Summary of Nothing Phone (3) Review: A Flagship with Questionable Design Choices
The Nothing Phone (3), priced at $899, is a bold attempt by the company to enter the flagship market. With its transparent back panel and chamfered metal frame, it looks premium but may not appeal to everyone due to its flawed design.
Nothing Phone (3) Box Contents: What You Get Inside
Upon opening the box, you’ll find the following items:
- Nothing Phone (3)
- USB Type-C to Type-C cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Paperwork
Nothing Phone (3) Design: Familiar But Flawed
The Phone (3) has a flat design with a chamfered metal frame going around the sides, weighing 218 grams. This makes it feel dense and sturdy in the hands. My Beebom buddies enjoyed the in-hand feel of the device, giving off a premium vibe.
However, when you flip it over, things get interesting. The rear panel looks like a tic-tac-toe grid with only circles. There’s no visual symmetry here; the top camera lens feels misplaced, triggering my ADHD. Throughout my time with the Nothing Phone (3), I wasn’t able to get used to this design.
Nothing Phone (3) Glyph Matrix: A Gimmick Without a Cause
The Glyph Matrix is the circular display on the top corner of the phone, featuring a grid of 489 tiny LEDs. It shows notifications, battery percentage, acts as a visual stopwatch, and can even be used as a selfie display. However, I didn’t find much use for it other than getting my notifications.
Even then, it doesn’t alert you to who’s calling or the name of the person sending you the text. You WILL need to unlock your device to check all the details. But on the bright side, this can be a blessing for those looking to keep distractions to a minimum.
For me, the Glyph Matrix just turned into a glowing circle, which I rarely cared for, except for that one time when I used the Glyph toys to entertain a toddler in the metro. It’s neat in theory but not so much in practice.
Nothing Phone (3) Display & Battery: A Treat to Eyes, But Not for Battery
The Nothing Phone (3) comes with a 6.67-inch OLED panel with a 1.5K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 4,500 nits of peak brightness. This is a good screen that Nothing has gone with, and the display experience has genuinely been solid.
However, it’s worth noting that this is an LTPS panel, not LTPO, which hurts the battery life. I watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on the Nothing Phone (3) whenever I took a break from work, and it was a treat.
The speakers are also genuinely good; I jammed multiple tracks on it throughout my metro ride, navigating the hustle and bustle of Delhi. The stereo setup gets loud and clear with a decent depth to it.
Now let’s discuss the battery. The Indian unit comes with a larger 5,500 mAh silicon carbon cell compared to the 5,150 mAh capacity in the US. However, no matter how I used it, whether for gaming, messaging, or just using the phone for work and calls, the Phone (3) struggled to cross the 5-hour screen-on-time mark.
Nothing Phone (3) Performance: Solid But Not Spectacular
While most Android flagships this year are flexing the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Nothing has gone with the midrange Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The chip is paired with either 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage going up to 512GB.
Don’t get me wrong; this is still a solid CPU, and here are the benchmark results to prove it. However, it’s just not on the same level as the rest of the $899 flagship phone club in terms of performance.
Nothing Phone (3) Camera: Mind Your Expectations
The Nothing Phone (3) comes with 50MP sensors across the board: main, ultrawide, telephoto, and even the selfie camera. All of them support up to 4K 60FPS video recording.
In bright daylight, the main 50MP sensor does a solid job. The photos carry sharp detail, and the dynamic range is mostly well-managed, though the exposure sometimes can get messy, especially in nighttime photos.
The ultrawide lens also performs decently, capturing the vastness of the landscape with minimal distortions. However, it doesn’t support autofocus, and the colors look a bit pale, making some shots look slightly dull and flat.
That said, the real highlight was the 3x periscope lens, producing truly beautiful shots of the bridge in Mirik and surrounding landscapes, with a natural bokeh effect that made subjects pop without looking artificial. But anything beyond 10x starts to fall apart, with soft, hazy, and largely unusable results.
Nothing Phone (3) Verdict: A Flagship That Fails to Deliver
In my time spent with the Nothing Phone (3), I’ve come to realize one thing: the company has its heart in the right place but went too ambitious with the price. A flagship phone at $899 is supposed to offer a complete and polished experience with minimal compromises.
However, this isn’t quite the case with the Phone (3). It has an odd design that’s subject to personal preference, a processor that’s not top of the line, a battery that doesn’t last long, and a camera setup that faces its own set of issues.