The 2-year wait for a flagship device from Nothing is over with the arrival of the Nothing Phone (3). This device is a true flagship phone from Nothing that offers some of the latest design elements and also true flagship features but it is really not flagship enough for the price that Nothing is offering. In this review article I will elaborate further.
Specifications And Design
Nothing Phone (3)
Screen 6.67″ Flexible AMOLED, 120Hz, 4000 nits
1260 x 2800 pixels, 20:9 (460 PPI)
Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor (4 nm)
1 x 3.21 GHz Cortex-X4 chip
3 x 3.0 GHz Cortex-A720
2 x 2.8 GHz Cortex-A720
2 x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A720
Adreno 825 Graphics Chip
RAM 16GB RAM
512GB Internal Storage
(no microSD card)
Main Camera 50MP Main Lens, PDAF, OIS
50MP Periscope Telephoto, OIS
50MP Ultra wide
Front Camera 50MP (wide)
Si / C battery 5150 mAh
Wired 65W
Wireless 15W
SIM/Telephony Dual Nano SIM
eSIM
NFC Yes
Infrared No
Waterproof IP68
Scanning System Fingerprint Scan
Face Scan
Selling Price RM3299 (12/256GB)
RM3799 (16/512GB)
If you watch the launch of Nothing Phone (3) on Youtube, you must have noticed that many were quite disappointed with the design brought by Nothing for their flagship device and many considered this model to be still in the prototype phase. For me, this design certainly shows the identity of Nothing but it feels a bit extreme. Before the official launch, I hoped that the leaked design images were fake and unfortunately they became reality. I don't have too big an issue with this design, but if Nothing just improved the camera position a little, it would be enough. However, it must be admitted that with this design it will make the eyes around look
Apart from the camera design, Nothing also added a new element to this design, namely the Glyph Matrix which replaced the Glyph lights on the previous Nothing Phone series. This Glyph Matrix is more interactive than the previous Glyph lights because users can find out various information through this 489 micro LED display. Various personalizations can be done for notifications using this Glyph Matrix and it is very interesting because there are many icons that can be chosen or you can put your own pictures.
In addition, this Glyph Matrix also comes with the Glyph Toys feature which consists of several interactive tools and mini games. These Glyph Toys can be activated using a special capacitive button located on the back panel. I feel this feature is quite interesting for users even though most of the time you may not use it.
This Phone (3) has a thickness of 8.99mm but in the hand, this Phone (3) feels very solid and premium because it uses aluminum material on the frame and glass on the back. I have held the Nothing Phone (2) myself and the experience of holding these two devices is very different because I feel that the Phone (2) is like their mid-range device like the Phone (3a) series, it turns out that Nothing has made many improvements to the build quality of this device. Most importantly, the Nothing Phone (3) has an IP68 rating, which is much better than the IP54 that the Phone (2) had before.
As is typical of Nothing devices, the right side of the device houses the power button and Essential Key. Meanwhile, the left side only has the volume buttons. The USB-C charging port, sim slot and speaker are on the bottom of the device, with only the second speaker located at the top. In short, the Phone (3) design is truly out of the box and unique, which may be difficult for some to accept and loved by others.
Screen
The screen on the Phone (3) has several improvements and also shortcomings. It uses the same flexible AMOLED panel as several previous Nothing Phone series, has a better 1.5K resolution, HDR10+ support and a 120Hz refresh rate. Although this is a true flagship device from Nothing, it does not use an LTPO panel which is quite surprising to me and only uses the same Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection as some mid-range devices out there.
Even so, the screen provided is very good, in fact, this is the brightest screen by Nothing with a brightness level of 1600nits to 4000nits for HDR display. The colors produced are also very good and I am not surprised because Nothing always provides good screen quality on their devices. The bezels on this screen are also all even, making the experience for media use, watching movies or playing mobile games more enjoyable.
Performance
Among the parts that are the hot topics of people about this Phone (3) is the use of its processor chip. Nothing chose the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip to be installed in this device. This chip is also matched with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM with 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Normal daily use and even heavy gaming sessions, this chip has no problem providing good performance.
For comparison, I chose the iQOO Neo10 which also uses the same chip, the HONOR 400 Pro (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) and the Realme GT7 (Dimensity 9400e).
Antutu 3D
Nothing Phone (3) – 1,891,347
iQOO Neo10 – 2,012,925
HONOR 400 Pro – 1,861,573
Realme GT7 – 2,131,975
Geekbench 6
Nothing Phone (3) – 2107/6429
iQOO Neo10 – 2109/6858
HONOR 400 Pro – 2024/6083
Realme GT7 – NA
3D Mark Wildlife Extreme
Nothing Phone (3) – 4207
iQOO Neo10 – 3480
HONOR 400 Pro – 4467
Realme GT7 – 5377
This Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip is indeed powerful and able to handle the given load well. Its performance for normal daily use is undeniable, and for some games such as PUBG, Mobile Legends and CarX Street it can be played at medium to high settings. This device only feels quite noticeable when doing benchmark tests.
Although this device from Nothing is not too focused on performance, with the use of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip there is no problem doing light, heavy or some professional work.
Usage Experience – Nothing OS 3.5
In addition to the use of a powerful chip, the smoothness of this Phone (3) is also contributed by the latest Nothing OS 3.5. After a year of using the Nothing Phone (2a), I have become more comfortable with the operating system from Nothing. However, on the Phone (3), this operating system feels smoother and faster. Despite the fact that there are not many changes from Nothing OS 3.2 on the previous CMF Phone 2 Pro. Nothing OS 3.5 still maintains the Nothing DNA with various personalizations and widgets that can be used.
Like the Phone (3a) and CMF Phone 2 Pro series, the Phone (3) also comes with the Essential Space feature. This feature allows users to create notes or reminders with the help of AI. Most of the functions are still the same as the previous Nothing device, only Nothing only adds the Flip To Record function. I still do not use Essential Space to the fullest and only in certain situations will I use this feature.
The newest feature in Nothing OS 3.5 is Essential Search. It can be accessed via the search bar in the application drawer. With this feature, users can continue to search or ask about something without going into other applications such as Google or Chat GPT. After a few days of use, I often forget that this feature exists and still use Google to find information.
The good thing about the Phone (3) this time is about android support, it comes with 5 years of Android version updates and 7 years for security patches. This is the most number of updates Nothing has ever provided and this can also guarantee long-term use for this Phone (3).
Camera
The camera on the Nothing Phone (3) is equipped with three 50MP lenses, namely the f/1.6 main camera with OIS, the f/2.7 telephoto periscope lens and the f/2.2 ultra-wide lens. The selfie camera also uses a 50MP f/2.2 lens. To be honest, I had high hopes for the camera capabilities on the Phone (3) because the image results on the Phone (3a) series are quite satisfactory, let alone the image results from their flagship device.
Despite this asymmetrical camera arrangement, the image results are quite good but there are a few things that are a little strange. In bright weather or with enough light, the colors produced through the TrueLens Engine 4 technology are very good because they are not too intense and not too natural, only sometimes the image looks a little soft after processing.
The telephoto periscope lens on the Phone (3) is actually almost the same as the Phone (3a) Pro which was launched a few months ago. It has 3x optical zoom and 6x digital zoom with a maximum zoom of up to 60x but of course the picture at that distance is not usable. The result of the picture, this telephoto periscope lens is very satisfactory because it looks sharp with good detail at 3x to 6x zoom beyond that it starts to be less sharp and the noise effect is clear
The night mode picture is also quite good because the light control is not too extreme and can provide sharp picture quality but there will be some parts that also look a little soft.
Overall, the camera on the Nothing Phone (3) is quite good but for me it is not at the level of flagship devices like Oppo Find X8, OnePlus 13 or the vivo X200 series. The camera capabilities for me are only in the mid-premium class.
Battery
The battery is a big improvement on the Phone (3) as it comes with a larger 5150mAh battery than the Phone (2). It now also uses silicon carbon battery technology which is comparable to some other devices out there even though its capacity is quite small. This small battery size does not affect the battery performance too much as I was able to use this device for 7 to 8 hours SOT.
In terms of charging, there is also a good improvement, where the Phone (3) now supports 65W wired fast charging and 15W wireless charging. With this increased charging speed, it only takes about 1 hour for a full charge.
What's in the Box
Here's what's included in the box we received:
1 x Nothing Phone (3).
1 x Transparent USB-C to USB-C Cable
1 x Silicone Case.
1 x User Manual.
1 x Transparent SIM Ejector.
Conclusion
So, is the 2-year wait for the Nothing Phone (3) worth it? I myself find it quite difficult to answer this question because what Nothing offers on the Phone (3) is indeed an improvement over the Phone (2), but I feel that the improvements are not enough for the Phone (3) to compete with other flagship devices.
I'm leaving aside the design aspect because it's subjective, but with a starting price of RM3299 you only get 'half-brand' performance and camera capabilities that are only better than their mid-range devices. I can say that the Nothing Phone (3) is a niche product for their fans and not for everyone. If you want a device that has a very unique design, don't care too much about performance and just want a camera quality that works well, you can consider the Nothing Phone (3).
Advantages
Unique design.
High-quality and beautiful display
Battery with good durability.
Fast charging 65W and wireless 15W.
Equipped with an IP68 rating.
Nothing OS 3.5 which is very smooth.
Cons
Design is too unique.
Camera is not that special
Screen is not LTPO
Price is quite high.