Hey everyone,
Kishan here, I’m a designer and design enthusiast, which led me to nothing.
I was fortunate enough to get a Nothing Phone (3) sent to me for reviewing for 30 days, by Nothing and @Deepanshu_Saini_ .
I’m currently a Nothing Phone (2) user, so using the Phone (3) was a big jump for me in terms of the experience.
Let’s get into it!
Disclaimer: Statements in this thread are truly my personal opinions and aren’t meant to be general facts nor has been implemented by nothing on me.
The phone (3) has been a very confusing device for me, and i have been trying to figure it out and its intentions from day 1. I have been able to figure some things out which is what this thread is going to be.
First things first, the phone is very bold, by design, by the intentions and even the pricing. its definitely something that no one saw coming, but has a few tricks up its sleeve. And after using it for a while it clearly IS FOR a very minority of niche users. Now for the basics.
BUILD.
In hand feel, well built and very premium, the frame and buttons feels sturdier and richer than the phone 2 for some reason. The placements of glyph matrix button and essential key is really good. Camera bumps could have been a bit more smaller, but its not a huge problem. The side frame really feels more thick and sturdy in a good way, the overall in hand feel is just ~PREMIUM~.
DESIGN.
The most matured and detailed phone design from nothing yet. A design that tends to grow on people most of the time. Asymmetry built using symmetrical elements. Lacks visual harmony, hence its not meant to be beautiful for the eyes, its controversial for the eyes. I love it, Also comparing to the Phone (2)'s back design, the Phone (3)'s back has way lesser textures and leans onto more of a minimal textured soft matte segments on the back of the phone. Meanwhile the Phone (2) had a lot of dotted, stripped segments on the back along with a various amount of details. Here on the Phone (3) the focus seems to be on the varying colour palletes the shapes and sizing and placements of the segments itself. Its understandable as its got low visual harmony so blasting it with textures will make it too chaotic or busy for the eyes,
DISPLAY.
Rich colours, sharp enough, bright enough for outdoors. Honestly i dont care much about LTPO as it anyways needs a set brightness for its max potential (as per my experience). A great high res display from nothing, no complaints from real day to day usage.
SOUND.
I personally dont get surprised by sound from phone speakers, but this one did maybe becus of the extra 3 bar speaker implemented on the top of the device (excl earpiece) idk, but it seems like its well tuned, clear enough and loud enough, again no complaints on real usage. Like the Phone (2) speakers were just loud, it lacked greater tuning to bring out the clarity in vocals and speech like the Phone (3).
PERFORMANCE:
Firstly im not a power user most of the times, except heavy video exports and so on. I dont play much games on phone except some 2d games. So this chip was more than enough for me, but even after testing heavy games the phone felt no sweat, so its great for me and i believe for most of the people out there. Pairing the chip with the LPDDR5X ram and UFS 4.0 storage speeds this phone should hold up for the long run.
THERMALS.
While testing heavy games the phone wasnt HEATING, it only felt WARM to a certain degree. Which will be noticeable through the frame, but while using a case it wont be (which most people do). But the phone did heat a few times during a few whatsapp video calls but only while whatsapp video calls so im not sure if its a bug or not but anyways I believe this chip is enough than 8 elite, as the price may have gone higher.
SOFTWARE.
One of the usp of the phone other than design and uniqueness would be ofc the Nothing OS, Software is subjective, this one here is clean, minimal and has a certain aesthetic to it, with a sprinkle of a fun and playful persona, not stacked, yet its still growing right. In my opinion this is one of the best android experiences. Again ofc it does lack some basic things like native apps and basic haptic implementations and so on but as i said, its growing in the right direction and all things will slowly come at its own pace, which is all what matters for now.
ESSENTIAL SPACE.
Brilliant, Just soo useful, for a person like me who does multiple things a week, this is just PERFECT, one of the things that actually made me think of changing my Phone (2) to a third gen nothing phone. Probably the best feature on the phone. The essential recorder feature is simply just brilliant! Also whatever features that comes in the os with an “Essential” tag is again very much functional and useful, for example, Essential Space, Essential Recorder, Essential Search and so on!
BATTERY.
Solid, is a word id use for the battery life of this phone. Not anything less, or more. Lasts a whole day of medium/regular usage. Can go upto half a day or maybe one extra day on light usage. Battery draining on idle has been reduced a lot, compared to phone (2).
POWER.
Takes around 1 hour 10 mins for a full charge from 10-100% honestly i expected it to have lesser charging time than the phone (2), but its 10 mins more here, and also expected faster speeds for wireless charging too, implementation of reverse wireless charging is soo useful as i use it regularly. I mean basically its not an annoyance in daily life for me i can tolerate 1 hour of keeping my phone for charging a day, but since we are paying almost double the launch price of the phone (2) here, i figured this phone would have had a bit lesser charging time, atleast a 10-15 mins difference, but its the opposite here which makes me a bit disappointed, atleast it could have been the same charging time, i mean its almost same but again 🙁 and yes i acknowledge that the battery is even bigger for the phone (3), but in regular usage the difference isnt that big. Its not such a big con, just my disappointment.
GLYPH MATRIX.
The elephant in the room.
Its way better than the glyph lights for sure in real world usage, essential notifications is much better on this, yet i simply find the glyph lights more impressive and bold and thats the concept i signed up for when i bought my first nothing phone. But again the glyph matrix will become a very much functional tool i believe as time will tell, because devs are dropping very impressive and useful tools with the help of the sdk and new features are being implemented so its definitely got a much bigger potential than the glyph lights ever had! But the glyph lights had such an exciting and curious vibe to it, like people couldnt figure out what a bunch of well arranged light strips on the back of a phone can do functionally, it used to build curiosity in peoples mind when they see my phone (2), but with the glyph matrix obviously curiosity will be present becus no other phone has it but again everyone can figure out that at the end of the day its a dot matrix display and yes it displays information 🙂
PROTECTION.
The only downsides in terms of protection is the Gorilla Glass 7i on the screen, in my opinion, the phone is barely usable with a cracked screen than a cracked back, so idk it doesn’t make much sense. Yes we do apply screen protectors on the screen but we use cases too for the back, so i still kinda believe that it should have been vice-versa or both front and back victus. But in real life terms, guys lets be real, glass is glass and it will break no matter the density or thickness, its only a matter of second chances that gorilla glasses give so please use protectors for front and back in my opinion, or be rich enough to cover for warranty/expenses xd.
SPATIAL AUDIO.
Weirdly the phone in itself has a spatial audio feature that applies to the nothingx app too! I use the Nothing Ear (2) along with my phone (2) as my tws earbuds and i have never had such an option for spatial audio on my nothingx app when i was using it with my phone (2) for the past 2 years! But now it does when pairing it with the phone (3), this here really gave me a sense of “premium” or “flagship” experience that nothing was talking about, i mean i just got an extra feature on my other 2 year product just becus i switched phones, so yeah tiny details like these DO MATTER
IP RATING.
Finally i have been waiting for a fully submergible nothing phone and its here, i mean it should be for a phone at this price. Its not like im underwater everyday or something xd, but when i wish i could just take some video underwater or if it accidentally falls into a water body im basically not cooked, but with my current nothing phone (2), i might as well be 🙂
CONNECTIVITY.
One of the first devices to feature Bluetooth 6.0 and it shows, got better stable connections and the pairing was noticeably quick, had a few connectivity issues occasionally on my phone 2, no such issues here AT ALL. Again felt premium here, same for WiFi, data etc.
HAPTICS.
The haptics feel more premium and tighter than phone 2, needs more implementation throughout the software on different scenarios to make it more intuitive. But again i enjoyed typing and using the phone (3) overall than the phone (2) and the haptics has a huge contribution to that i believe!
GENERATIVE RINGTONES.
Doesnt make much sense though, cus the phone assigns ringtones to contacts/apps by itself, there is not even a list of which ringtones for whom, so the user has no idea on whats going on. Also since all ringtones are from one engine, all sounds a bit similar, which again makes it a bit confusing. So my suggestion would be to have designations for ringtones and sounds for the user to understand which contact is assigned which sound. Its an unexpected feature but one good detail about it is that the sound is very well designed, compared to general nothing ringtones that tends to be eerie and sharp, this one plays with playful synths and tap sounds that is tuned at high frequencies, so its hard to miss because its high frequencies that human ears tend to give more attention and gives the brain a sense of alert, exactly what a notification/ringtone should do.
CAMERAS.
Here are a few camera samples with the phone (3).
Overall this is how i would rank the different camera modes of the phone (3):
1) Macro
2) Portrait
3) Standard Photo
4) Selfie
5) Video
6) Action
Now talking about the different camera lenses and default focal lengths:
1) I felt like the 1x has more contrast and colours than all the other focals even the 2x though its basically the same lens.
2) All the default focals (1x, 2x, 3x, 6x) have fairly equal and good detail and sharpness, doesnt vary much.
3) The 6x zoom seems to be struggling a bit under low light and heavy lighting conditions.
4) The photos are better than the videos, the videos struggle with hdr and handling light at times, weirdly the phone (2) does a better job at handling both light and colours (not the details tho) than the phone (3) in terms of video.
OTHER CONS.
-Cinematic/Portrait video mode could have been included. (Really expected it)
-Lost the excitement the glyph lights had.
-No Ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. (Optical is fine for me to be honest, but at this price I deserve that premium I believe)
-USB 2.0 is another letdown. (I constantly transfer media from phone - laptop for content creation so yeah if this was 3.1 it would have been sweet!)
-Wish the capacitive touch control of the glyph matrix was a bit more intuitive, like i find the press gesture a bit difficult to navigate through the matrix, if it was something a bit more smoother like swipe or something like that it would have been better for me! so like an option to choose which gesture would be cool.
FINAL THOUGHTS.
This is the kind of phone that no one is supposed to recommend it to you, this is the type of phone that you seek for yourself, i consider it to be overpriced for the phone experience alone, but at the same time i do consider the standard iPhones overpriced too. And standard iPhones (not the pro variants) are preffered by a lot of people, and most of the people dont buy it at its launch price (cus its ofc overpriced), but people do buy it even when it doesnt have a zoom lens or 120hz display at that price range, becus of the"Apple Experience" which is a really solid experience with one of the best ecosystems, animations, luxury (apple logo) flex and a lot more. Just like that i do believe Nothing gives its own distinctive, unique experience with details that cant be achieved anywhere else.So what im trying to conclude is that this is for the people who wants the most elite experience “from” nothing, do note that im mentioning from nothing and not in general (there are other options), extra transparent design, the quirkiness in the os, the lightworks at its best form yet!
THIS IS IT. The best phone experience from a brand that is unique and has a rather interesting character.
Thats all i have to say about the Nothing Phone (3).
Thank you for the read & time.
And let me know your thoughts and opinions!
