Nothing's two new affordable phones have surprisingly good cameras – and there's a shutter remote hidden in their headphones

Nothing might sound like a weird name for a phone company, but this London-based brand is well worth paying attention to. Not least because, in an industry dominated by sameness, their products stand apart from the crowd. We're talking transparent backs, sculptural notification lights, a stripped-back operating system... fun, right? What the brand lacks in Samsung's scale and Apple's R&D budget, it makes up for with a genuine point of view.

Which brings us to 2026. A few weeks ago, they published a letter announcing they wouldn't be releasing a flagship phone this year. No cynical annual refresh. The tech press applauded. Then this morning, at an event held at London art and design college Central Saint Martins, Nothing has announced two new phones – Nothing Phone (4a) and Nothing Phone (4a) Pro – along with some colorful new headphones.

For journalists, that's confusing. For photographers, though, what matters is what these highly affordable devices can do... and the answer is more interesting than you might expect. Let's look at them in turn.

The Phone (4a): a capable foundation

The Phone (4a) starts at £349 / €349 / $349 (while it won't see a traditional carrier release in the States, US enthusiasts can snag it for via Nothing’s expanded US Beta Program).

The Phone (4a) brings high-end optics to a mid-range price, featuring a 50MP Samsung GN9 main sensor and, for the first time on a base model, a 50MP Samsung JN5 tetraprism periscope lens capable of 3.5x optical and 70x digital zoom. This is rounded out by an 8MP Sony IMX355 ultra-wide and a 32MP front camera.

Everything is processed through TrueLens Engine 4, which supports Ultra XDR: a Google co-developed feature that combines 13 raw frames to reconstruct highlight and shadow detail. It's now directly shareable to Instagram without re-exporting, and extends to motion photos.

The AI Photo Eraser handles object removal entirely on-device, with no internet connection needed, which is a meaningful advantage in the field. The Glyph Bar on the back, with 63 individually controlled mini-LEDs, can also double as a subtle fill light for photos and video.

The Phone (4a) is built around a vibrant 6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED display featuring a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and an impressive peak brightness of 4,500 nits, ensuring clarity even in harsh sunlight. Under the hood, it boasts a massive 5,400mAh battery (the largest ever in a Nothing phone) paired with 50W fast charging that can hit a 60% charge in just 30 minutes.

The Pro: where things get interesting

The Phone (4a) Pro is what warrants serious attention from mobile photographers, described on stage as delivering "flagship level photography", despite its very much less than flagship price.

This model elevates the experience with a more advanced 50MP Sony LYT700C main sensor for faster autofocus, and while it shares the 50MP 3.5x tetraprism periscope found in its smaller sibling, it leverages the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4’s ISP to push AI-assisted Ultra Zoom all the way to 140x. It pairs this with the same 8MP ultra-wide and 32MP selfie unit, but adds the ability to shoot 4K Ultra XDR video with Dolby Vision-style color grading; a major leap forward.

The design, too, is a step up: a metal unibody at just 7.95mm with an IP65 rating, so it’s fully protected against dust and low-pressure water jets (perfect for shooting in a drizzle, though you'll still want to avoid a full dunk in the pool). While the 4a runs the efficient Snapdragon 7s Gen 4, the Pro utilizes the more powerful Snapdragon 7 Gen 4. This extra overhead powers the Glyph Matrix on the Pro; a complex array of 137 mini-LEDs that offers far more granular light-painting for your night shots than the 63-LED Bar on the base model.

The Pro model pushes the display boundaries further with a slightly larger 6.83-inch AMOLED panel that bumps the refresh rate to 144Hz and hits a record-breaking 5,000 nits peak brightness for HDR content. To maintain its record-thin 7.95mm metal frame, it utilizes a high-density 5,080mAh battery, which still promises over 17 hours of mixed use and shares the same 50W rapid charging capabilities as the standard model. The metal construction also promises to help with heat: the Pro runs five degrees cooler under load than its predecessor, which matters on long shoots or extended video sessions.

The Pro starts at £499 / $499 / €479 for 8GB + 128GB. When this pricing was revealed on stage – a fact kept secret even internally until that moment – the crowd at Central Saint Martins responded with audible applause. That reaction tells you something.

The camera remote hiding in the headphones

Here's another reason today's announcements are interesting for photographers. Alongside the phones, Nothing launched the Headphone (a) at £149 / $199 / €159 — significantly better than its predecessor at half the price, according to early reviews. Buried in the spec sheet, beneath the noise cancellation figures and the 135-hour battery life claim, is a button function most people will scroll past: Camera Shutter.

The ear cup's mechanical Button can be remapped via the Nothing X app to trigger your phone's camera remotely. Bluetooth 5.4, 10-metre range, no additional hardware needed. Quite simply, you're wearing the remote.

For photographers shooting solo — self-portraits, flat lays, tripod work — this sounds like it could be genuinely useful. The two-second timer is a workaround; a dedicated shutter button on your ear is cleaner, and unlike a standalone remote, you'll actually have it with you.

The headphones themselves, by the way, are a serious upgrade: wider soundstage, better bass, ANC blocking up to 40dB, and fast-charging that delivers eight hours from five minutes. White, Black and Pink go on sale 13 March; Yellow follows 6 April.

A toolkit, not a coincidence

Look at today's announcements together and what Nothing has assembled – perhaps deliberately, perhaps not – is a compact photography toolkit at accessible prices. A mid-range phone with a tetraprism periscope and offline AI editing. A Pro model with a Sony sensor, 140x zoom, and 4K HDR video. A pair of headphones that double as a wireless shutter remote for less than most dedicated remotes costs on their own.

Nothing promised it wouldn't make a flagship in 2026. It kept that promise. What it made instead is a surprisingly coherent set of tools for photographers who want capable hardware without flagship prices — and one clever headphone feature that has serious practical benefit.