In a smartphone market that frequently feels like a sea of identical glass slabs, Carl Pei’s Nothing has always positioned itself as a breath of fresh air—or at least a very stylish aesthetic detour. Their latest release, the Nothing Phone (4b), builds on that hard-earned reputation for visual flair while quietly addressing the practical, day-to-day demands that usually get compromised in mid-range devices. Dubbed “Eye Candy” during its official community debut, it is a device that attempts to balance Nothing’s signature cyberpunk minimalism with the kind of heavy-duty battery life and AI capabilities that modern users actually care about.

At first glance, the Phone (4b) plays like a greatest-hits compilation of the brand’s recent design language. It borrows the highly praised unibody structure from the Phone (4a) Pro and marries it with the refined, streamlined Glyph Bar introduced on the standard Phone (4a). The result is a clean, striking piece of hardware that feels considerably more premium than its price tag implies. It is also physically tougher than its predecessors, boasting a 20 percent improvement in bend resistance over the older Phone (3a) Lite, alongside a reassuring IP64 rating for dust and water resistance.

If the standard black, white, or blue colorways feel a bit too safe, Nothing is leaning heavily into regional sports culture for this launch. To celebrate Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s historic second IPL title, the company has introduced an India-exclusive Phone (4b) RCB Edition. Finished in a striking custom red with bespoke branding and collector’s packaging, it marks Nothing’s first official smartphone collaboration in the sports arena.

Of course, you cannot talk about a Nothing phone without talking about the lights on the back. The refined Glyph Bar on the Phone (4b) is packed with 45 individually controlled mini-LEDs capable of cranking up to a bright 3,500 nits. It serves as a highly visible progress tracker for battery charging, a visual recording indicator, and a personalized notification hub so you can keep your phone face-down during dinner. Flip the device over, and the display is equally competitive: a 6.77-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and a peak outdoor brightness of 2,000 nits, ensuring everything stays perfectly legible under direct midday sunlight.

Beneath the transparent exterior lies the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset. Built on an efficient 4nm process, this silicon offers a substantial jump in sustained performance and power efficiency compared to older mid-range architectures. Backed by a generous 4,400mm² vapour chamber to keep internal temperatures low, the phone handles mobile gaming remarkably well, pushing up to 90 FPS in heavy hitters like Call of Duty: Mobile and hitting a smooth 120 FPS in lighter titles.

The real headline feature for power users, however, is the battery. Nothing has packed a 5,200mAh cell into the global model and bumped it up to a massive 6,000mAh for the Indian market. Coupled with the power-frugal processor and the optimizations in Nothing OS 4.1, they are claiming this as their longest-lasting phone yet, capable of stretching to two full days of casual use on a single charge. When you do run dry, the 33W fast charging gets the phone back to 50 percent in just under half an hour.

On the photography front, Nothing is attempting to punch above its weight class by bringing flagship-level software processing down to a friendlier price bracket. The rear array features a 50MP main camera with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) alongside a 119-degree ultra-wide sensor. What makes it compelling is the inclusion of the TrueLens Engine 4 and Ultra XDR imaging—computational algorithms that fuse 13 RAW frames to rescue shadow detail and balance intense highlights. Video shooters get 4K at 30fps stabilized by a hybrid OIS/EIS system, plus a new dual-video mode that records front and rear footage simultaneously. There are also a few playful additions for creators, including exclusive “Disco” and “DV” camera filters and an AI Eraser to clean up stray tourists from your background shots.

Software support has traditionally been a weak spot for budget-conscious hardware, but Nothing is offering a surprisingly robust commitment here. Shipping with Nothing OS 4.1 based on Android 16, the Phone (4b) is promised three years of major Android updates and six years of security patches. The software experience itself is deeply integrated with modern AI tools. There is native ChatGPT baked directly into the user interface, widgets, and clipboard, alongside Google Gemini and Circle to Search. A quick tap of the dedicated physical Essential Key grants instant access to an array of on-device AI tools powered by Qualcomm’s 6th Gen AI Engine, meaning you won’t have to rely on cloud processing for basic voice recognition and search tasks.

Launching at £299 (€329 / ₹29,999) for the baseline 8GB/128GB configuration, the Phone (4b) enters a fiercely competitive mid-tier market. Pre-orders are already underway, with the global open sale kicking off on July 17, while buyers in India can get an early crack at it via Flipkart starting July 14. By blending distinctive industrial design with a massive battery and a long-term software promise, Nothing is making a very strong argument that a phone doesn’t need to cost a fortune to look, feel, and think like a premium device.