Nothing Phone (4a) Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S25 | TechTalkTown
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S25
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
Nothing
8.5
The $499 phone to beat
Samsung Galaxy S25
Samsung
7.8
Safe small-Android pick
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.
Pros & Cons
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.
Detailed Comparison
Design & Build
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
The defining change this generation: a metal unibody that ditches the transparent back for a minimal lower half and a distinctive rectangular camera island, topped by a slimmed-down Glyph Matrix. Reviewers overwhelmingly call it the slimmest, most premium Nothing ever — but the redesign is genuinely polarising, and the IP65 rating is one notch below the flagship norm.
A $499 phone that looks and feels higher-end than last year's flagship Phone 3, helped in large part by the new metal design.
An upgraded metal unibody ditches the iconic transparent back for a more minimal look in the bottom half, while a new rectangular camera island in Nothing's distinctive style helps it stand out.
It's the slimmest Nothing phone ever and just feels more pro and more premium in the hand.
The Glyph Matrix uses 137 mini-LEDs that are 57% larger and twice as bright as the Phone 3's interface — and the silver version is the best-looking, while the black metal can look almost plasti-dipped.
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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.
Samsung Galaxy S25
What Reviewers Agree On
The 6.2-inch form factor makes the S25 the last 'reasonably sized' Android flagship you can buy in the US — a real selling point in 2025.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy delivers a legitimate generational jump (Engadget measured multi-core 8,950 vs 7,049 on the S24; Trusted Reviews logged Geekbench 6 multi 9,450) and the phone stays cool in normal use.
Battery life is meaningfully better than the S24 despite the unchanged 4,000 mAh cell — Engadget measured 28+ hours of video playback, roughly four hours longer than its predecessor, thanks to the more efficient 3nm chip.
The 6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display is bright (2,600-nit peak), sharp at 1080p / 416 ppi, and pleasant to use day to day.
Seven years of OS and security updates match Google and Apple and remain one of the strongest reasons to buy a Samsung flagship.
One UI 7 on Android 15 is a genuinely big software step — the Now Bar, redesigned Quick Settings, smoother animations and deeper Gemini integration are reviewer favorites.
Build quality is high — IP68 dust/water resistance, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back, Armor Aluminum 2 frame, and a 5g weight reduction over the S24.
Deal Breakers
Hardware is virtually unchanged from the S24 — the same camera trio, same 4,000 mAh battery, same display, same 1080p resolution and same $799 price tag make the upgrade case very weak.
The 12MP ultrawide is now lackluster — the S25 Ultra got the new 50MP ultrawide and the base S25 / S25+ did not, so reviewers like Wired call out that an $800 Pixel 9 has a 48MP ultrawide for the same money.
Cameras still lag the Pixel 9 and iPhone 16 in stills for most reviewers — Wired and Trusted Reviews both say the competition has pulled ahead while Samsung stood still.
Charging is slow versus rivals — 25W wired and 15W wireless trail the OnePlus 13R (80W) and many Chinese flagships; full charge takes around 90 minutes (Trusted Reviews), and Qi2 'Ready' only works through a separately purchased magnetic case.
Galaxy AI is a mixed bag — Gemini cross-app actions help, but Now Brief is openly described as useless by Digital Trends and 9to5Google, and Samsung will not commit to whether Galaxy AI stays free after the end of 2025.
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.
Samsung Galaxy S25
Pros
The 6.2-inch form factor makes the S25 the last 'reasonably sized' Android flagship you can buy in the US — a real selling point in 2025.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy delivers a legitimate generational jump (Engadget measured multi-core 8,950 vs 7,049 on the S24; Trusted Reviews logged Geekbench 6 multi 9,450) and the phone stays cool in normal use.
Battery life is meaningfully better than the S24 despite the unchanged 4,000 mAh cell — Engadget measured 28+ hours of video playback, roughly four hours longer than its predecessor, thanks to the more efficient 3nm chip.
The 6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display is bright (2,600-nit peak), sharp at 1080p / 416 ppi, and pleasant to use day to day.
Seven years of OS and security updates match Google and Apple and remain one of the strongest reasons to buy a Samsung flagship.
One UI 7 on Android 15 is a genuinely big software step — the Now Bar, redesigned Quick Settings, smoother animations and deeper Gemini integration are reviewer favorites.
Build quality is high — IP68 dust/water resistance, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back, Armor Aluminum 2 frame, and a 5g weight reduction over the S24.
Cons
Hardware is virtually unchanged from the S24 — the same camera trio, same 4,000 mAh battery, same display, same 1080p resolution and same $799 price tag make the upgrade case very weak.
The 12MP ultrawide is now lackluster — the S25 Ultra got the new 50MP ultrawide and the base S25 / S25+ did not, so reviewers like Wired call out that an $800 Pixel 9 has a 48MP ultrawide for the same money.
Cameras still lag the Pixel 9 and iPhone 16 in stills for most reviewers — Wired and Trusted Reviews both say the competition has pulled ahead while Samsung stood still.
Charging is slow versus rivals — 25W wired and 15W wireless trail the OnePlus 13R (80W) and many Chinese flagships; full charge takes around 90 minutes (Trusted Reviews), and Qi2 'Ready' only works through a separately purchased magnetic case.
Galaxy AI is a mixed bag — Gemini cross-app actions help, but Now Brief is openly described as useless by Digital Trends and 9to5Google, and Samsung will not commit to whether Galaxy AI stays free after the end of 2025.
It's IP65 dust- and splash-resistant — one step below the IP64-rated regular Phone (4a) only on splash, and below the IP68 some early articles wrongly listed; the Glyph is massively slimmed from the Phone 3's 489 lights down to 137.
The 4a's design is gorgeous, but the Pro 'looks like an AI-generated design' — Nothing's look is now seen by some as a parody of its original transparent, Teenage Engineering-like identity.
Even people who don't always love Nothing's designs appreciate that the brand is trying to make a phone more unique than a 'plain black glass slab'.
Samsung Galaxy S25
The S25 keeps the S24's flat-edge aluminum chassis nearly intact — 0.4 mm thinner, 5 g lighter, and visually distinguishable only by slightly more prominent camera rings. Reviewers unanimously call out that this is now the last 'small' Android flagship you can buy in the US, which has become a feature in its own right. Build quality is high: Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back, Armor Aluminum 2 frame, IP68 rating.
The Galaxy S25 is secretly the best small Android phone you can buy in the US — almost more by attrition than by design, since Google's Pixel only comes in big and bigger.
After several years of testing 6.5-inch-plus phones, having the 6.2-inch S25 around is refreshing — small enough to use one-handed but still big enough for everything but extended video.
The S25 is a 'pocket powerhouse' — its lightweight, compact build delivers a refreshing change from larger devices while still offering a big enough display for everything you need.
Aside from the camera lens hubcaps and the new chip inside, the S25 is essentially the same boxy, sharp-cornered phone we've seen for the past three years.
Spot-the-difference between the S25 and S24 is a tough game — the camera lenses sit slightly more prominent on the rear, the weight is 5g lower, and that is basically the entire visual delta.
Build quality is excellent — Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on both sides, an Armor Aluminum frame, IP68 water and dust resistance, and a high-quality feel in the hand.
The S25 series is so visually similar to the S24 that the new color palette is one of the few obvious ways to tell them apart — Black is now a Samsung.com-exclusive, leaving Navy, Mint, Icy Blue and Silver Shadow at most retailers.
Unbox Therapy noted the S25 design language is 'as minimal as you can get' — a familiar boxy phone with very little flair in the camera layout, branded with a small mirrored Samsung logo on the back.
Display
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
A 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED at 144Hz with 2,160Hz PWM dimming — reviewers agree it's the best screen Nothing has built, with realistic outdoor brightness around 1,600 nits. The headline 5,000-nit peak, though, only materialises with special HDR test files; everyday brightness is far lower.
Nothing's best-ever display: a 144Hz panel with 1,600 nits of outdoor brightness and a claimed 5,000 nits peak; the main camera is solid too with nice detail and well-reproduced colours.
A claimed 1,600-nit outdoor brightness is realistic — no major visibility issues outdoors even in strong sunshine, putting it among the best affordable phones, and Nothing OS has some of the best design consistency of any Android UI.
The 4,500-nit HDR peak was only validated with specific HDR test files, not actual video playback — real-world output is around 700 nits in SDR and 1,550–1,600 in HDR.
The '5,000-nit peak brightness' spec means nothing in practice — a marketing figure pulled from a single-pixel measurement.
144Hz refresh (vs 120Hz on the regular 4a) and 1,600 nits white brightness / 5,000 nits peak, marketed as 66% brighter than the Phone (3a) series — though there's no extra output on a small 10% window.
High-frequency PWM dimming makes it better suited to users sensitive to screen flicker, although slight flickering is still present.
Samsung Galaxy S25
The 6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel is unchanged from the S24 — 1080p / 416 ppi, 1–120 Hz LTPO, 2,600-nit peak brightness, HDR10+. Reviewers praise the sharpness and color but flag that the base S25 does not get the Ultra's new anti-reflective Gorilla Armor 2 coating, peak brightness is rarely sustained in manual mode, and PWM dimming sits at a low 240 Hz on Notebookcheck's measurements.
The 6.2-inch display has not changed from the Galaxy S24 but remains a great screen with good detail, vibrancy and plenty of punch — perfectly sized for one-handed use.
The 2X AMOLED screen tops out at 2,600 nits peak and is plenty bright, with variable refresh rates from 1 Hz to 120 Hz — though at 6.2 inches it can feel small for extensive Netflix or YouTube watching.
Notebookcheck measured 1,311 cd/m² in APL18 white and a 2,594 cd/m² HDR peak — light output is almost identical to the S24, but PWM dimming sits at just 240 Hz which can bother sensitive eyes.
Brightness is not as high as some Android rivals — the OnePlus 13R reaches 4,500 nits — but the S25 is bright enough for sunny days and HDR streaming.
Performance
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 with UFS 3.1 storage is a clear, tangible step up from the Phone (3a) generation — Nothing claims +27% CPU, +30% GPU and +65% AI. It's a perfectly capable everyday chip that feels noticeably quicker, but it's explicitly not a gaming powerhouse and warms up under sustained heavy load.
Backed by OS optimisations and a custom CPU scheduler, the chipset delivers 27% better CPU, 30% better GPU and 65% better AI performance than the Nothing Phone (3a); storage is 147% faster in reads and 380% faster in writes.
Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 is a perfectly acceptable chip across the board, and the upgrade to UFS 3.1 makes this feel noticeably quicker compared to the Nothing Phone (3a) and prior.
The CPU performance difference between the 4a Pro and the vanilla 4a is not massive, but it is still very much notable.
Available in 8GB+128GB, 8GB+256GB and 12GB+256GB configurations, all running near-stock AOSP-style Nothing OS.
Like most phones in this segment, it shows some basic heat build-up during really extensive tasks like gaming or 4K editing in high-end software, though it stays responsive while gaming.
It's by no means a top-notch gaming phone, although the processor is better than the regular 4a's and squeezes out a bit more performance and FPS.
Samsung Galaxy S25
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is the single substantive hardware change this year and reviewers agree it delivers — Engadget measured multi-core Geekbench jumping from 7,049 on the S24 to 8,950, Trusted Reviews logged 9,450 multi-core / 3,101 single-core. The base S25 lacks the Ultra's larger vapor chamber so it warms up under sustained load, but everyday performance is butter-smooth. RAM is now 12GB across all storage tiers — a real upgrade.
With the 3 nm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, CPU multi-core hit 8,950 (up from 7,049 on the S24) and GPU scored 19,158 (up from 15,082) — a meaningful generational jump.
Geekbench 6 multi-core landed at 9,450 and single-core at 3,101, putting the S25 at the top of the Android pile and roughly on par with the iPhone 16 in multi-core.
Everyday tasks and gaming run smoothly — the S25 got warm under stress tests and back-to-back generative AI plus 4K video uploads but never uncomfortably hot.
Back-to-back generative AI requests and shooting and uploading 4K video made the S25 heat up — it lacks the expanded vapor chamber that Samsung added to the S25 Ultra.
Battery & Charging
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.
Roughly 13 hours of continuous playback at maximum brightness in a streaming test — impressive for what Nothing is doing at this price.
Samsung Galaxy S25
The 4,000 mAh battery is unchanged from the S24, but the more efficient 3 nm chip pushes real-world endurance noticeably further — Engadget recorded 28+ hours of video playback (about 4 hours longer than the S24), Trusted Reviews ended most days with 30%+ remaining, 9to5Google occasionally killed it in a heavy day. Charging is the weakness — 25W wired, 15W wireless, with Qi2 'Ready' working only via a separately purchased magnetic case. The OnePlus 13R's 80W wired charging is a generation ahead.
The Galaxy S25 clocked in at over 28 hours of video playback — almost four hours more than the S24, and a real testament to processor efficiency gains since the battery itself didn't grow.
Battery life was decent overall — most days finished with over 30% remaining, comfortably getting through a day but not a full two-day phone.
A 4,000 mAh battery at $799 is not great — 9to5Google could kill the phone in a single heavy day, and a midday top-up may become routine as the battery ages.
The S25's 4,000 mAh got me through a full day of moderate use — a smaller battery is a concern in a tiny device but the new chip earns the phone enough efficiency to compensate.
The base S25 misses the S25 Ultra's anti-reflective Gorilla Armor 2 coating and the new 200MP / 50MP ultrawide cameras — reviewers say the gap between the S25 and the Ultra has widened, not narrowed.
The base S25 misses the S25 Ultra's anti-reflective Gorilla Armor 2 coating and the new 200MP / 50MP ultrawide cameras — reviewers say the gap between the S25 and the Ultra has widened, not narrowed.
The S25 keeps Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 instead of the Ultra's Gorilla Armor 2 — meaning no anti-reflective coating on the base model, a step Trusted Reviews wishes had trickled down.
Dave2D notes the regular S25 and S25+ did not get any design overhaul — the new anti-reflective coating is exclusive to the Ultra, and the difference vs the Plus is visible side-by-side under overhead light.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is the most powerful chip on Android to date, with a special enhanced 'for Galaxy' variant supporting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 — the biggest upgrade in years.
Across all S25 devices the Snapdragon 8 Elite shows roughly 25–30 percent better real-world battery efficiency over the previous generation — and that is the change that matters most.
For now this is the most powerful small phone on the market — the Snapdragon 8 Elite makes the S25 feel slick and top-of-the-line, and dropping the Exynos chip globally is a big win for non-US buyers.
All three S25 models share the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 12 GB of RAM — the biggest practical differences between them come down to battery size and screen size.
Charging speeds aren't the fastest — 25W wired and 15W wireless trail the OnePlus 13R's 80W, but Trusted Reviews considers it comparable to Apple and Google and not a deal-breaker.
Qi2 charging only works through a compatible third-party magnetic case — the phone itself has no built-in magnets, and Samsung's first-party magnetic case has 'weak magnets' that lose hold over potholes.
0–50% wired charging took 33 minutes and a full 0–100% charge took 90 minutes — Trusted Reviews benchmarks confirm Samsung is happy to stay conservative versus 80W-plus Chinese rivals.
Samsung has stuck to the same 4,000 mAh capacity, 25W wired, 15W wireless and 4.5W reverse wireless charging as the S24 — there's an upgrade to Qi2.1 Ready, but it can go easily unnoticed.
