The Nothing Phone (3) might be the company’s most celebrated smartphone and its first ‘true flagship’, but to the company’s fans and tech community, that doesn’t seem to be the case because mainly, it uses a processor that is used on upper mid-range smartphones, the unusual design is subjective but I kind of like it, but most importantly, you are paying a lot for this phone, it starts at $799 in the US and RM3299 in Malaysia for the base 12GB RAM and 256GB storage model, so is there any reason to pay this much money or would you be better off with an actual flagship Android phone?

Nothing Phone (3) Video Review

When Nothing announced that they were making their first true ever flagship, our expectations were high because mainly Carl Pei, the CEO of Nothing, used to hail from OnePlus, which he used to lead and released flagship killer phones that the tech community loved so much, and many were expecting him to use the same recipe on Nothing’s ‘true flagship phone’, such as using the most powerful processor, the most stunning AMOLED display, the most capable cameras and coupled with the company’s sleek Nothing OS software and hardware design to rival the flagship smartphone category.

Well, that is unfortunately not the case with the Phone (3), but it also doesn’t mean that it is a bad phone and cannot be considered as a flagship product of the company.

First of all, I share the same disappointment with the rest that the Glyph lights are no longer part of the Phone (3)’s design because that’s what makes it stand out from the rest and the very reason you want to lay the phone flat on the back most of the time, the misaligned camera module is fine and I think is a way to get people notice and ask what phone you are using, but to be honest, you get used to it after a while but and I personally don’t find it triggering my design OCD, though I have to say that the design could definitely be better.

The Glyph Matrix is an interesting departure from the Glyph lights and despite its potential, most of the Glyph Toys are gimmicky and while you can argue that some are useful, I have never used it as I would just pickup the phone to check on any incoming notifications.

Sure, I could use it as a selfie mirror but I would rather use the front camera to frame myself, I could set a particular icon to notify me if someone important calls or text me, but it only shows when I missed a notification rather than showing a current one.

To be honest, I could go on all day about how much wasted potential the Glyph Matrix is despite being able to show more information than the Glyph Lights, but there are a few practical things that I could suggest and hope to see coming, such as being a caller ID so that I know who called and I can tap on the capacitive button to answer or reject a call, it could also be a notifications or news ticker, show music playback info and app icons of incoming notifications.

One consolation here is that Nothing has opened up the Glyph Matrix’s API for app developers to build Glyph Toys for their apps, this is definitely a great effort, but ultimately, developers will want a solid reason to work on it and Nothing hasn’t guaranteed if the Glyph Matrix will continue to stay for a couple of generations, because just look at the Glyph Lights, it got axed in just three years and there’s barely any app that supports it, so yeah, its going to be a tough sell.

The Phone (3)’s display is a 6.67-inch Flexible AMOLED display that pushes a 1.2K resolution at 120Hz, it has good peak brightness at 4500 nits and 1600 nits for outdoors, the touch sampling rate is almost as good as a gaming phone at 1000HZ, it has a decent PWM Dimming at 960Hz but not the best for eliminating eye strain and headaches, and Nothing argues that it is the best PWM Dimming frequency for better content quality when viewed in low brightness. The vibration motor is strong like what you’d expect from a flagship phone, and the dual stereo speakers are pretty solid.

Now, most of us tech nerds are already not happy with Nothing’s decision to use a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but I took a step back and think about the volume that Nothing needs to fulfill and the potential cost increase if they use a higher end chip, it then makes total sense to go for the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 because we probably won’t be seeing a $799 phone as the company’s sales volume is barely on par with big players like Xiaomi and Samsung.

The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 isn’t a terrible processor, it is capable enough for running apps just as snappy as a current flagship phone, play games with high graphics settings and most importantly, Nothing’s software optimization is the thing you can count on to ensure the Phone (3) performs smooth after years of ownership, and to give them credit, they promised 5 years of OS upgrades and 7 years of security patches, which is pretty impressive for a young tech company.

The Phone (3) features a triple 50MP camera setup on the back, which I have used it for some casual shots and work for the past week, the image quality is definitely a step up from its predecessor but they are just not on par with other flagship phone cameras, I often get soft focus on certain parts of my shots, white balance can be at times inaccurate but the shutter lag is very minimal which allowed me to capture my kids properly, I’m confident that a couple of software updates will fix these issues and make this camera system work better.

Nothing Phone (3) Camera Samples

Although all three lenses on the back are capable of taking 4K 60 fps videos, it doesn’t switch between lenses simultaneously while recording unless you tune it down to 4K 30 fps, though video quality is pretty acceptable, but this is a thing that we shouldn’t expect to see on flagship phones.

Battery life is good on the Phone (3)’s 5150mAh Silicon Carbon Battery, it can be a two day phone if you aren’t a heavy user and will easily get through a heavy work day just fine on a single charge, the battery supports faster 65W wired charging but I can’t seem to achieve that on a whole lot of USB PD chargers I own even when I used the phone’s provided USB-C cable.

The Phone (3) comes with standard 15W Qi wireless charging, which is definitely lacking behind competitors, but I personally don’t charge my phones wirelessly so it’s a pretty minor issue for me.

The Nothing Phone (3) is definitely the company’s best smartphone ever made and undoubtedly a flagship phone, but calling it a ‘true flagship’ might have not set some people’s expectations right, because the hardware features are still a notch away from being considered a ‘true flagship’ compared to the rest.

Ultimately, this phone is an excellent product with a polished software and unique identity, but it is priced and marketed inappropriately, a price reduction would be great to justify its value which we will obviously see in a couple of months, but if you are already sick of flagship phones with no unique identity, this phone will definitely turn heads and strike a conversation, and that’s probably what Nothing really wants to achieve here.

Purchase the Nothing Phone (3) here.