New £349 Android phones from British upstart Nothing want to challenge Google Pixel and Samsung

Nothing CEO Carl Pei warned that smartphone prices will skyrocket over the course of an "unprecedented year" for the industry... but it seems the plucky British startup forgot to adjust its own price tags. Alongside its new wallet-friendly Headphone (a), the five-year-old brand announced a pair of new Android handsets, starting from just £349.

Phone (4a) starts from £349. For that, you'll pocket an expansive 6.78" AMOLED display with 1.5K resolution, dual 50MP cameras, guaranteed 3 years of major Android updates and 6 years of security patches, 5080 mAh battery with support for fast-charging, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage for your apps, games, and photos.

• Preorder Phone (4a) for £349 and you'll be sent Nothing Ear (a) buds for FREE

It's available in Black, White, Blue, and Pink, with Nothing's trademark translucent design — so you can peek inside at some of the components that power this Android device — and the award-winning Glyph Bar, which flashes custom patterns to silently alert you about an incoming call, text, or notification when your handset is face down.

Phone (4a) tops out at £399 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. For comparison, the newly-launched Pixel 10a costs £499 – the most price-sensitive model in Google's lineup, the latest additions to the budget Galaxy A series from Samsung start from £399, and the new iPhone 17e will set you back £599.

On paper, that seems like a good deal. GBN Tech will take delivery of one of these new Android devices to put it through its paces over the coming weeks to see whether it's worth £349 of your hard-earned cash.

Phone (4a) wasn't the only new handset announced by London-based Nothing at its latest launch event.

Phone (4a) Pro starts from £499 and boasts a faster Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 system-on-a-chip, larger 6.83" AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate for silky-smooth animation, and a triple-camera system with a dedicated ultra-wide lens and up to 140x zoom.

At 7.95mm, Phone (4a) Pro is also the slimmest Nothing phone ever.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• Apple's all-new affordable MacBook Neo costs less than iPhone 17
• Freely strikes deal with Roku to bring Freeview replacement to more TVs
• ExpressVPN review
• New iPad Air arrives with one major change – and thankfully, it's NOT the price
• Best VPN deals
• Sky Glass Gen 2 review
• Google releases 'critical' Android update

On the back, Phone (4a) Pro boasts a Glyph Matrix composed of 137 mini-LEDs. It's the same circular, dot-matrix design that made its debut with the Nothing Phone (3) last year.

With a maximum brightness of 3,000nits, it's designed to silently deliver more detailed notifications without the need to flip over your Nothing phone to check.

There's also support for so-called Glyph Toys — small apps created by the community to bring some joy to this unique display, so you can quickly check battery life, set a timer, see the current time, or see a rudimentary preview from the viewfinder when using the rear-mounted cameras for a selfie. As with the Glyth Bar, you can assign personalised light patterns for calls, individual contacts, and notifications.

Both Phone (4a) and Phone (4a) Pro ship with Nothing OS 4.1 out-of-the-box, which is based on Android 16. Nothing has overhauled the mobile software, bringing redesigned icons, a refreshed lock screen, and a deeper dark mode.

The new AI Dashboard gives precise control over AI features throughout the operating system, behind-the-scenes optimisations make performance smoother and faster, and you can now hide app icons from the App Drawer.

You can also design your own lightweight Homescreen Widgets via the built-in Playground app, so you can add shortcuts to specific tasks or functions that you use every day — ensuring you stay productive and in control.

The Essential Space, a new AI-powered scrapbook for your notes, voice memos, ideas and screenshots, makes a return with these new handsets. It's accessed via a double-press of a new button on the side of the handset, dubbed Essential Key. A quick press will capture what's on-screen, with the ability to attach a note, scribble or voice memo.

For the first time, everything saved to the Essential Space can be accessed via the cloud, so you can quickly check the reminder or screenshot that you saved across phones, desktops, laptops, and more.

Preorders for the Phone (4a) begin today, with the worldwide release date scheduled for March 13, 2026. However, the pricier Phone (4a) Pro will be available to preorder in Black, White, Blue, and Pink on March 13, with its release slightly later on March 27, 2026.