Nothing Phone (4a) Pro vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 | TechTalkTown
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7
Nothing Phone (4a) Pro
Nothing
8.5
The $499 phone to beat
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7
Samsung
8.5
Finally feels like a normal phone
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 Z Fold 7
What Reviewers Agree On
At 4.2mm unfolded and 215 grams the Fold 7 finally feels like a normal phone when closed — the cover screen's 21:9 aspect ratio and slimmer chassis are the headline upgrades every reviewer leads with.
The redesigned Armor FlexHinge with a waterdrop fold has made the inner-display crease the least visible on any Samsung foldable to date — close to imperceptible when running a finger over it.
The larger 8-inch inner display and 6.5-inch outer display are bigger and brighter (2,600-nit peak) than the Fold 6's, with Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on the cover and a new titanium support lattice that makes the inner panel feel solid under the finger.
Borrowing the 200MP main sensor from the S25 Ultra is a real, visible upgrade over the Fold 6's 50MP unit — finally putting the Fold's main camera in the same league as Samsung's flagship slab phones.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy delivers fluid everyday performance — no stutters with three apps tiled on the inner display, even at high gaming settings.
Samsung's seven years of OS upgrades and security patches (through 2032) match the industry's best long-term support window and Samsung has committed to keeping preloaded Galaxy AI features free.
The asymmetric protruding camera bump makes the phone wobble badly on flat surfaces — virtually every reviewer flags this as the design's one real misstep.
Deal Breakers
The S Pen and digitizer layer were removed entirely — there is no stylus support on either display, which long-time Note/Fold users see as a core feature lost to the thinness chase.
Battery life is the Fold's weakest area: same 4,400 mAh cell as the Fold 6 with slow 25W wired and 15W wireless charging, well behind the Find N5 (5,600 mAh, 80W) and Honor Magic V5 (5,820 mAh, 66W) that have moved to silicon-carbon battery tech.
At $1,999 (raised by $100 over Fold 6 and now subject to a further mid-cycle price hike) it is one of the most expensive non-foldable phones you can buy, and reviewers from the Verge to Ars Technica call out that this price is a real friction point.
Still IP48 — water-resistant but only rated against particles larger than 1mm, not a true dust rating like the IP58/IP59 Honor is now offering on the Magic V5.
iFixit gave the Fold 7 a 3/10 repairability score, with even basic battery replacement requiring dismantling much of the device — a fragility flag for a $2,000 phone.
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 Z Fold 7
Pros
At 4.2mm unfolded and 215 grams the Fold 7 finally feels like a normal phone when closed — the cover screen's 21:9 aspect ratio and slimmer chassis are the headline upgrades every reviewer leads with.
The redesigned Armor FlexHinge with a waterdrop fold has made the inner-display crease the least visible on any Samsung foldable to date — close to imperceptible when running a finger over it.
The larger 8-inch inner display and 6.5-inch outer display are bigger and brighter (2,600-nit peak) than the Fold 6's, with Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on the cover and a new titanium support lattice that makes the inner panel feel solid under the finger.
Borrowing the 200MP main sensor from the S25 Ultra is a real, visible upgrade over the Fold 6's 50MP unit — finally putting the Fold's main camera in the same league as Samsung's flagship slab phones.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy delivers fluid everyday performance — no stutters with three apps tiled on the inner display, even at high gaming settings.
Samsung's seven years of OS upgrades and security patches (through 2032) match the industry's best long-term support window and Samsung has committed to keeping preloaded Galaxy AI features free.
The asymmetric protruding camera bump makes the phone wobble badly on flat surfaces — virtually every reviewer flags this as the design's one real misstep.
Cons
The S Pen and digitizer layer were removed entirely — there is no stylus support on either display, which long-time Note/Fold users see as a core feature lost to the thinness chase.
Battery life is the Fold's weakest area: same 4,400 mAh cell as the Fold 6 with slow 25W wired and 15W wireless charging, well behind the Find N5 (5,600 mAh, 80W) and Honor Magic V5 (5,820 mAh, 66W) that have moved to silicon-carbon battery tech.
At $1,999 (raised by $100 over Fold 6 and now subject to a further mid-cycle price hike) it is one of the most expensive non-foldable phones you can buy, and reviewers from the Verge to Ars Technica call out that this price is a real friction point.
Still IP48 — water-resistant but only rated against particles larger than 1mm, not a true dust rating like the IP58/IP59 Honor is now offering on the Magic V5.
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 Z Fold 7
Samsung's headline change is the chassis: 4.2mm thin unfolded, 8.9mm closed, 215 grams — 24g lighter than the Fold 6 and three grams lighter than the S25 Ultra. The new Armor FlexHinge cuts visible creasing significantly and the body uses Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on the cover with a titanium support layer behind the inner panel. The one near-universal complaint is the prominent rear camera bump, which makes the phone wobble badly on any flat surface.
It is thin. It is luxurious — Samsung joins Honor and Oppo in making a folding phone that's almost as thin as a regular phone, with real benefits.
At 215 grams the Fold 7 is 24 grams lighter than the Fold 6 and lighter even than the non-folding Galaxy S25 Ultra, and 4.2mm unfolded / 8.9mm folded is a 27 percent reduction over its predecessor.
I've shown the Fold 7 to more than 30 people and none could immediately identify that it unfolded — Samsung's goal of a folding phone that feels like a regular phone is achieved.
Samsung has shaved about a quarter of the weight and thickness compared to last year's Fold 6, and it's immediately noticeable when picking it up.
The phone sits crooked on surfaces and wobbles when you tap the screen — the camera bump protrudes a lot and a case feels like a requirement.
The Fold 7 is the most wobbly phone on a desk you've ever fought — get motion sick trying to type because the camera bump shakes the whole device.
Samsung has outdone the Oppo Find N5 on thinness — the Fold 7 feels nearly the thickness of a typical slab phone when closed.
The hinge is harder to open than previous generations — there's less material to grip and Samsung didn't add a notch, so you really have to work it.
Camera bump positioning leads to pronounced wobbling on flat surfaces, and the slimmer chassis means S Pen support is gone — those are the two design downsides for a 'good' (87%) score.
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 Z Fold 7
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy delivers fluid everyday performance, but in this thinner chassis Samsung has clearly throttled the chip to manage heat — Digital Trends benchmarks show the Fold 7 trailing both the S25 Ultra and even the 7-core Oppo Find N5 on multi-core CPU. GPU performance is closer to flagship S25 levels, and the phone gets warm but not distressingly hot under gaming load.
The Fold 7 had no problems running Diablo Immortal at the highest display settings and the phone didn't even get very warm — though using it as a hotspot in direct sun on a high-80s afternoon caused it to start closing apps after 10 minutes.
Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy boosts CPU and GPU by 38% and 26% respectively versus the standard 8 Elite, with NPU compute up 40% — paired with 12GB or 16GB of RAM.
In GeekBench 6 the Fold 7 scored 2650 single-core / 8143 multi-core / 16245 GPU — below the Galaxy S25 Ultra (2974 / 9475 / 17776) and even below the 7-core Find N5 in multi-core (7912).
Yet to experience a single stutter or any lag — high-end gaming on the internal screen with Crashlands 2 at max quality runs fine, and the 16GB RAM model handles three internal-panel apps simultaneously.
Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy performance is throttled in this chassis — Digital Trends benchmarked the Fold 7 below the S25 Ultra and even below the 7-core Oppo Find N5 in multi-core CPU.
iFixit gave the Fold 7 a 3/10 repairability score, with even basic battery replacement requiring dismantling much of the device — a fragility flag for a $2,000 phone.
Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy performance is throttled in this chassis — Digital Trends benchmarked the Fold 7 below the S25 Ultra and even below the 7-core Oppo Find N5 in multi-core CPU.
SoC performance turns out lower in benchmarks than the S25 Ultra, which can probably be traced back to the weaker cooling in the slimmer build — though this doesn't make much of a difference in everyday operation.
The 20-minute 3DMark stress test drained 7% on the Fold 7 versus 13% on the S25 Ultra — the chip is throttled to manage battery, mostly affecting CPU.
Slight stutters at times compared to the best flagship phones — likely one of the compromises we have to accept in ultra-thin phones, similar to the Galaxy S25 Edge.
