Usage of a Sub-Flagship Chipset

AnmolMalhotra

Hey everyone, I wanted to discuss a thing or two that have been on my mind since the announcement of the chipset for Phone (3).

First of all, the Chip. I know that even though the chip is the heart of the device, it’s the software and how it’s optimized that make up the soul and I really love what the nothing team did with the Phone (2). But the thing that’s been bugging me is the use of a sub-flagship in a flagship device. My Phone (2) lags behind a lot of other phones in raw power delivery even though it is probably better for day to day tasks. Don’t get me wrong when I say this, I love my phone, but there have been instances when I have seriously considered switching to the latest Samsung or Apple and I just don’t want the same to happen with the Phone (3) if I buy it. Also, if the leaks of GSMArena are accurate, then the picture’s not looking too good on the benchmark aspect.

Secondly, I was thinking how the Phone (3) would stand against Nothing’s own (3a) and (3a) Pro since both these devices are extremely good for the day to day works and anyone would blindly buy a cheaper phone if they’re concerned only about the basic usage of the phone even if they get a little less in everything. I totally agree with Carl on the terms that a balanced experience is necessary to actually enjoy using a phone but that doesn’t mean that the bar for being a balanced phone has to be low, you can take everything a notch up and get a balanced phone (Oppo Find X8 Ultra is an example), and even if that bumps the price up, the level up in the quality of the product would seem good enough to most of the buyers to make a purchase.

This sums up almost everything that I had to say and I really hope that the nothing team does wonders with the optimisation like they did with Phone (2).

Nicouschulas

AnmolMalhotra

So you want to pay more for a processor that is faster on paper but you don’t really need and notice in day to day usage

pollenjh

AnmolMalhotra Yeah no it’s a very valid concern. But in the Nothing world, it’s the best you can get. So that’s pretty much the justification lol

AnmolMalhotra

Nicouschulas That is exactly what I said in the post, the sub flagship chip in a nothing phone can easily outperform any flagship one in others because how much work nothing puts into optimisation. The point I’m trying to make is, just doing daily tasks flawlessly doesn’t warrent this price as nothing’s own mid range phones can do that. I totally agree with Carl when he says that they have come a long way from Phone (2), but the thing to note is that at this price, the competition or the standard is not Phone (2) but the other flagships with which Phone (3) has to compete

CMF1_hacker

The only series of devices I see worth purchasing from NOTHING are the CMF series.

Otherwise, go old flagship from a major brand.

Anonymous931

AnmolMalhotra The point I’m trying to make is, just doing daily tasks flawlessly doesn’t warrent this price as nothing’s own mid range phones can do that. I totally agree with Carl when he says that they have come a long way from Phone (2), but the thing to note is that at this price, the competition or the standard is not Phone (2) but the other flagships with which Phone (3) has to compete

Check this:

"The phone was announced on July 13, 2023, and went on sale in most markets starting July 17, 2023. As previously confirmed by Nothing, the phone debuted in the US market this time. Pricing in the region starts from $599 for the base 8/128GB variant, with the top-end model setting you back $799.

In the UK, the phone retails for £579 to £629, depending on the variant you buy. European pricing starts from 679 EUR and goes up to 849 EUR.

Compared with the Phone 1, which was available for €470, the Phone 2 is more expensive."

Source for the quote: https://www.androidpolice.com/nothing-phone-2/

So, once again, just in case:

“In the UK, the phone retails for £579 to £629, depending on the variant you buy. European pricing starts from 679 EUR and goes up to 849 EUR.”

So 679€ for 8/128 GB (!!) variant, and 849€ for 12/512 GB one. Now check this for Phone (3):

884€ for 16/512 GB. So the new phone, the Phone (3), is about +4.12% more expensive than its predecessor. Hello, 4.12% more. Or, without discount, it is +11.77% more expensive.

The Phone (3) is SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER IN EVERY SINGLE ASPECT (sans aesthetics, arguably) than the Phone (2), not just 4.1 to 11.8% better. Why are people complaining so much about the price when they barely increased it (over the (2)), but provided a way better device that can actually compete with actual flagships?

Edit: Also with inflation and everything related to it, the cost for the chips and the whole tech (displays, batteries etc.) is more expensive than ever, much more than it was in 2022-2023. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they are operating with low single-digit % profit on each sold device in the end.

AnmolMalhotra

Anonymous931 You do have a valid point but there’s one thing that you’re not considering. India holds the major customer market of Nothing Phones. Just have a look at the same calculation, but according the Indian launch prices this time

MRP of 12/256 GB Varients-

Nothing Phone  (2) (12 GB + 256 GB): ₹ 54,999
Nothing Phone  (3) (12 GB + 256 GB): ₹ 79,999

Calculating the Percentage Increase-

[(79,999-54,999) / 54,999 ] * 100 = 45.45 %

The Phone  (3) is about 45.5% more expensive than the Phone  (2) in the same 12 GB/256 GB configuration in India.

Summary-

Even though I agree with your point of inflation and all the other possible reasons for the price hike, most buyers don’t care and just look at the feature and the spec set offered, especially in India. A great example of this is Xiaomi’s success in India by spec maxing their devices for the least amount. The hike in price of Phone (2) from Phone (1) was a major reason why it sold a lot less until the price was eventually hugely cut in various sales across different platforms.

Edit-

Another thing I wanted to say was, even if the prices of the components has gone up, the production and assembly costs of the device has gone down a lot from the past (Carl himself said that) which brings the total back down to almost the same. Thanks for pointing this out as I wasn’t considering this earlier.

Anonymous931

AnmolMalhotra I must admit that I didn’t take Indian prices (for the (2)) into consideration because I was expecting them to be similar as those from the UK and the EU, which is why I got surprised why all the fury about the (3) and its price when it’s barely more expensive at all.

Thanks for providing that info and filling the missing puzzle, I get the point now and yeah, holy hell, that’s a massive price increase for a direct successor 😳 If it was 5-10-15% then whatever; two years later, quite better phone, inflation around the globe etc… But I agree, +45% is pretty damn wild, wow!

When you mentioned Xiaomi, it’s worth to also mention their utterly insane dedication to spam ads everywhere they can with toggles hidden in some of the most peculiar places; you need to spend a solid hour or two to just to debloat it all to stop that crap, because even if you toggle it all off it will automatically turn itself on back in 30 days 😑

This is not related to this discussion about the Phone (3) in any particular way, more about Nothing in general, so I just want to mention how nice it is to not waste a second of your time doing that but instead have immediately a fully bloat-free and ad-free experience right from the start that’s so damn enjoyable and nice to use. My other phone is Redmi so I have a “bit” of “fun times” doing all that, hehe. Not with the (3a)!

So in that way - the UI/UX experience of the Nothing OS itself - I can understand a bit higher price for an almost-flagship phone. Not +45% higher though.

Thanks again for giving additional context!

AnmolMalhotra

Anonymous931 The bloatware on most Xiaomi phones is truly unmatched. Those bubble shooter games are soo good that they pre load them on every device (they’re shit)🤮😂.

Anyways, glad that I could give you the full picture😄🫂

CMF1_hacker

AnmolMalhotra I find Xiaomi.EU a great way to run Xiaomi hardware.

The 168-hour wait time for unlocking was ridiculous though.

PaulStoner

Really all it depends on are a few things…

What do you want to use your phone for?
Do you like you phone’s ecosystem / function / design / etc.?
Does the phone you choose do what you want it to do?

Price doesn’t matter because if you want it, you will buy it. If you see the value in it, you will buy it. I got away from big tech thanks to Nothing. Best decision I have ever made, and I will pay for the products they make that suit me.

Value is subjective my friend…

CMF1_hacker

PaulStoner I use MacBook Air and iMacs for standard office computers as I love macOS. I love Ubuntu for actual work with multiple GPUs. I love NOTHING OS for mobile usage and have a CMF1 and NP3 and the only real difference for me is the camera quality (otherwise it’s 99% identical, that 1% being the cheap-ass screen protector on the CMF1 which has worn out over 6 months of decent usage.)

PaulStoner

CMF1_hacker Exactly…Nothing wrong with mixing it up or choosing what makes you happy in your tech.

Carl

if we had a flagship last year, the phone (3) this year wouldn’t be as contentious. it was hard to justify the investment back then.

that said, you can’t change the past, and it’s good that we released the phone (3) in 2025.

CMF1_hacker

Carl you know, the phone looks great now and it would’ve looked great in 2024. It’s not often that a physical object doesn’t photograph as good as it looks in person. (In fact, the inverse is usually true.) I handed this to a different dad today, and one of my PhDs yesterday, and they both had read The Guardian review, and they said they same thing, “how could anyone consider this ugly.”

That’s tge only thing I can’t understand about the NP3. Everything else is very clear, so my advice would be do NOTHING differentially going forward from this iteration.

Jerin Jose

Carl Hey Carl, The problem here is not the phone you launched, its the price segment at which it is launched. And also we were expecting a lot of improvements atleast from the software end. Atleast if you have planned to step in the particular segment, you should have chosen the correct processor, display and other specs for the asking price.

Do you think software alone can justify the asking price?

CMF1_hacker

Jerin Jose of course, the software is the reason why I buy Apple and NOTHING products. The hardware is always more than sufficient. I think this software is a few hundred £ value add, to be honest. Form the hardware side, you get an extra button on the side, one on the back (both can be remapped) and an extra screen on the back that can be reprogrammed.

Nothing else in the price segment is even close to the hardware provided in terms of raw options. Sure the SoC is a little slower and the screen/glass is a little lower spec but none of that matters with the extra screen and buttons.

Does on really notice the difference between 7i and victus or USB 2.0?

Honestly, people are missing the forest for the trees, sadly

Jerin Jose

CMF1_hacker Do you think the Nothing OS is fully matured on par with other brands at this price segment.

And the glyph matrix and capacitive button won’t do much. Its kind of gimmick. Because the glyph lights were introduced with some use cases during launch. Even Nothing as a company could not go further with that with new features. Atleast Glyph lights were well received for their uniqueness. The same would happen for glyph matrix but it is not liked by all. Even I am impressed by Glyph light and not glyph matrix.

And Nothing OS is still half baked. It never justify the asking price of 80k.

CMF1_hacker

Jerin Jose

I’m sorry but you’re missing my argument.

Nothing is very polished and bloatware free. The discount you see on the Chinese phones (Xiaomi) is due to your data being sold. Not sure much in Europe due to GDPR but definitely in India.
I find NOS excellent as it’s light, fast and no bloatware.
The buttons can be remapped and the screen reprogrammed. I see these as hardware value adds. I can run Essential Space on my CMF1 with remapping and the ES button on phones with it can be reprogrammed to other functions. Essentially, I have four buttons now that I can remap and a front and rear screen that I can control
NOTHING is very open source now compared to other brands and I can alter the OS and reinstalled. The BL can be unlocked simply unlike the Chinese brands.

It’s a hardware paradise if anything and people area making way too big of a deal about a slightly lower spec SoC. I originally bought the One Plus One and ran a custom Linux distro on it not map networks and port scan.

Jerin Jose

CMF1_hacker Again, I think people are blowing this hardware spec difference up too large (SoC, glass and USB) while missing the actual hardware differences that will (buttons/screens) that will make a legitimate user difference .

Hope you understand from below

Jerin Jose And the glyph matrix and capacitive button won’t do much. Its kind of gimmick. Because the glyph lights were introduced with some use cases during launch. Even Nothing as a company could not go further with that with new features. Atleast Glyph lights were well received for their uniqueness. The same would happen for glyph matrix but it is not liked by all. Even I am impressed by Glyph light and not glyph matrix.

The hardware you are saying is a gimmick, the button and display. And they are inconsistent in the past on their new features. For example glyph lights, widget sharing feature, gallery.. everything is left half baked. No further improvements

Jerin Jose

CMF1_hacker Not Everyone will buy it for hardware and run a custom ROM.

Even Nothing OS has bugs, lags, stutters, its bloat free but not feature rich

Don’t justify everything on behalf of them, let them know, let them work on their weak points and let them comeback stronger

CMF1_hacker

Jerin Jose I guess that our experiences with NOTHING OS differ. I don’t have lags, stutters, etc on my CMF1 or my NP3.

There is a large difference in time to start-up and some lag opening intensive apps on the CMF1 compared to the NP3.

But I’ve only had one bug on NOS on both phones. The detection of a PPS-enabled charger is hit and miss on both phones (most people wouldn’t notice though as they don’t look in detail at the charging Wattage.)

The user experience between both phones is nearly identical with exception of the camera hardware and the lower-quality tactile feel of the CMF1 but that makes sense as I could buy five CMF1 phones for one NP3 (£169 vs. £899).

Again, I think people are blowing this hardware spec difference up too large (SoC, glass and USB) while missing the actual hardware differences that will (buttons/screens) that will make a legitimate user difference .

Both of my units are made in China and perhaps that makes a difference between the made in India models, which I can’t compare.