Nothing Phone 4b, Pickle's Collapse, and the State of Siri

The Nothing Phone 4b exists because of a RAM shortage. According to a tip Marques received after a previous episode, the 4b was originally planned as a CMF Phone 3 Pro, but rising memory prices made it impossible to sell at the price CMF buyers expect. So Nothing rebranded it as a Nothing phone and raised the price to £330. The subreddit is not happy. Marques calls it "a solid phone that's cheaper than their other solid phones," but the community built on OnePlus-style value-for-money expectations is disappointed. The phone has a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip, a 120Hz display, a 50-megapixel main camera with an 8-megapixel ultrawide, and a 6,000 mAh battery in India (5,200 elsewhere). Marques notes the Tensor G2 performs at roughly the same CPU level as this low-end Snapdragon chip, which is also around the same level as the OnePlus 7 Pro. The design feels cheap — plastic with a matte blue finish — and the camera bump looks lazy by Nothing's standards. The team suspects the phone was originally planned as a CMF Phone 3 Pro, but rising RAM prices made that impossible. The leftover design cues, like a small nub in the corner, support that theory.

Nothing's Ear 3a and Audio Snapshot