London-based Nothing launched the Nothing Phone (3), the company’s latest flagship smartphone, as the successor to the Phone (2) earlier this month. It still has the unique transparent design, but the Glyph LEDs have been replaced by Glyph matrix, gets a telephoto camera, and a bigger battery.
It has a larger 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED screen, Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, and the price is almost double than the predecessor, even though there is no Snapdragon 8 Elite that most other flagships feature. Is this worth the price? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- Nothing Phone (3) 16GB + 512GB in White colour
- USB Type-C to C cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Clear protective case
- User manual and warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the Nothing Phone (3) has a 6.67-inch 1.5K flexible AMOLED display with a pixel resolution of 2800 x 1260 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of about 460 PPI. The display is bright, thanks to 1600 nits (HBM) brightness, and 4500 nits peak brightness, which is enabled when you are watching HDR content. This is a good improvement compared to the Phone (2).
The phone has a 30-120Hz refresh rate display that can switch between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz according to the content. To remind you, the Phone (2) had a 1-120Hz LTPO panel. It has 1000Hz touch sampling rate when in Gaming Mode. It offers a buttery smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming. The phone also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube.
Under the display options, there are different options to adjust colours based on your preference. There is also a night light option that lets you reduce the display’s blue light emission, so it doesn’t cause eye strain when you are reading at night. It has an always-on display option. It doesn’t have MEMC or DC Dimming option, but comes with 2160Hz PWM dimming that is enabled in low lighting conditions. The phone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection.
The phone has a tiny centre punch-hole that houses a 50-megapixel camera, compared to 32MP camera in the Phone (2). Above the display there is an earpiece on the top edge which also doubles up as a secondary speaker.
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner, while some flagships have switched to ultrasonic. The small bezel below the display is uniform to the sides and the top, similar to the Phone (2). Even though the bottom bezel is minimal, the side bezels are thicker compared to some mid-range phones.
Coming to the button placements, the power button is present on the right side, and the Essential key is present below it. The volume rockers are on the left side. The dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are on the bottom. The secondary microphone is on the top, along with the speaker vent. Since the sides have an aluminium finish, it doesn’t attract fingerprints.
The phone still features a transparent back with a unique design. It has Corning Gorilla Glass protection on the back. Still, I would recommend you to use a case to protect the back since the back is slippery. It also comes in black colour. Triple 50MP rear cameras is a good move, but the position of the cameras look weird on the back.
The main highlight of the phone is the Glyph Matrix that has a custom 25 x 25 micro-LED disc that shows a digital clock, solar clock, stop watch, battery level, compass, and more. Nothing has also released Glyph SDK so that others can develop build Glyph toys for Glyph Matrix. There is a button to access it that offers a haptic feedback.
On the back, there is also a red LED that activates when capturing video or using the voice recorder. The phone has IP68 ratings for dust and water resistance finally, compared to IP54 in the Phone (2). It weighs 218 grams since has a big battery, and a glass back.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with f/1.68 aperture, 1/1.3″ OV50H sensor, OIS
- 50MP 114° ultra-wide camera with 1/2.76″ JN1 sensor, f/2.2 aperture
- 50MP 1/2.75″ JN5 3x periscope telephoto with f/2.68 aperture, 60X Digital Zoom, Autofocus, 10cm macro, OIS
- 50MP 1/2.76″ front camera with f/2.2 aperture
The camera UI is similar to other Nothing Phones that run Nothing OS 3.0 or later. There are options for Night, Macro, Portrait, Photo, Video, and more option that has slo-mo, time-lapse, pano, and expert mode. The expert mode is pro mode, which lets you adjust white balance, focus, shutter speed (1/8000s to 32 seconds), ISO (50 to 10500) and option to select main, ultra-wide and telephoto lens. There is also RAW option.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots came out well with good dynamic range and the images are natural-looking. After pixel binning technology, you get 12.5MP output. HDR shots are better with improved dynamic range. The 50MP ultra-wide camera also does a good job and the colors are almost similar. The 50MP periscope telephoto camera has up to 3x optical zoom and 6x in-sensor zoom, which is good. Even though the there is up to 60x zoom, quality is good up to 20x.
Instead of ultra-wide macro option in some phones, the company has added telemaco option which supports 10cm macro, which looks good. The 50MP front camera is a good improved from the Phone 2, and you get full 50MP output. Edge detection in portrait is good. Lowlight camera performance is good, and the auto night mode helps to keep the noise low for the main camera, but the ultra-wide and telephoto camera performance in low-light is average.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos at 4k resolution at 60 fps in HDR from all the rear and front cameras. It also has slow motion 108op at 240 fps. OIS in the main camera and telephoto does its job. Video quality from the main camera is brilliant.
Software, UI and Apps
The Nothing Phone (3) runs Android 15 out of the box, with Nothing OS 3.5 on top. It has June 2025 Android security patch. The company has promised 5 Android OS updates and get 7 years of security patches, the highest on a Nothing Phone till date, which is a good move. It has also promised Android 16-based Nothing OS 4.0 update in Q3 2025, which is before September. Apart from the fonts and UI, it gives a stock Android experience without any bloatware.
Nothing OS 3.5 has Lock screen customization, AI-powered Smart Drawer, Enhanced pop-up view, Redesigned Quick Settings, widget library, auto-archive function, partial screen sharing and more.
Essential Search feature is a universal smart search bar you access with a swipe from the bottom of the screen. This can search contacts, photos, files – and get instant answers. Nothing said that it will add more customization options later this year.
The essential Key below the power button launches Essential Space, an AI-powered hub for note-taking, ideas, and inspirations. You can press the Essential Key to capture and send content to Essential Space, long-press to record a voice note, and double-tap to head straight to all your saved content. There is a new Flip to Record feature that can record when you place the phone down and press and hold the essential key.
Out of 16GB LPDDR5X RAM, you get 14.91GB of usable RAM, and about 9GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has memory extension or virtual RAM for up to 8GB. Out of 512GB UFS 4.0 storage, you get about 462.4GB of free storage. Google Pay worked fine, but Amazon Pay showed an error when I tried to activate it. Found in Nothing Community that the Nothing Phone (2a) users have a similar issue. Hope this will be fixed in an update.
Glyph Matrix
The Glyph Matrix is a disc made up of 489 individually firing LEDs, offering a monochrome display that shows key information visible at a glance in dot-matrix style. In addition to the digital clock, solar clock, stop watch, battery level, compass, and more glyph toys, you can assign custom icons to contacts that appear as pixelated avatars when the person calls or sends a message. The Glyph Button lets you tap to cycle through tools and widgets, hold to play.
Glyph Toys
- Glyph Mirror – Use the rear display to perfectly frame selfies
- Spin the Bottle – Tap, spin, land
- Rock Paper Scissors – Let fate decide
- Digital Clock – Displays the time in 12 or 24-hour formats
- Battery Indicator – Visually check charge level
- Stopwatch – Precision timing
- Solar Clock – A visual representation of the sun’s journey
- Magic 8 Ball – A Nothing Community co-creation; ask away
- Leveller – Another community-built tool for perfect alignment
During calls, a long-press on the Glyph Button lets you check caller ID without turning the phone.
Other Glyph Interface Features:
- Camera Countdown: A visual countdown when using the camera timer.
- Glyph Torch: A powerful burst of light and an excellent fill light.
- Volume Indicator: A visualisation of volume levels.
- NFC: An animation comes to life when NFC is triggered
Just like the Glyph Interface with LEDs, the Glyph Matrix is useful only when you keep the phone upside-down when you don’t use it.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone still has an in-display optical fingerprint sensor which immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor. You don’t get any animation options. The phone also has face unlock that can unlock the phone in seconds, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music Player and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player. It doesn’t have Dolby Atmos or any other custom audio features. Audio through the stereo speakers is good and loud. Audio through the headphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. There is HDR for YouTube, but HDR doesn’t work on Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with support for n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n25, n28, n30, n38, n40, n41, n48, n66, n71, n77, n78 bands, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 7 802.11 be (2.4 + 5GHz), Bluetooth 6.0, GPS: L1+L5 dual-band A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO, QZSS, NavIC,and SBAS and NFC support. It also has USB OTG support, but it only has USB 2.0 support. The phone also has carrier aggregation. Nothing has finally added eSIM support.
We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good. It has Google dialer and Google Messages app.
The Nothing Phone 3’s body SAR is 0.727W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.190/Kg which is less than Phone (2), and is well under the limit in India, which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
This is of one of the few phones to be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 SoC in India. It uses the same microarchitecture as the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, but the performance has drastically improved.
It uses 1 x Kryo Prime CPU (Arm Cortex-X4 based) at up to 3.2GHz, 3 x Kryo Performance CPUs (Arm Cortex-A720 based) at up to 3.01GHz, 2 x Kryo Performance CPUs (Arm Cortex-A720 based) at up to 2.80GHz, 2x Kryo Performance CPUs (Arm Cortex-A720 based) at up to 2.02GHz, ARMv9 architecture.
The SoC is fabricated using the TSMC 4nm Process Technology, same as Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. The Adreno 825 GPU has Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing with Global Illumination, Qualcomm Adaptive Performance Engine and Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2.0.
The phone has an advanced VC cooling system, says the company, but the exact size has not been revealed. We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. In BGMI there is up to Ultra HDR graphics and Ultra frame rate option.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 80.3%, which is good. The temperature shot up from 27 to 51 degrees, which is high. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5500mAh (typical) built-in silicon carbon battery, the highest on a Nothing phone till date. It lasts for more than a day, even with heavy use on 5G. With minimal use on Wi-Fi, it should last for 2 days. I got close to 6 hours of screen on time, with 2 days of mixed use of mostly Wi-Fi and occasional 5G use in 120Hz.
With the 65W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in about 25 minutes and up to 100% in less than 1 hour with a 65W PPS carger. It also has 15W wireless charging support and 5W reverse wireless charging. However, this lacks Qi2 or MagSafe-like wireless charging.
Conclusion
The Nothing Phone (3) certainly marks an improvement over its two-year-old predecessor. It retains a unique aesthetic that will undoubtedly spark curiosity, even if its distinctive look isn’t for everyone.
Nothing has addressed key areas, finally bringing IP68 water and dust resistance, along with enhanced triple 50MP rear cameras and a 50MP front camera. The software experience is also more refined, and the Glyph Matrix proves to be a more practical evolution of the signature LED interface, though its utility will vary from user to user.
However, the Phone (3) faces stiff competition in the flagship segment. For those prioritizing top-tier performance, it may not outshine rivals, as it lacks the absolute bleeding-edge Snapdragon 8 Elite chip found in other flagships.
The absence of a 1-120Hz LTPO display, a feature common among its premium counterparts, is another notable omission. Ultimately, the Nothing Phone (3) offers a compelling package with its unique design and solid improvements, but its value proposition at this price point will largely depend on individual priorities.
Pricing and availability
The Nothing Phone (3) is priced at Rs. 79,999 for the 12GB + 256GB model and the 16GB + 512GB model costs Rs. 89,999.
There is a Rs. 5000 bank offer and up to Rs. 12000 exchange offer. Those who purchase the device on 15th July will also receive 1-year additional extended warranty.
The phone is now available from Flipkart, Flipkart Minutes, Vijay Sales, Croma, and all leading retail stores.
Alternatives
The Samsung Galaxy S25 is a good alternative with a better better screen, better performance, and reliable cameras, but has a smaller battery. The OnePlus 13 is also a good option at a cheaper price. The Pixel 9 is also a good option, and the Pixel 10 launch is around the corner.
Pros
- Solid build quality, IP68 ratings
- 120Hz AMOLED display is good
- Smooth performance
- Good battery life, fast charging and wireless charging
- Good cameras for most scenarios
- 5 years of Android updates and 7 years of security updates
Cons
- No LTPO panel
- Priced on the higher side