Nothing Phone (4b) launched: what it costs and what you get

Nothing has launched the Phone (4b), a new budget smartphone that keeps the brand’s unusual glowing back but runs a more modest processor to keep the price down. The phone went official on Tuesday, 7 July 2026, at a global price of £299 or €329. That works out to roughly KES 49,000 to KES 52,000 at today’s exchange rates, before any shipping, tax or importer margin is added. In India, it starts at ₹34,999, about KES 52,000. The full specifications are in the table further down.

If you have never used a Nothing phone, here is the short version of what makes them different. Nothing is a London company founded by Carl Pei, who earlier co-founded OnePlus, a brand we recently wrote was quietly being absorbed into its parent. Its phones have transparent-style backs with small LED strips, called the Glyph, that light up for calls, timers, delivery tracking and notifications. You can leave the phone face down and still read what is happening from the lights alone.

A new “(b)” tier, and why it exists

The Phone (4b) is the first device in a new “(b)” series. The letter does not stand for anything. It simply marks a tier that sits below the Phone (4a), which is Nothing’s upper mid-range line.

The reason this tier exists at all is a supply problem. There is a global shortage of memory chips, the RAM and storage that go into every phone, and prices have climbed sharply. We already saw the local effect of that squeeze when Samsung raised its A-series prices in Kenya and leaned on long software support to justify them. Nothing responded by not releasing a new phone under CMF, its cheaper sub-brand, this year. Instead it folded the budget segment into its main brand as the (b) series. Nothing’s own position is that the “specs race” is over, and that design and software now matter more than chasing the newest chip.

Same look for everyone, bigger battery for some

The design is the part every buyer gets in full. The Phone (4b) uses a matte plastic unibody borrowed from the pricier Phone (4a) Pro, with a semi-transparent section around the cameras. The Glyph Bar on the back now uses 45 mini-LEDs, which Nothing says are up to 40 percent brighter than its earlier budget lights. It comes in black, white and blue, carries an IP64 rating for dust and light splashes, and, the company says, resists bending better than its cheaper models.

The battery is where buyers are split by region. In India, the Phone (4b) ships with a 6,000mAh battery, the largest Nothing has ever put in a phone. Everywhere else, including any unit likely to reach Kenya, it carries a smaller 5,200mAh cell. The gap comes down to shipping and safety rules that limit battery size in some export markets. Both are still large by 2026 standards.

On the battery health claim in the launch material, Nothing says the Indian 6,000mAh cell uses what it calls Safe Cell technology and should hold 90 percent of its capacity after 1,200 full charge cycles. In plain terms, that is close to three years of daily charging before the battery drops to nine-tenths of its original life. Charging is 33W over a cable, which takes the phone from empty to half full in about 27 minutes. There is no wireless charging.

The trade-off is the chip

The saving shows up in the processor. The Phone (4b) runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4, an entry-to-mid-range chip, paired with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. The global model comes only in the 128GB size. This is a step down from the Phone (4a). For everyday use, social apps, messaging, video and light gaming, it should be fine. Buyers who want the fastest raw performance for the money will find quicker options in the same bracket.

The rest of the sheet is competitive. The screen is a 6.77-inch AMOLED at a smooth 120Hz, reaching 2,000 nits at its brightest, which matters for reading outdoors in strong sun. The cameras are a 50MP main sensor with optical stabilisation, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a 16MP selfie camera, all processed by Nothing’s TrueLens Engine 4.

Software support: decent, not class-leading

The Phone (4b) runs Nothing OS 4.1, based on Android 16. Nothing promises three years of major Android updates and six years of security patches. That is a reasonable commitment and a clear improvement on the short support the very first Nothing phone received, whose updates ended this month. It is not the longest window on the market. Samsung and Google now offer more, which counts for a lot in Kenya, where people keep phones for many years because of cost.

Will it reach Kenya, and at what price

Nothing does not sell the Phone (4b) directly, and it skips the United States entirely. What it does have now is a Kenyan channel. The brand entered the Kenyan market officially in May 2026, seven weeks before this launch, naming Mitsumi Distribution as its local partner at the GITEX Kenya expo. That deal covered Nothing’s full range from day one, phones, earbuds, headphones and its CMF sub-brand, so the route to market for a device like the Phone (4b) already exists.

Because of that, the Phone (4b) reaching official Kenyan shelves is a reasonable expectation rather than a long shot. It is a budget-to-midrange phone, and the mid-range is the busiest, highest-volume part of the Kenyan market, which is exactly the stock a distributor wants to move. Nothing has not confirmed a Kenyan date or price for this specific model yet.

On price, Nothing published no official Kenyan list at its May launch. As a guide, grey-market shops have been selling the step-up Phone (4a) at about KES 52,000 to KES 62,000, while Safaricom’s Masoko store lists the flagship Phone (3) near KES 100,000. The Phone (4b) sits below the (4a), and its converted global price lands a little under that street range. Add import duty, VAT and distributor margins, though, and the real shelf price climbs from there. Officially distributed units should at least carry a proper one-year warranty serviced inside Kenya, which imported grey-market stock often did not.

Alongside the phone, Nothing also launched the Ear (3a) earbuds globally at 99 US dollars, with active noise cancelling and a built-in call recorder. Kenyan pricing for those was not announced either.

Nothing Phone (4b): full specifications

The Phone (4b) is Nothing’s answer to a more expensive components market. It protects the design and software that define a Nothing phone, and takes the hit on the chip instead. For a Kenyan buyer, the appeal, the software promise and an official distributor now line up, so this is one to expect on local shelves. Two things to watch: what Mitsumi eventually charges, and the fact that the biggest 6,000mAh battery stays in India while the rest of us get the 5,200mAh version.