Are modern smartphone designs boring? We survey 1,500 readers for their thoughts about that same question earlier this year, and a huge 78% of respondents answered affirmatively.
The smartphone industry was once flooded with strange and wonderful devices (do you remember the LG wing?), But these days, manufacturers are literally more directly in their design approach.
The exception to the rule is nothing, that it has been left with its mission of “making technology have fun again” since it was founded by former OnePlus Carl Pei chief in 2021. None of the phones are designed to stand out from the crowd and the company’s last phone, the long -awaited Nothing Phone 3, meets that brief and then some.
Nothing is the “first true flagship” is a really strange thing. Imagine if a kindergarten took a set of sliding blocks of the old school, immersed it in PVA glue and the accessory with three black sewing buttons. That is Nothing 3. It is an extravagant creation with specifications to rival some of the best phones, and I think it could be the most interesting flagship launch of the year.
So what is new compared to the well received (but decidedly without format) nothing by phone 2? To begin with, the linear lights of the glyph are off and a new interface of the glyph matrix is inside.
This interactive screen is in the upper right corner of the 6.67 -inch rear panel of the telephone 3 and is able to show various different types of content, from specific notifications of the person to ‘glyph toys’ (read: party games) such as turning the bottle and rock, paper, scissors. Devils, Glyph Matrix can even double as a pixelated viewer for selfies, which is a good retro touch for those who miss the Game Boy camera.
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As for other major design changes, phone 3 still has that classic modular appearance. But their camera lenses feel independently of a physical module, instead of placing themselves in a circular or pill -shaped housing, as on the 3rd phone and the 3A Pro phone, respectively.
I can see that this new lens arrangement is the most controversial aspect of telephone design 3, but personally I am a big fan of the abstract and asymmetric environment that brings to the device as a whole. Previous nothing the phones seemed unique, of course, but not at this point.
Speaking of cameras, there is a new one. Telephone 3 gets a main 50 megapixel lens, a 50MP wide lens and a 50MP new lens with 3X optical zoom. Of course, we still can’t say how good these cameras are without having tried them correctly (they are attentive to our full review), but on paper, they are pargos at the flagship level.
You will also get a 50MP Selfie Chamber at the front, which marks a step forward of the 32MP equivalent on the Technical Nothing 2. Oh, and the small red point on the back of the phone 3? That will light when you record with any of its three rear cameras.
Under the hood, the phone 3 works with the new Gen 4 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4. I have already written why I do not think that the lack of a Snapdragon 8 Elite is a big problem in a separate piece, but we will not know with certainty until we compare the phone 3 with rivals at similar prices.
Nothing, on the other hand, trusts the performance credentials of his “first true flagship”, and after having rapidly played with telephone 3 in his London launch event, I am convinced that the 8S Gen 4 will be quick enough to support the software demands of nothing 3.5 (and, eventually, nothing os 4.0).
Telephone 3 chipset is combined with a 5,150 mAh silicon carbon battery, which is a technology that will still not find in many of the best Android phones. You will also get a quick 65W charge: another remarkable update on the 45W load speed cover of the phone 2.
Other features of the newest flagship of Nothing include a classification of resistance to dust and water IP68, the protection of Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla de Corning and a new essential search function to go along with the physical essential key, which was introduced into the 3A Pro phone.
Once again, I only handled the phone for a few minutes at the Nothing’s release event, so I have not yet taken these new tools for adequate turn. But the conclusion is this: phone 3 is different from any other device in the market at this time, and sincerely I hope that its performance is up to the billing of “flagship” of nothing. If Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 can compete with Google G5 tensioner, at least, then the phone 3 could be the most interesting phone of the year.
The device begins at $ 799 / £ 799 for the model with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, with that price increasing to $ 899 / £ 899 for 16 GB and 512 GB, respectively. Those figures placed the phone 3 in the league with the iPhone 16, Samsung Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 9, so be attentive to our verdict on whether the last phone of nothing can compete with such reneros rivals.
