When the very first Nothing phone landed — the Nothing Phone 1 in 2022 — it was a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale smartphone market. Not only did the Nothing Phone 1 look different from every other phone available at the time, but it offered some pretty stellar specs at a relatively low price. Sure, its cameras were pretty weak and Nothing OS was still finding its footing, but it was a solid opening move for a brand new company.
Since then, we’ve had many other Nothing Phones — five, actually, meaning Nothing has released six phones in about three years. Today, we have the newest entry: the Nothing Phone 3. This is the company’s first premium phone since 2023 and the company’s first “true flagship” — a phrase CEO Carl Pei has said about a million times over the past few weeks.
I had the chance to get some hands-on time with the Nothing Phone 3 at the launch event in London. While the phone looks and feels a whole lot like previous Nothing phones, the company’s knack for finding ways to make smartphones fun again shines through pretty brightly with the Phone 3.
Nothing Phone 3 Nothing Phone 3 MSRP: $799.99 Nothing's first 'true flagship.' The Phone 3 is a stylish reinvention of Nothing's Android phone series, now with flagship specs, including a large silicon-carbon battery, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, and a periscope zoom lens with macro photography support. See price at Amazon
Familiar yet different
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
The Nothing Phone 3’s design leaked well before today, and the response has been pretty negative. An Android Authority poll still running as I write this shows well over 50% of responders claiming to “hate” the design, which is obviously pretty concerning. Now that I’ve seen it in the flesh, I can say that the new design is…fine?
Love or hate the design, but the Nothing Phone 3 feels stupendous to hold.
Look, let me be honest, here: I don’t understand what Nothing was thinking with the asymmetrical and chaotic placement of the camera lenses on the back of this phone. My friend and colleague Paul Jones says it looks like Nothing asked ChatGPT to design a phone, and now that he’s said that, I can’t unsee it. It just doesn’t look cohesive.
However, it was very easy to move past that once I held the phone in my hands. The Nothing Phone 3 is quintessentially Nothing. Just like every other phone this company makes, it feels amazing to hold, better than 90% of all other phones I touch (even ones that cost twice as much). The flat aluminum sides feel terrific, the flat display panel with ultra-thin symmetrical bezels looks amazing, and the overall weight of the phone sits very nicely in your palm. As far as utilitarian design goes, this might be Nothing’s finest achievement.
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