Nothing‘s flagship phone for 2025 is taking a lot of confidence from the success of its predecessors as it penetrates a more premium category. Meet the Nothing Phone 3.
Its unusual design instantly ignited our curiosity. More importantly, we’re interested to know if it’s worth your time and money, especially with its steep price increase starting at Php44,999.
In our Nothing Phone 3 review, we’ll figure those out and see how it fares against the prominent names in this category.
Nothing Phone 3 Specs
- Android 15, Nothing OS 3.5 (up to 5 years Android upgrades, 7 years security patches)
- Dual SIM, Dual Standby
- 6.67-inch LTPS OLED display, 2800 x 1260 pixel resolution, ~460ppi
- 120Hz refresh rate, 1000Hz Touch Sampling Rate, 2160Hz PWM dimming
- HDR10+, 10-bit
- 4,500-nit peak brightness, Corning Gorilla Glass
- 3.21GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 octa-core processor
- Adreno 825 GPU
- 12GB/16GB RAM
- 256GB/512GB internal storage, non-expandable
- 50-megapixel front camera
- 50-megapixel (f/1.68, 1/1.3″, PDAF, OIS) + 50-megapixel (f1/2.6, 1/2.75″, OIS, 3x telephoto,macro) + 50-megapixel (ultra-wide) rear cameras, LED flash
- In-display fingerprint scanner
- Stereo speakers
- IP68 dust and water resistant
- HSPA+, 4G LTE, 5G
- WiFi 7, tri-band
- Bluetooth 6.0
- GPS, Dual-band A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS, NavIC, SBAS, BDS
- NFC, USB-C
- Dimensions: 160.6 x 75.59 x 8.99mm
- Weight: 218g
- Colors: Black, White
- 5,150mAh silicon-carbon battery, 65W wired, 15W wireless, 7.5W reverse wired, 5W reverse wireless charging
Design and Build Quality
The most striking feature of the Nothing Phone 3 is the design. Nothing phones always have the most unique designs. And with this one, they may have gone overboard a bit.
Now, as we always say, design is always subjective. While its aesthetics may look too much for us, some people may have a better reception to it. Oh, and of course, there’s the small circular screen on the top right that Nothing calls as Glyph Matrix.
It has an odd mix of squares, rectangles, and circles. The cameras are misaligned, the screws are exposed, but they still sit behind the glass surface. The black color option we have looks as nice as the white one that’s also available here in the Philippines.
Speaking of the glass, the rear panel is made of a durable Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. But being glass, it’s very prone to fingerprint marks and smudges. It can get a little slippery, too.
On the upside, the flat and sturdy aluminum frame provides a comfortable and secure grip.
A Corning Gorilla Glass 7i is on the front with a pre-applied protective film for extra protection.
Nothing has also upgraded to IP68-rated dust and water protection, so it should be able to survive being submerged in up to 1.5 meters of fresh water for half an hour. Overall, we’re satisfied with its durability, but we still suggest you use the free clear case it came with, especially if you’re a bit clumsy.
Taking a tour, we have the 6.67-inch LTPS OLED screen with a punch-hole for the 50-megapixel selfie camera. The bezels are thin enough, but not the thinnest we’ve seen.
The left side has the volume controls, while the right has the lock/power button and Nothing’s Essential Key that has a pebble-like shape and texture. This is so you don’t confuse it with the lock/power button, which has a slim and flat surface like the volume controls.
But we must admit, we still got confused a lot during our first few hours using the device.
The top has the noise-isolating microphone and the stereo speaker.
At the bottom, we have the SIM tray that can house two nano SIM cards. We also have the USB-C port, primary microphone, and the loudspeaker.
Now, let’s tackle the busy rear panel of the device. The one on the left side is the telephoto camera, below it is the main shooter, next to it is the ultra-wide, while the one on top is the LED flash.
On the top right, we have the Glyph Matrix, a circular screen that consists of 489 LEDs. You can control it via the soft-touch button on the middle-right.
While the over-the-top design may not be for everyone, there’s no denying that the Nothing Phone 3 is one of the most distinct smartphones in the market today.
Display and Audio
The Nothing Phone 3 has a 6.67-inch LTPS OLED display with a 2800 x 1260 pixel resolution, ~460ppi, 120Hz refresh rate, 1000Hz touch sampling rate, and 2160Hz PWM dimming.
It also has 4,500-nit peak brightness, 10-bit color, and support for HDR10+. Sadly, it lacks support for LTPO technology, which is superior to LTPS. The refresh rate also doesn’t go below 60Hz, which could’ve benefited power efficiency.
Display quality has been great. During our tests, the screen brightness has been high enough for outdoor use and low enough when scrolling at night.
HDR was activated seamlessly when streaming. The refresh rate was fine, but it would’ve been nice if high refresh rates were supported on games.
There are also stereo speakers, with the top earpiece amplified, doubling as the second driver instead of having a dedicated one.
We’re commending the stereo speaker setup because of their loud volume, good left-to-right stereo balance, crisp treble, and ample bass.
Hardware and Performance
For some reason, Nothing stepped back and used an “S” Snapdragon 8 series chip when its predecessor had a Snapdragon 8+ chip. Still, the Nothing Phone 3’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip with Adreno 825 GPU is an upgrade over its predecessor — albeit we’re expecting a more powerful chip for the price point.
Nothing Phone 3 Benchmark Scores
Our review unit is the top-tier model, which has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. A 12GB/256GB variant is also available.
It may not have the best chipset for the price, but the Nothing Phone 3 still offers a fast and solid performance in day-to-day tasks. Gaming experience was decent, although it suffered from noticeable thermal issues, forcing us to lower the graphics settings on some games.
Genshin Impact ran with no issues under High settings at 60 frames. PUBG Mobile was very smooth under Ultra HDR graphics and Ultra frame rates. Call of Duty Mobile performed well with Max settings, while Farlight84 handled Ultimate graphics and 60 frames with ease.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang had no problems under High graphics at Ultra frames, as well as Asphalt Legends Unite with High Quality graphics and 90fps setting.
For a device at this price category, we should comfortably game under the highest available graphics settings. And that’s what we mostly got here.
| Game | Graphics Settings |
| Call of Duty: Mobile | • Graphics Quality: Max • Frame Rate: Max |
| Farlight84 | • Graphics Quality: Ultimate • Frame Rate: 60 |
| PUBG Mobile | • Graphics Quality: Ultra HDR • Frame Rate: Ultra |
| Genshin Impact | • Render Resolution: High • Visual Effects: High • FPS: 60 |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | • Graphics Quality: High • Frame Rate: Ultra • HD Mode: On |
| Asphalt Legends Unite | • Visual Quality: • Frame Rate: |
Software and User Interface
Much like their distinct designs, a big appeal of Nothing phones are their unique interface. The Nothing Phone 3 runs on Nothing OS 3.5 based on the latest Android 15. Nothing promised to seed five Android upgrades and 7 years of security patches, which is really impressive by today’s standards and the longest on any Nothing phone.
The whole interface looks edgy and unlike any other we’ve seen before from other brands. From the unique home screen widgets and monochromatic app icons to the customizable control center, Nothing OS is truly a cut above the rest.
A highlight UX feature is the Glyph Matrix, the circular 489 LED screen on the back that you can control via that soft-touch button below it. Press the button once to turn it on and switch between the Glyph toys. Then, long-press the button to interact with each individual toys. The brightness can be adjusted both manually and automatically.
As of writing, there are only four Glyph toys to cycle from. There’s the Time, Bottle, Battery Indicator, and Stopwatch. It also shows app icons from select apps where you just received a notification. It also acts as a volume indicator.
Nothing should release more use cases for the Glyph Matrix soon, unless they give up on it early after realizing that it’s just a gimmick and the novelty easily wears off for users.
Another hardware-level UI feature is the Essential Key, a button below the lock/power button. Pressing it will immediately take a screenshot and send it to Essential Space. You can also double press it to record a voice memo, which will then be saved and transcribed by AI.
Essential Space is like a Pinterest built into the device. Its goal is to provide a more organized and curated hub for all your ideas, concepts, future plans, etc. Having a dedicated button for it is nice, but we do wish the Essential Key was reprogrammable to launch other features.
Nothing’s Essential Space is part of the device’s Intelligence Toolkit. Also in this toolkit is the Wallpaper Studio, which lets you use two words or a concept to make AI generate a wallpaper based on those.
Essential News is really cool. You can choose your desired news topic (Business, Health, Science, etc) and add the widget to the home screen. Tapping the widget will play an AI narrator that narrates the latest news based on your chosen topic. The narration is very natural and sounds pre-recorded.
Another tool is the ChatGPT widget, which provides a convenient and faster way to access ChatGPT features.
ChatGPT interactions let you send copied texts, screenshots, and more directly to ChatGPT for analysis. Do note that you need to download the ChatGPT app for these features to work.
For security, both the optical in-display fingerprint scanner and face unlock worked really well in our tests.
Nothing is so committed to Nothing OS’ design language that the Game Mode window also looks edgy yet straightforward. No real-time hardware stats unlike what others have. Just a giant button to enable/disable Performance Mode, mute calls and notifications, adjust brightness, and start screen recording.
Cameras
All cameras of the Nothing Phone 3 have 50-megapixel sensors. The main shooter uses a 1/1.3-inch OmniVision OV50H with optical image stabilization and f/1.7 aperture. We also have a Samsung ISOCELL JN5 with OIS with a 3x telephoto/macro lens, and an ISOCELL JN1 for both the ultra-wide and selfie cameras.
There are four preinstalled presets available (B&W Film, Retro, Soft Focus, Wide Angle, and Lenticular). You can import more presets or create your own.
H.264 and H.265 video encoding is available. You can shoot videos 30fps and 60fps at both 1080p and 4K resolution. Slow-motion recording is also available at 1080p resolution at 120fps and 240fps.
Daylight shots from the main camera look clean and natural. Colors are realistic, dynamic range is superb, and details are relatively sharp, but we did notice a bit of softness when we zoomed in and inspected closely.
Low-light shots, despite the obvious over sharpening, look incredible. Details look fine, colors are natural, and dynamic range is as good as the daylight photos.
The telephoto camera kicks in once you reach 3x zoom, which has a 70mm lens equivalent. It is best paired with the Portrait Mode, especially for human subjects.
Like the main camera, image quality from this shooter looks great. Colors and dynamic range are superb. Photos are also well-detailed, but we still saw some softness when we zoomed in and looked closer.
The telephoto camera can reach 6x zoom at 140mm equivalent. You can then slide the zoom dial and go up to 60x for a 1400mm equivalent. Image processing at long digital zooms is good, but the colors look a little off.
Photos from the ultra-wide camera are also nice with that same color and dynamic range treatment the rest of the cameras have. However, details could be sharper, and the barrel distortion could be processed better.
The selfie camera, despite the lack of autofocus, takes good photos. Skin tones are natural, details are sharp, and low-light performance is clean.
Nothing put a capable set of cameras to the Nothing Phone 3. While some photos had their quirks, the overall look and quality are acceptable for a flagship smartphone.
Battery and Charging
The Nothing Phone 3 has a 5,150mAh battery paired with 65W wired and 15W wireless charging. It also supports 7.5W reverse wired and 5W reverse wireless charging, so you can top up your other devices, accessories, or even someone else’s phone.
We got good scores in our PCMark Synthetic Battery Test and 1080p YouTube Battery Loop Test. With those scores, you’re guaranteed to get a whole day of use on a single charge.
But obviously, it lags behind other high-end phones, which managed to have bigger battery capacities of 5,500mAh or more.
What’s really disappointing is the lack of a charger in the box. If you’re lucky, you’ll get one as a free bundle on select retailers. And while 65W is already fast enough, it lags behind some competition that already go 80W and up. See our charging test below:
- 15mins: 0-28%
- 30mins: 57%
- 45mins: 71%
- 1hr: 82%
- 1hr15mins: FULL
Verdict
The Nothing Phone 3 is truly an interesting and one-of-a-kind device in the sea of similar-looking smartphones in the market right now. But that doesn’t mean it’s the perfect choice for everyone.
Performance junkies will definitely not appreciate the thermal issues and underwhelming chipset choice for the price. Going with an LTPS instead of the more apt LTPO is also a little disappointing.
Image processing is also in desperate need of polishing, and the battery capacity and charging speeds clearly lag behind the competition.
We won’t blame you if you quickly dismiss the Nothing Phone 3 for missing out on those important parts. Still, being one of the most interesting phones in the market, there are definitely tons of things to like about this device.
Obviously, there’s the incredibly distinct design packed in an aluminum and glass-and-glass body. That standout design is complemented by a matching interface that’s both unique and intuitive.
It also has the sharp and respectable 50-megapixel cameras, as well as the good stereo speaker setup. Oh, and of course, there’s Glyph Matrix and Essential Space, which you wouldn’t find in any other device.
Everyone has different priorities when it comes to their smartphone preferences. And if you value unique design, impressive software, and good cameras, the Nothing Phone 3 might be the smartphone for you.
Nothing Phone 3 pricing and availability details
The Nothing Phone 3 with 12GB/256GB configuration retails for Php44,999 while the 16GB/512GB has a price of Php50,999. It is available in the Philippines through Digital Walker stores online and offline.
Pros
- Distinct, intriguing design with Glyph Matrix
- Glass-on-glass, durable build
- Reliable day-to-day performance
- Good stereo speakers
- Distinct yet intuitive user interface, Essential Space
- Extensive software support
- Sharp 50MP cameras all around
Cons
- LTPS instead of LTPO
- Thermal issues when gaming
- Image post-processing needs polish
- Battery capacity, charging speed lags behind the competition