After experimenting with midrange phones for the last two years, Nothing is back with their latest flagship phone— the Nothing Phone (3). And in true Nothing fashion, it features a design that will definitely have you do a double-take and leave you scratching your head for a second. The Nothing Phone (3) is undoubtedly a sight to behold, ditching its signature look for something abstractly unique.
Nothing Phone (3): What’s Up with that Design?
At first glance, the Nothing Phone (3) feels like a visual overload. The periscope camera is placed awkwardly, and there’s a circular dot matrix display sitting oddly in the top-right corner. The Gorilla Glass Victus covered transparent back also reveals Nothing’s signature maze of knobs, rings, and mechanical-looking parts. Most of which aren’t functional.
And then there’s the Glyph Matrix…
Gone are the signature LED strips from previous models. Instead, the Nothing Phone (3) features a circular dot-matrix display called the Glyph Matrix. This is the most marketed piece of the Phone (3) and rightfully so. This tiny display, made up of 489 individually firing LEDs, is far more useful, as per the brand. It can show notifications for apps, serve as a visual stopwatch, or can also be used as a second display for selfies.
It even has some party tricks like rock-paper-scissors, spin-the-bottle, and Magic 8 ball baked in as the latest Nothing Phone gimmick. There’s also a dedicated Glyph button on the back that lets you go through the various Glyph Matrix features.
As someone who’s followed Nothing since the beginning, all this feels weird. It’s as if CEO Carl Pei walked into the design room and said: “Forget everything we’ve done so far.” I’m still wrapping my head around it, and will share my complete thoughts when I get my hands on the phone.
Nothing Phone (3): Let’s Talk About Specifications
In a true flagship form, Nothing Phone (3) features some pretty decent internals. To start off with the build, it uses 100% recycled aluminium mid frame with a glass back and front. This device has an IP68 rating for dust and water protection. This means you can drop the phone into a shallow pool without any worries.
At the front, there’s a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel with a 1.5K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 4,500 nits of peak brightness. This is an HDR 10 panel that supports 10-bit colors and comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection. The phone has uniform bezels on all sides, and they are now 18% slimmer. So yeah, you’re getting an absolute package in terms of the display here.
The internals and the battery are no joke either. Nothing has opted for the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, coupled with 12 or 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256 or 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage. This is a big jump in performance over the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 on its previous flagship.
In terms of battery, the Nothing Phone (3) includes a larger 5,150 mAh silicon carbon cell. It can be charged from 0% to 100% in 54 minutes with a 65W charger. Thankfully, Nothing has also added 15W wireless charging support on the phone.
A flagship phone is nothing without its cameras. Of course, Nothing Phone (3) isn’t slacking in that department either. It gets a set of three 50MP cameras at the back, and one 50MP camera at the front. All the back cameras can record videos at 4K at 60fps. The highlight here has to be the 70mm periscope camera, which supports 3x optical zoom and up to 60x digital zoom. This camera can help you take macro photos as well.
Nothing Phone (3): A Bold Step, But Where Does It Lead?
The Nothing Phone (3) is launching with the monochrome flavor of Nothing OS 3.5. It is based on Android 15, with the Android 16 update slated to come soon. The device will get 5 years of major software updates and 7 years of security patches.
The Essential Space is being upgraded with this phone. You can now flip the phone to record, and the Glyph Matrix displays a nice waveform. The Phone (3) also debuts Essential Search, which lets you perform universal search, including contacts, files, and more.
The phone will be available in black and white color options. The base variant starts at $799 for the 12+256 GB variant and $899 for the 16+512 GB option. The pre-orders start July 4, with the Phone (3) going on sale from July 15.
Whether you opt for the black or white color variant, the Phone (3) looks busy from the back. The placement of the three cameras and the Glyph lights being replaced for Glyph Matrix will definitely cause a divide among fans. But one thing is certain, the Nothing Phone (3) is a bold design risk that tosses out the conventional with something eccentric.
