Back in July I purchased the Nothing Phone (3), a phone which I initially was disappointed with when they first showed it off, yet pre-ordered it once the pre-orders went live. Many months later I can say this was the right decision, the NP3 is one of the best phones I’ve ever used. It looks great, it feels great and Nothing improved all my critics about my previous NP2, so much even, that some areas really surprised me (cameras, haptics).
While I still see the Nothing OS 4.0 as kind of a mixed bag, I can say it was an overall very solid and good update, which seemingly introduced many under the hood improvements, in particular battery life. Nothing also keeps improving their latest OS as the latest update to OS 4.0 is showing. So it’s not like they don’t care or don’t read any feedback.
With this in mind, I don’t see any reason why I should switch from a phone I am perfectly happy with to something else.
Yet I can fully understand the growing turmoil and criticism rising against Nothing. I am also still a Nothing Phone (2) owner and the OS 4.0 update was a pure disappointment. Considering this was the last major update for this phone, I expected some further improvements in particular to the camera performance. But that didn’t happen.
Spare parts still aren’t easily available, so one has to go through Nothing’s customer service in order to get any kind of repair or service done. The current introduction of bloatware and adds, with that app installer featured on the CMF phones with the 4.0 update, simply leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. All things combined, while I really enjoy my Nothing Phone (3) and hope it will serve me well for the next two or three years at least, I am not confident in this brand anymore and would start considering other options besides Nothing more than I would have during 2025, 2024 or even back in late 2023.
If my NP3 would get stolen or completely break today, I most likely would buy another one tomorrow, yet I’d also take a much closer look at other options which peaked my interest prior.
