Nothing Phone (4a) Pro vs Xiaomi 17

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.

Xiaomi 17

A compact 120Hz LTPO AMOLED that punches well above its size for outdoor brightness, though it uses a different (lower) pixel arrangement than the Pro Max and measured full-screen brightness is well under the headline figure.

• The display is as good as it can get on a compact flagship — high-res, vibrant and as bright as 3,500 nits peak.
• Measured over 1,000 nits in auto mode and over 3,400 nits on a smaller patch — more than enough for good legibility outdoors.
• In controlled testing, manual full-screen white brightness reached only around 1,100 nits — far below the 3,500-nit peak headline figure.
• The standard model's screen doesn't use the new pixel arrangement found in the Pro Max version, though it still holds certain advantages.
• Peak brightness of up to 3,500 nits keeps everything clearly visible even in direct sunlight.

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.

Xiaomi 17

A capable Leica-tuned main and telephoto pairing lets the compact 17 shoot above its class, but the ultrawide is a clear step backwards and default autofocus on people can be unreliable.

• The main and zoom cameras are nothing short of excellent, though against the Vivo and Pixel 10 Pro it isn't such a clear-cut win.
• The ultrawide is downgraded — poor quality, narrower field of view and still no autofocus.
• The ultrawide lens is just 17mm wide, so the images aren't very wide at all.
• Reviewers loved the Leica tuning on the base Xiaomi 17, even where exposure occasionally clips highlights.
• The 60mm-class telephoto is good, but after a month you find yourself wishing it had more reach.

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.

Xiaomi 17

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 makes the 17 one of the fastest compact phones around, but sustained-load behaviour is the single most contested topic in the coverage.

• Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 on a 3nm process, claiming ~20% better CPU performance and ~35% better battery efficiency than the previous generation, with a Geekbench 6 single-core score of 3,367 and multi-core of 9,830.
• If you look at benchmark scores, it is a significant upgrade over the 8 Elite that powered the Xiaomi 15.
• After a month it still feels just as snappy as day one, with high-end titles running at top settings and sustained performance over long sessions holding up well.
• In a prolonged CPU stress test the Xiaomi 17 did worse than expected, dipping to less than 40% of maximum and spiking continuously rather than holding stable.
• In Honkai Star Rail the Xiaomi 17 began throttling after about 3 minutes of gameplay, with the device becoming extremely hot to the touch.

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.

Xiaomi 17

The headline reason to buy a compact 17: an oversized silicon-anode battery and very fast charging that together solve the usual small-phone endurance problem.

• The massive 6,330mAh battery is truly exceptional for a compact flagship (the China version is 7,000mAh).
• You can get a full day of use, up to ~7 hours of screen-on time and sometimes more depending on usage.
• In a one-month real-world test, 6–7 hours of screen-on time on regular days was normal, dropping to 5–6 hours on heavy days, with up to ~16 hours in benchmark testing.
• Reached close to 9–10 hours of screen-on time on regular use — a genuine full-day battery phone — with 100W wired and 50W wireless charging faster than the iPhone 17 or Galaxy S26.
• 100W charging takes the 6,330mAh battery from 0–100% in as little as 45–46 minutes.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Nothing OS 4.1 on Android 16 is the universal favourite: near-stock AOSP functionality with a distinctive monochrome visual identity, almost no bloatware, and AI that's present but not forced. The one hard reservation is update length — only 3 years of OS upgrades against 6 years of security patches.

• Nothing OS sticks close to a clean, near-stock Android (AOSP) experience in functionality, but stands out with its distinctive visual identity.
• After a week the phone is 'absolutely brilliant'; software is where Nothing phones shine, even if the camera 'window' at the top of the display is basically a pseudo-iPhone look.
• Software is where Nothing phones absolutely shine — the clearest reason to pick this over rivals.
• There's a smattering of AI here, but it's not shoved down your throat — and the software is basically the same clean setup as the regular Nothing Phone (4a).
• Unlike Samsung's Galaxy AI which is in your face from day one, Nothing's AI stays out of the way — an impressive, restrained package overall.
• Nothing's take on Android 16 has some of the best design consistency you'll find on any Android UI, Google included.

Xiaomi 17

HyperOS 3 on Android 16 is fast and visually polished but draws repeated criticism for bugs, bloat and missing basics — and the China ROM many global buyers import has real Google-service gaps.

• Runs Android 16 with Xiaomi's HyperOS 3, which is a very aesthetically pleasing UI.
• Feature-rich HyperOS 3 with a promised 5 years of major upgrades, but the software feels cheap with lots of bugs and you have to calculate screen-on time yourself because there's no built-in counter.
• Xiaomi confirmed the entire Xiaomi 17 series gets 6 years of security updates with end-of-life in February 2032.
• On the China ROM there is no Google Play Store out of the box, and you can't get into the Google Discover page — a real friction point for global buyers.
• Proprietary apps like settings, file manager and security ship with built-in ads.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

At $499 it directly undercuts the experience-per-dollar of the same-priced Pixel 10a and iPhone 17e, and several reviewers would take it over the 10a without hesitation. The closest internal threat is its own cheaper sibling, the standard Phone (4a), which shares the same cameras for $150 less.

• From the design to the software and cameras, this is a phone that should absolutely not be slept on — at the price of a Pixel 10a, 'I'd take this 10 out of 10 times over a 10a.'
• Vibes and great value for under $500 — a balanced all-rounder.
• Against its immediate rivals the Pixel 10a and iPhone 17e it looks impressive: a larger, brighter, faster display, more cameras, and Nothing's unique design including the Glyph Matrix.
• A premium balanced package with polished software and really good cameras — recommended, even if it's not perfect on the IP rating or front-camera 4K.
• The biggest problem for the 4a Pro is its own little brother — the standard 4a costs much less and gets the exact same cameras.
• While the (4a)'s design is still the best in the Nothing range, the (4a) Pro is a close second, and its speakers sound better than the standard model's.

Xiaomi 17

At roughly $630 the 17 is aggressively priced for a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 flagship, but reviewers disagree on whether it's a category-beater or merely a strong-value option in a crowded field.

• At around $630 it's a phone that's scaring the big brands on price-to-performance.
• For being cheaper than the iPhone, the Xiaomi 17 is a really compelling — and noticeably cheaper — option.
• Outside of being a rare compact flagship, the Xiaomi 17 doesn't offer anything significantly better than its competition.
• With a top-tier processor, Leica cameras, great display and a huge fast-charging battery, the Xiaomi 17 is one of the best price-to-performance phones of 2026.
• For a compact phone it didn't feel like a downgrade when switching from an iPhone 17 Pro daily driver.