Nothing Phone (3) hands-on

Nothing has a new flagship phone - say hello to the Nothing Phone (3). The freshly announced Phone (3) arrives nearly two years after the Phone (2), and there are plenty of differentiating factors between the two.

Let’s start with the back, since it's always been a key area on Nothing devices. Phone (3) brings a polarizing look, to say the least. Nothing went with a three-column grid look with an off-centered periscope zoom camera sticking out on the top-right corner. It’s different from what we’ve seen on past devices from the brand and it certainly stands out from the crowd of competitors.

Nothing Phone (3) and its Glyph Matrix

The big addition this year is the Glyph Matrix. The signature Nothing Phone glyph interface is now shrunk to a monochrome display made up of 489 LEDs.

It does more than just notifications as you can assign custom images, animations and app-specific messages. There’s even a pair of games - Spin the Bottle, Rock Paper Scissors and Magic 8 Ball. Nothing is releasing its developer SDK today so we’ll see even more clever ideas here.

There’s a dedicated Glyph Button – a capacitive circle located beneath the Glyph Matrix. It gives off a vibration and allows you to scroll through the different modes and features.

Moving on, Nothing upgraded the cameras, bringing four 50MP shooters. The back houses a 1/1.3" main sensor with OIS alongside a 3x periscope zoom module and a 114˚ ultrawide lens. You also get a 50MP selfie cam.

The front is dominated by a 6.67-inch AMOLED – same size as the Phone (2) but with slimmer bezels. It’s advertised to reach 4,500 nits of peak local brightness and features FHD+ resolution, along with an adaptive 30-120Hz refresh rate.

The hardware feels familiar to past Nothing phones. The frame is made from aluminum, the back features Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, while the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i. Also noteworthy is the upgraded IP68 ingress protection, which is a first for any Nothing phone.

Nothing Phone (3)

A few quick words on the software. We’re running Nothing OS 3.5 based on Android 15. It’s as smooth and minimalistic-looking as ever, and Nothing confirmed we’ll see Nothing OS 4 later this quarter.

The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset and 5,150 mAh silicon carbon battery are worthy upgrades over the Phone (2) and should deliver ample performance and hopefully better endurance. As usual, we’ll bring you a detailed review with all of our tests once we have our review unit back at HQ.