The Phone (4b) is a good phone with a sibling problem
Nothing's Phone (4b) landed July 7, and the first wave of reviews agrees on nearly everything. Design: a delight. Battery: the star. Camera: a compromise. Price: that's where the fight breaks out.
The parts everyone liked
Nothing's design language made the trip down-market without losing anything. Reviewers call the (4b) genuinely well-built and good-looking, with the transparent back and Glyph light bar intact at a cheaper tier. EFTM rates it a very well designed "first smartphone" by anybody's measure. 91mobiles' first impressions cast it as a new series with new possibilities. 9to5Google's hands-on went further — a better budget phone at a price that seems impossible.
And the battery earns the hype. EFTM clocked six to seven hours of screen time per charge. That's a full day of moderate use with buffer to spare. Daily performance stays snappy, and light gaming is on the menu.
The part that shows the budget
Cameras are where cheap phones confess, and the (4b) is no exception. Reviews describe an okay primary lens that fades with the light — the sensor is smaller than past budget Nothings used, so low-light shots land inconsistent. Daylight posts? Fine. Dim restaurants and birthday candles? Lower those expectations.
The pricing problem
Now the sibling issue. WhistleOut's Australian review throws the hardest punch: at AU$629 for 8GB/128GB, the (4b) costs a mere $20 less than the existing Phone (4a). And the (4a) brings a faster Snapdragon 7s-series chip plus a triple camera with 3.5x optical zoom. The (4b)'s counter is its bigger battery. WhistleOut's verdict: impossible to recommend when the better phone costs pocket change more.
That math is market-specific, though. Wherever the (4a) holds full price or the (4b) undercuts it harder, the calculus flips — which explains why the India and US launch coverage reads warmer than the Australian take.
The bigger picture
One review drops context worth keeping: generative AI demand has inflated key component prices across the industry, dragging all consumer tech upward. So budget phones now make one loud trade-off instead of being cheap everywhere at once. The (4b) picked battery and design. The chip and camera footed the bill.
Verdict
The Phone (4b) is easy to like and situational to buy. If battery anxiety runs your life and you want the most distinctive design in the budget tier, it delivers exactly that. Just do one thing before ordering: check the Phone (4a)'s current street price where you live. If the gap is small, the (4b)'s toughest competitor is wearing the same logo.
Image: Unsplash contributor, via Unsplash
