Fake flagship cell phone?
Today, we have a phone under our review microscope that has been different since day one. The Nothing Phone 3 is here! But it’s a little different. Carl Pei and his friends are no longer the cute little startup that made a mid-range phone with a flashy display. This time, they’ve come in with a $799 price tag, and they’re taking on the likes of Samsung and Apple. Is this confidence real or just a publicity stunt? This phone is having a bit of an identity crisis. It’s priced like a flagship, but it falls short in a few key areas, and it’s more like a quasi-flagship or an overpriced flagship killer. This review is going to shed some light on that and tell you whether it’s a smart buy or if you’re just throwing your money away. In this review, we’re going to dig into the Nothing Phone 3 to see if this new nothing really has it all. Join us as we review the Nothing Phone 3.
Nothing Phone 3 Design Review
Nothing has always had a thing for design, and the Phone 3 is no exception. We have the same clear and distinctive design language, now more mature. First of all, let’s get to the positives. When you hold the phone in your hand, it gives you the feeling of an expensive and high-quality product. The frame is made of aluminum and the front and back panels are both glass. Gorilla Glass 7i is used to protect the screen and Gorilla Glass Victus is used for the back cover, which is a strong combination. With dimensions of 160.6 x 75.6 x 9 mm and a weight of 218 grams, we are not talking about a lightweight phone, and the thickness of 9 mm is a bit too much for a modern flagship. This weight and thickness make the phone feel bony in your hand, but it may not be pleasant for everyone.
The important thing that many people might not pay attention to is the durability of this phone. Don’t think that because it’s pretty, it’s orange and thin! This phone is like a tank. First, it has a full IP68 certification for water and dust resistance, which is a real feature for a flagship. Second, it performed excellently in durability tests. The screen is scratch-resistant to the standard level of 6 on the Moose scale, but the aluminum frame is surprisingly tough and doesn’t bend under pressure. This shows that Nothing is not just about looks, but about building a phone that is engineered and tough. The original signature of Nothing phones, the Glyph lights, has undergone a major evolution here, becoming the Glyph Matrix. No more simple LED strips; now we have a monochrome matrix display with 489 pixels that fits nicely on the back of the phone. This panel can show you the time, notifications, and a few little games like a magic 8 ball or a scale. It’s also controlled by a new capacitive touch button on the back of the phone.
This Glyph Matrix isn’t just a software feature, it’s a complex piece of hardware. A teardown of the phone shows just how intricately engineered this panel is, and even prompted Nutting to make a design sacrifice: It cut out the wireless charging coil to make room for the touch button. That means a lot of R&D and manufacturing went into this back panel, which is definitely factored into the phone’s $800 price tag. The big question is: Will you actually use it as a user, or is it just good for showing off to your friends? While it’s cool, its everyday use is very limited compared to an always-on display on the front.
And that brings us to one of the biggest design flaws, which is completely indefensible. An $800 phone in 2025 comes with a USB-C 2.0 port! That means ridiculously slow file transfer speeds over the cable, while almost all of its competitors are sporting fast USB 3.2 ports. It’s a clear cost-cutting move that seriously undermines the phone’s claim to be a flagship, and it’s entirely consistent with the identity crisis we mentioned at the beginning of this review.
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Nothing Phone 3 Display Review
The display is always one of the things we’re most directly concerned with, and the Nothing Phone 3 does a great job here, but there’s one big catch. The specs on paper are pretty good: a 6.67-inch OLED panel with a resolution of 1260 x 2800 pixels, or 1.5K. This resolution gives us a pixel density of around 460 ppi, meaning images are incredibly sharp and clear.
But the real star of the show is the brightness. Nothing claims a brightness of 4500 nits, which is only true for small areas of HDR content. What’s important to us in everyday use is the brightness in manual and auto modes. It reaches 756 nits in manual mode and a whopping 1507 nits in auto mode. This is a great result, and means you can use the phone comfortably even in bright sunlight. HDR10+ support also makes watching movies and series on Netflix and YouTube a lot more enjoyable.
This is where the big but comes in. Most flagships in this price range use LTPO panels, which can dynamically change the refresh rate from 120Hz to 1Hz to save battery life. But the Nothing Phone 3 uses an older LTPS panel. This panel can switch between 60, 90, and 120Hz, but when the screen is stationary and you’re not working with it, the refresh rate won’t go below 60Hz.
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This has a direct and negative impact on battery life. When you’re reading a static text, competing phones like the Galaxy S25 Plus or OnePlus 13 reduce the refresh rate to 1Hz to use less battery, but the Nothing Phone 3 locks to 60Hz and uses more battery. This is a significant difference that shows up in everyday charging, and is another example of the hidden cost savings that put the Phone 3 a step below true flagships.
Nothing Phone 3 Battery Performance Review
The Nothing Phone 3 has a good 5150mAh silicon carbon battery. In standard tests, the phone managed to achieve a good 12 hours and 56 minutes of battery life. This is a good and respectable score and will easily last a full day for most users. Of course, as we said, this number could be even better if it had an LTPO display.
As for charging, on paper it supports 65W wired and 15W wireless charging. But there are two important points: first, the charger is not included in the box and you have to buy it separately. Second, tests have shown that even with a powerful and compatible charger, the phone rarely charges at more than 40W. So the 65W claim is more of a publicity stunt. The 5W reverse wireless charging capability is also a nice feature that can come in handy for charging small gadgets.
Camera performance of the Nothing Phone 3
The camera is one area where the Nothing Phone 3 has made a big leap compared to the previous generation. Now we have a triple 50-megapixel camera setup: a main sensor (OmniVision OV50H), an ultrawide camera (Samsung JN1) and, most importantly, a periscope telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom (Samsung JN5). The selfie camera is also 50MP (Samsung JN1), but surprisingly it doesn’t have autofocus, which is a bit strange for a phone in this price range. A big plus is that all four cameras can record 4K video at 60fps, which gives you plenty of room for videography.
- Main camera (50MP): This is the star of the bunch. In daylight, it takes very good 12.5MP photos with natural colors and decent detail. It also performs very well in low light, with low noise and a wide dynamic range. Overall, it’s a solid main camera.
, Telephoto camera (50MP, 3x): The addition of a periscope lens is a great addition to the photography mix. It takes good photos and is also impressive for macro photography. However, its photos are sometimes a bit soft, and in low light, they tend to be too dark. A good improvement, but not on par with the best on the market. - Ultrawide camera (50MP): This camera is the weakest link in the chain. Despite its high resolution, the aggressive software processing destroys detail and gives photos a watercolor-like look. The lack of autofocus is also a major weakness. In good light, it works well, but lags behind the competition.
- Selfie camera (50MP): The quality of selfies is excellent, and facial details and skin tones are captured very well. However, the lack of autofocus is a weakness. By default, it also saves photos at full 50MP resolution, which unnecessarily increases the file size.
Video recording is one of the strengths of this phone. The video quality of the main camera is excellent. The telephoto and ultrawide cameras also record acceptable videos, although they are a little softer. Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) works well on all cameras, delivering smooth, shake-free videos. Overall, the camera suite is like the phone itself: great on paper, but inconsistent in practice. The hardware (three 50-megapixel cameras, periscope) is flagship-level, and the main camera performs very well. But the secondary lenses (ultrawide and telephoto) and a few software decisions (no selfie autofocus) suggest that it’s not quite as polished and coordinated as the giants of mobile photography like the Pixel and Samsung.
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Nothing Phone 3 Hardware Review
The beating heart of the Nothing Phone 3 is the 4th generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s processor built on the 4nm architecture. Let’s see how much firepower this dragon can put out. If we just look at the benchmarks, we are dealing with a giant. The phone scored an incredible 1,948,966 points in the AnTuTu v10 benchmark and 6900 points in the GeekBench 6 multi-core test. These numbers show that in terms of raw processing power, this phone is in the big league of flagships and easily beats the Nothing Phone 2. Alongside this processor, there is fast UFS 4.0 internal storage and 12 or 16 GB of RAM, which makes loading apps and switching between them very smooth and fast.
Here is the most important and crucial point about the performance of this phone. Raw processor power is worthless unless you can use it consistently. Unfortunately, the Snapdragon 8s 4th generation produces a lot of heat, and the Nothing Phone 3’s cooling system doesn’t seem to be able to handle it.
When the phone is put under heavy stress (such as during long gaming sessions), it severely limits its performance to control the temperature (a phenomenon called Thermal Throttling). This performance drop is so severe that the phone can’t even complete the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme stress test. Worse, the metal frame of the phone gets so hot during heavy tasks that it becomes uncomfortable to hold in your hand.
So the chain of cause and effect is: powerful processor -> inadequate cooling system -> excessive heat generation -> severe performance drop -> reduced frame rate. This phone is not made for professional gamers. It may run the game at a great frame rate for the first ten minutes, but then it heats up, its performance drops, and the frame rate drops. If you’re a heavy gamer, there are much better options in the same price range.
Nothing Phone 3 Software Review
The software department has always been one of Nothing’s strengths, and the same trend continues here. The Nothing Phone 3 ships with Nothing OS 3.5, based on Android 15. It’s a very clean, minimal, and stock Android interface, but with Nothing’s signature design language and dot matrix that has many fans. But the great news is that Nothing has promised to release 5 years of major Android updates for this phone. This means that in terms of software support, this phone will be on the same page as Google and Samsung, and you can rest assured that it will be up to date for years to come.
Nothing has added a series of new AI features to this phone called Essential Intelligence.
- Essential Key: A new physical button located below the power button. A single tap takes a screenshot, a double tap records a voice memo that automatically converts to text. It remains to be seen whether this button is more useful than the customizable buttons on other phones.
- Essential Space: A smart hub for managing daily tasks.
- ChatGPT integration: The ability to send screenshots directly to ChatGPT for analysis is a cool and potentially useful feature.
We’re a bit skeptical about these features. These AI features are cool on paper, but it remains to be seen how much they actually do in practice, or if they’re just extra options in the settings menu that get forgotten about after a few days.
Nothing Phone 3 Speaker Review
The phone uses a hybrid stereo speaker system (the speaker acts as a second channel). Its loudness scores very well. The sound quality is also good, with decent bass and clear vocals, but it could be richer. Overall, it’s a pretty decent set of speakers, but not the best on the market.
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Is the Nothing Phone 3 worth buying?
Well, friends, we have come to the end of the Nothing Phone 3 review and the main question: is the Nothing Phone 3 worth buying with these specifications and price? Let’s have a quick summary of its strengths and weaknesses.
- Strengths: Unique and extremely rugged design (IP68 certified), very bright and high-quality display, powerful raw performance, clean software with excellent long-term support, high-quality main and selfie cameras, 4K/60fps video recording capability with all cameras.
- Weaknesses: Very high price, overheating problem and severe performance drop under heavy load (throttling), old USB 2.0 port, lack of LTPO display, mediocre performance of ultrawide and telephoto cameras, actual charging speed lower than the declared number, no charger in the box.
The global price of this phone is $ 799. To better understand what you’re spending your money on, let’s do a quick comparison with its main competitors on the market.
So if you’re looking for a phone that feels great in your hand, has a unique design, and enjoys a clean, stock Android-like software, and most importantly, you’re on a budget and love the brand, yes, the Nothing 3 could be a great option. This is a phone for your heart, not your mind.
But… if you’re a gamer, don’t bother. If you want the best, most consistent camera on the market, the Pixel and Samsung are better options. And if you’re looking for the best value for your money, brands like Xiaomi and OnePlus will give you more powerful and stable hardware and faster charging for the same or even less. In the market, at this price tag, the Nothing 3 doesn’t make sense for most users. This is a special phone for a special group. For the rest of us, there are far more complete and cost-effective options on the table.
