Lets find out!
I have been using the Nothing Phone (3) for over a month and here’s my review
Packaging 📦
The packaging is neat and clean. Comes in a square flat box and a delight to unbox. The Phone comes with a pre applied scratch guard along with a soft transparent case, charging cable, the iconic sim ejector tool and the user manual with no charger includer in the box.
Design 🦞
The Phone (3) feels premium and solid with the matte aluminum frame sandwiched between two glass panels. The weight is perfectly balanced, giving it an in hand feel which feels quite flagship. The design is quite interesting with the symmetrical tri-column at the bottom set off by misaligned cameras and the glyph matrix interface at the top. And yes, you do get used to the quirky design. The periscope camera is integrated seamlessly but the main and ultrawide camera protrudes a bit. The red square is now functional which lights up when recording a video and is a nice touch. Overall the design is quite impressive and stands out amongst an army of rectangular slabs.
Display 📱
The Phone sports a flexible 6.7″ AMOLED LTPS display with 120Hz refresh rate. The display is crisp, with sharp detail and colors that feel natural yet vibrant and stands out surrounded by uniform thin bezels. Outdoor visibility is excellent even under harsh sunlight. That said, at this price point, the absence of an LTPO panel feels like a missed opportunity, as it would have brought better power efficiency and smoother refresh rate adaptation.
Cameras 📷
The cameras on the Nothing Phone (3) deliver a truly flagship level experience. The primary sensor captures images with great detail and colors that remain true to life. Shadows and highlights are handled well, resulting in sharp, clear shots in most lighting conditions.
The ultrawide lens performs well most of the times. Selfies from the front camera are equally impressive, offering accurate skin tones and good detail.
Portrait shots are a mixed bags as in some cases it captures images with great details and background seperation and other times the images come out too soft lacking vibrancy and details. The video output is average for the price be it the main sensor or the ultrawide and the stabilization is good as well. The 3x Video output is surprisingly amazing.
The real standout is the periscope lens which lets you get remarkably close to your subject. The images come out with excellent detail, natural bokeh and vibrant colors. The placement of the periscope also helps to frame the shots perfectly and I couldn’t just get enough of it.
The Nothing camera app offers some great features, though there’s still room for improvement. You get options for presets and LUTs to experiment with, and the interface is clean while packing all the essential tools one might need. One feature I’d love to see in future updates is a circular dial for zoom control instead of the current linear slider, along with the ability to add watermarks to images post processing.
Performance ⚡
The Nothing Phone (3) is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, paired with fast LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage. As expected from the latest flagship chipset, the performance is snappy and responsive. Apps open quickly, multitasking feels seamless, and animations remain fluid throughout the UI which I believe is complimented well with the Nothing OS. The phone handles intensive tasks such as gaming long hours, intensive photo sessions and quick video editing and exports without breaking a sweat. The phone does get a little warm in some cases but nothing alarming. Some users might complain about the absence of SD 8 Elite but I never once felt the need for more power during my usage.
Battery & Charging🔋
The Phone (3) packs a 5,500 mAh silicon-carbon battery. Silicon carbon cells offers better energy density and improved longevity over traditional lithium ion cells. In my usage, which included general browsing, social media, photography, and light gaming, the phone comfortably lasted more than a day with around 7–8 hours of screen-on time which is pretty average. Charging is equally convenient, with support for 65 W wired fast charging that can top up the battery from 0 to 100% in under 45-60 minutes. There’s also 15W wireless charging and reverse wireless charging for accessories like earbuds or a smartwatch. There is no charger included with the box and you will have to buy it seperately.
Software 🌐
It comes with Nothing OS 3.5 on top of Android 15, which, in my opinion, is the best thing about Nothing phones. The OS is minimal, clean, and quick. The animations are smooth, and the integration is on point. The Phone (3) promises five years of Android upgrades and seven years of security updates which is quite remarkable for a fairly new brand and also from a consumer point of view.
Glyph Matrix & Essential Space 👾
Nothing has replaced the Glyph lights with a new dot matrix display housing 489 LEDs and a circular haptic button called the glyph matrix which imo offers better utility. It can show time, battery status, a stopwatch, a solar clock, and even playful glyph toys like Spin the Bottle and 8 Ball and some more developed by the community recently. It also works for ringtones, notifications, and camera countdowns, though features like the Glyph torch and volume indicator feel less useful.
The Essential space gets triggered by the essential key placed below the power button on the right which has a smooth finish to it. Single press takes a screenshot with a note, long press to activate the voice note and double press to access the same. The latest update now allows to edit the summary and also syncs with the calendar which is extremely handy. The new Essential Search acts as a universal smart search for apps, files, and contact making it a handy everyday tool.
About the pricing, I feel it’s a bit on the higher side considering the specifications. A price tag between 55-60k and it would have been a real threat to the competition. That said, the Phone (3) still delivers a premium experience with solid performance, unique design, and Nothing’s proven reliability. Also if you own a Nothing Phone you might get a pretty good deal with the exchange bonus and card offers.
Now to answer the question, is the new smartphone from Nothing truly a flagship?
Absolutely!
Just not at this price.
Note : All opinions shared here are entirely my own, with no influence or input from Nothing.
