MP main plus 50MP 3.5x periscope-telephoto system is rare flagship-tier camera hardware at $499 and the single biggest reason to buy.
Nothing OS 4.1 on Android 16 is clean, bloat-free and has some of the best design consistency of any Android UI, Google included.
At $499 — the exact price of a Pixel 10a — it's outstanding value, with several reviewers preferring it outright to the 10a.
50W wired charging beats anything Google, Apple or Samsung offer below £500.

Deal Breakers

Only 3 years of OS updates (6 years of security patches) — well behind the 7 years Google and Samsung give at this price.
No wireless charging at all — sacrificed for the metal back.
The battery is only an 80mAh increase over last year and runs marginal next to 6,000–7,000mAh budget rivals.
Measured brightness (~700 nits SDR, ~1,550 HDR) is nowhere near the 5,000-nit headline.
The camera is inconsistent — low-light and deep zoom are merely average rather than class-leading.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Pros

The new metal unibody makes the 4a Pro look and feel more premium than Nothing's own £799 Phone 3 — the slimmest, most 'pro'-feeling Nothing yet.
The 6.83-inch 1.5K 144Hz AMOLED is the best display Nothing has ever shipped, with strong real-world outdoor visibility around its realistic 1,600-nit figure.
The dual 50MP main plus 50MP 3.5x periscope-telephoto system is rare flagship-tier camera hardware at $499 and the single biggest reason to buy.
Nothing OS 4.1 on Android 16 is clean, bloat-free and has some of the best design consistency of any Android UI, Google included.
At $499 — the exact price of a Pixel 10a — it's outstanding value, with several reviewers preferring it outright to the 10a.
50W wired charging beats anything Google, Apple or Samsung offer below £500.

Cons

Only 3 years of OS updates (6 years of security patches) — well behind the 7 years Google and Samsung give at this price.
No wireless charging at all — sacrificed for the metal back.
The battery is only an 80mAh increase over last year and runs marginal next to 6,000–7,000mAh budget rivals.
Measured brightness (~700 nits SDR, ~1,550 HDR) is nowhere near the 5,000-nit headline.
The camera is inconsistent — low-light and deep zoom are merely average rather than class-leading.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

The headline value play: a 50MP Sony LYT-710 main with OIS, a true 50MP 3.5x periscope telephoto (80mm) with OIS, and an 8MP ultrawide — flagship-tier hardware Samsung and Apple don't put in phones at this price. Output is characterful and the telephoto is a genuine win, but reviewers consistently flag inconsistency, average low-light and a gimmicky 140x digital zoom.

Triple rear system: 50MP Sony LYT-710 main (f/1.9, OIS), 8MP ultrawide, and a 50MP periscope telephoto with 3.5x optical zoom (80mm, f/2.9, OIS).
Both the main and periscope-zoom cameras are 50MP and deliver strong results for this price range; the zoom in particular stands out from competitors and even allows for extreme digital zoom.
Having a proper dedicated telephoto shooter is a genuine love, although the camera experience itself is a little bit inconsistent at times.
It's not clinically the best camera, but the shots have a bit more soul to them.
Low-light performance isn't the best, and image quality when you zoom right in isn't the best out there — not bad, just not class-leading.
The 140x zoom headline grabs attention, but in use it's more about how far the camera can push digitally than something you'd rely on day-to-day.
Not super impressed by the camera or the giant protruding bumps the lenses sit in.

Battery & Charging

Google Pixel 7a

4,385mAh battery + Tensor G2 inefficiency = mediocre all-day life. 18W wired charging is slow. FIRST A-series Pixel to support wireless charging (7.5W Qi).

4,385mAh battery — small for a 2023 phone with a power-hungry Tensor G2 chip.
Real-world: ~5 hours of SOT typical, all-day for moderate use but often needing a top-up by evening — most-flagged Pixel 7a complaint.
18W wired charging — slow by 2023 standards. 0-50% in ~30 min, full in ~1h30m.
FIRST A-series Pixel with wireless charging — 7.5W Qi. Not flagship-fast but a meaningful feature add at $499.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

The ~5,080mAh cell reliably gets through a day and endurance improved across all of GSMArena's tests versus the 3a Pro — but it's only an 80mAh bump over last year and looks small next to 6,000–7,000mAh budget rivals. 50W wired charging is the trade-off win; there is no wireless charging at all.

Endurance has improved across the board in all tests compared to last year's Nothing Phone (3a) Pro; with a 68W USB-PD charger the phone peaked at around 42W.
The review unit gets through a day without problems, but it'll certainly be into the red and close to done after about 15 hours of use; the OnePlus 15R has a much meatier battery to last longer.
It's only an 80mAh increase over last year — small fry next to budget rivals like the Poco M8 Pro, which uses silicon-carbon tech to reach 6,500mAh.
50W wired charging is very respectable at this price — besting anything Google, Apple or Samsung offers below £500.
Because the processor isn't power-hungry and the battery is large for the chip, real-world battery life is excellent.