Nothing Phone 4a Pro passes durability tests with flying colors, but there’s one issue

The Nothing Phone 4a Pro is a great alternative to the Pixel 10a and Samsung Galaxy A57, and one of the best cheap Android phones of 2026. But how durable is it, though? Well, a trusted outlet has just put this to the test.

YouTube channel JerryRigEverything conducted a durability test on the Nothing Phone 4a Pro (see the video at the top of the page). Perhaps the most surprising finding concerns the phone’s IP65 rating. Host Zack Nelson found that accidentally inserting the SIM removal tool into the microphone hole, which is next to the SIM card tray, could have significant consequences for water and dust resistance.

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Nelson explained that a waterproofing “mesh” is just behind the microphone hole, which means you can puncture this layer by accidentally inserting the SIM removal tool. Fortunately, Nothing apparently uses an additional layer of waterproofing. That’s good news and means you should still have some ingress protection, but he adds that the waterproofing layer on many other phones can’t be punctured in the same way.

Otherwise, Nelson tried the usual array of tests. He tried scratching the phone’s screen, with the first scratches appearing at level six on the Mohs hardness scale, followed by the expected deeper grooves at level seven. The layer covering the rear screen and transparent deco is made out of plastic, though. The YouTuber also held a lighter to the screen for roughly 20 seconds before a white mark appeared on the panel. This mark faded afterwards but didn’t disappear altogether.

Finally, the Nothing Phone 4a Pro held up extremely well in the vaunted bend test, which is great to see for a mid-range phone. In fact, Nelson noted that the device survived the durability test with “flying colors,” while also calling it the best-built Nothing phone. That’s good news for the company, but we hope it addresses the microphone hole issue in future models.