Nothing goes pink with reveal of new Phone (4a)

British company Nothing has revealed the design of its latest phone, the (4a), including a new pink variation that the brand says nods to "tech that's expressive and optimistic".

The company has drip-fed information about the Nothing Phone (4a) this week, ahead of a planned public launch on 5 March and a preview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from 2 March.

Renders and videos shared on the brand's X and YouTube accounts show a phone that continues the design language of the mid-range (a) series, with transparent casing, visible screws and a new version of its signature "glyph interface".

This updated interface on the back of the phone, which conveys simplified information when the device is facing down, will take the form of a "glyph bar" with a strip of individually controllable mini-LEDS.

The brand also revealed images of the new handset in pink, marking a departure from its usually stripped-back palette but continuing the more playful aesthetic of the recent (3a) Community Edition, which featured teal-tinted glass.

Singling out the colourful 1990s-era Apple iMacs as a key reference once again, Nothing is positioning pink as an iconoclastic choice to symbolise a more hopeful era of technology.

The company is advertising the move with a guerrilla-style campaign of graffitiing its own flyposters in London with cultural references tied to the colour pink, from the Baby G watch and video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to simply the word "shrimps".

"To Nothing, pink is not just another colourway," said the company. "It is a nod to tech that's expressive and optimistic, rather than neutral. It's a recognition of the role that art, music, fashion and pop culture play in inspiring our design language."

At the same time, Nothing designer Lucy Birley described pink as an easy evolution of the white, black, grey and red brand colours, and poked fun at the aversion to the hue among some men.

"Pink is actually just desaturated red, guys," she said. "Don't worry, your masculinity can be intact."

The range of pink tones within the handset partly comes from the varying thickness of the glass and partly from the resin and metal finishes underneath, which Birley said give an "incredible sense of depth".

When it comes to the glyph interface, Nothing creative technologist Hunaid Nagaria said that the design team aimed to explore different expressions of the same fundamental principle with each device, using different light patterns to communicate information.

Some of the functionality designed into the (4a)'s glyph bar includes customised light patterns for messages from different contacts, a camera countdown indicator and an hourglass-inspired timer with pulsing lights that suggests falling sand.

As well as the six white LEDs in the strip, there is also a single red LED that indicates when the camera is recording – a feature that no other major phone brand includes.

"We care very deeply about this red recording square," said Nagaria. "Being recorded or recording someone is quite a big event. It's a thing of a lot of consequence."

"[We think] that this red square in that real estate is very important," he continued. "It always deserves to be on our devices."

The handset design, which includes a bump housing a triple camera array, is similar to the other phones in the (a) series, where the transparency is intended to showcase the engineering within.

Industrial design lead Chris Weightman said this involves showing the real components "as much as reasonably possible" and in other areas, using the cover panel design to convey what is underneath in a way that feels authentic.

He noted that the design team had tried to find a balance between curved and straight lines with the (4a) and lifted the placement of the dividing line on the back panel, elongating the bottom section for a more elegant look and more closely reflecting the outline of the printed circuit board (PCB) in the top portion.

Nothing is keeping the technical specifications of the (4a) undisclosed until its launch on 5 March. It will launch the Headphone (a) and a Pro version of the (4a) on the same day.

The company, which was founded in 2020, spreads its product launches throughout the year. Recently, it has opened its second-ever store, following up its London flagship with a two-storey space in Bengaluru, India.

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