Nothing Phone (3) review: Unique premium phone with fancy features

London-based Nothing Inc. earlier this month launched the Phone (3) series, touted to be the company's first-ever premium handset to date.

It comes with fresh new design, unique Glyph Matric features, big hardware upgrades and a massive price tag starting at Rs 79,999. Does it deliver the goods? Let's check it out.

Design, build quality and display

The latest Phone (3) retains key design elements of the predecessor, the see-through back-panel. It looks fresh and unique. The first new thing we notice in the mobile is the Glyph Matrix, which replaces the company's trademark LED-based Glyph UI.

At the top right corner, the company has incorporated a micro-LED display that offers a smarter, more expressive way to notify the user. The company co-founder, Carl Pei, since the first iteration, has been advocating for phone users to reduce screen time as much as possible to concentrate on more important things.

The new Glyph Matrix feature does exactly this. It gives the option for the owner to prioritise whether the message or phone call needs to be answered immediately or later.

Nothing Phone (3).

Initially, Glyph Matrix did not offer a caller ID feature, but with the latest firmware update, it has been finally introduced. Pressing the Glyph button just below the micro LED on the back shows who is calling.

The new update also introduced the Flip to Record feature. The user has to simply turn the phone face down to start transcribing and summarising in-person conversations via the Essential Space feature.

The Phone (3) also supports Glyph Toys, a playful extension of Glyph Matrix, which brings quick tools and micro-games to the back of the phone. It offers Glyph Mirror, Digital Clock, Stopwatch, Battery Indicator, and Solar Clock, plus games like Spin the Bottle, all accessible and controlled through a dedicated button on the rear.

Glyph Matrix features on Nothing Phone (3).

Users can assign custom icons to contacts, showing pixelated avatars when messages arrive. Two ideas—Magic 8 Ball and Leveler—were co-developed with the Nothing Community.

On the side, the device also features a dedicated Essential Space button just below the power button. It opens Essential Space, which offers the option to take instant notes. With an Artificial Intelligence-based algorithm, it can also generate personalised suggestions, summaries, or action points.

A single long press on the button will summon the Essential assistant to record the audio. If you double press, it will open the Essential Space, which houses all the archived to-do lists and notes.

Essential Space feature of Nothing Phone (3).

But, as noted in my Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro reviews, the Essential Space button should have been on the other side. Every time I try to touch the power button to view time or notifications, my finger always reaches for the Essential Space button and turns on the microphone to record the audio.

On the left side, it houses volume rockers. At the top, it features a speaker and a microphone. And, at the base, it has a Type-C port along with a speaker and SIM tray (also supports e-SIM as well).

On the front, it comes with a beautiful 6.67-inch 1.5K (2800 x 1260p) AMOLED display with variable 30-120Hz refresh rate, offering up to 4,500 nits peak brightness. It is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 7i shield and IP68 water-and-dust rating.

Nothing Phone(3) series.

Be it indoors or outdoors, the display is great for multimedia consumption. Even in the sunny afternoon, I was able to view messages and read news articles without much discomfort.

The optical in-display fingerprint sensors work fine as long as the fingertip is dry and clean.

Performance

The Phone 3 comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 octa-core with Adreno 825 GPU, 12GB / 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB / 512GB UFS 4.0 storage.

Whatever the tasks, the device was able to waltz through the day without any hint of sluggishness as such. Recent update introduced support for 120fps (frames per second) on Battle Royale genre games.

Nothing Phone (3) CPU and GPU performance score on Geekbench 6.0.

The device runs on Android 15-based Nothing OS 3.5. It has the cleanest UI, almost on par with Google Pixel phones. There are no third-party apps. There is plenty of space to install hundreds of apps and store thousands of photos and videos captured on the phone.

Nothing Phone(3).

With a massive 5,500mAh cell capacity, the device managed to offer more than a day of battery life under normal usage with Wi-Fi at home and the office. Even if the device is fully dependent on a cellular network for internet, it managed to run for the whole day.

It supports 65W wired charging, and it takes around 70-80 minutes. It also supports 15W wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging capabilities.

Photography

The Nothing Phone (3) boasts triple camera module—main 50MP (with f/1.68 aperture, 1/1.3-inch OV50H sensor, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) + 50MP 114-degree ultra-wide camera (with 1/2.76-inch JN1 sensor, f/2.2) and a 50MP (with 1/2.75-inch JN5 sensor, 3x periscope telephoto, f/2.68 aperture, 60X Digital Zoom, Autofocus, 10cm macro, OIS) with LED flash on the back.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

It takes brilliant photos in almost all light conditions, particularly after a couple of software updates.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

As you can see, the photos of colourful flowers, they are appear warm, vibrant, and clearly captured with minute details.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

Even indoors with controlled light conditions, the Phone (3) gets fantastic pictures.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

At night, it takes decent pictures with less noise.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

The Phone (3) also captures fine quality portrait photos with a perfect bokeh background effect.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

It can take great wide-angle, clear and crisp photos, perfect for group photos with big landmark structures such as statues in the background or at sunset/sunrise points at hillsides or beaches with landscape orientation.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

It can take lossless photos in 2X (50mm),3X (70mm) and 6X (140mm) zoom options. It can even digitally zoom up to 60X. The picture quality remains good and decent up to 30X, but beyond that, it begins to collect noise. That said, the 60X zoom is decent on par with rival brands in its class.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample with 2X zoom.

It can record good quality and stable videos up to 4K at 60 and 30 fps (frames per second).

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

On the front, it houses a 50MP (1/2.76-inch sensor, f/2.2) camera. It takes fine selfies in the bright sunny daytime.

Even the front sensor can record 4K videos up to 60 fps, which comes in handy while video calling.

Nothing Phone (3)'s camera sample.

Final thoughts

Though it has several unique features, including Glyphy Matrix, minimalistic NothingOS, Essential Space, good camera hardware and a reliable Qualcomm processor, the price seems a bit too expensive.

Most people including me don't know the complex calculation method used for how to determine the pay parity of a country or custom duty, but very curious to know why, even though the Phone (3) is assembled in India, the cost of the base model is Rs 79,999, more than in the US, which by the way imports the device.

Base model in America costs $799, approx. Rs 66,648.90, based on Forex rating at the time of writing the review.

People checking out Nothing Phone (3) in Bengaluru.

I have reached out to Nothing India PR Team to share information on whether the Phone (3) units, which are manufactured in India, are exported to the US. I will update the story once we get the official response.

That said. The Phone (3) is a reliable premium Android phone. You won't see any discernible lag-ness in terms of performance compared to the devices with Snapdragon 8 Elite. It delivers good on battery life and fast charging. It has reliable camera hardware, but it could have been better if the phone's native gallery app supported basic photography editing tools such as object eraser, which is now available in all its peers in the premium segment.

I believe this particular Phone(3) series is great learning curve for the budding smartphone company, which is just a little over four years old. To use an IPL Cricket analogy, it is okay to lose a match in league match than to suffer a defeat in a knockout stage. The team can learn some valuable lessons from the defeat and avoid repeating the mistakes in future crunch matches, in this case, new iterations going forward.

With less than a half a decade, Nothing Inc. has managed to scale great heights, particularly in a highly competitive market like India. In 2024, Nothing Inc recorded an impressive 577 per cent year-over-year growth in their India business. In the first quarter of 2025, it recorded 156 per cent year-over-year growth. It is the first phone brand to maintain the fastest growth for five consecutive quarters in more than a decade.

People lining up to buy Nothing Phone (3) in Bengaluru.

Earlier this month, I saw a lot of curious people lining up to check out the Phone (3) and make a purchase at the Drop pop-up event in Bengaluru. Some customers like to buy just for the unique design and Glyph Matrix UI, it offers.

With value-added gen AI-powered photography tools and a smart pricing strategy, Nothing Inc. can bounce back with the next product for sure.

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