Nothing Calls Phone (3) Its First True Flagship And Great Specs Back It Up

Looking for something a little different for your next smartphone? Nothing might have you covered. The UK-based firm founded by Carl Pei is tapping into its creative side with its latest product launches, and like the Nothing Headphone (1) we reviewed, the company's new Phone (3) brings a unique styling to the mobile scene. It's also being pitched as Nothing's "first true flagship smartphone."

We'll get to the flagship status in a moment, but first let's talk about the "reimagined" design, which is centered around a new Glyph Matrix. The Phone (3) introduces a unique micro-LED display on the back that in addition to giving the device a look all its own, is also intended to reduce screen time.

"From app-specific alerts to contact-based notifications and real-time progress indicators, Glyph Matrix lets you stay informed at a glance, without geing pulled into endless scrolling," Nothing explains.

Color us skeptical that the LED party trick will actually get any of us to look up from our devices more frequently, but hey, we applaud the effort. Whether the design language is worthy of applause too, we'll let you be the judge. That said, there is some utility to Glyph Matrix.

Circling back to the flagship claim, the Phone (3) is built around a 6.67-inch flexible AMOLED display with a 1.5K resolution, an adaptive 30-120Hz refresh rate, up to 4,500 nits of brightness, and Ultra HDR support. According to Nothing, the four-side uniform bezel design brings the screen-to-body ratio up to 92.89% for a "truly edge-to-edge experience" (or pretty darn close, anyway).

It's powered by a burly Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 system-on-chip (SoC). That's a step down from Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite (and there's a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 rumored to be right around the corner), but it's still a fast slice of silicon. It also gives Nothing reason to claim that the Phone (3) is up to five times faster than the budget-oriented Phone (3a).

Flanking the main processor are two RAM and storage configurations, including 12GB of RAM + 256GB of storage, and 16GB of RAM + 512GB of storage.

What's also at play here is what Nothing calls a "pro-grade camera system." This consists of three 50-megapixel cameras on the back of the handset, and another 50MP shooter on the front. We'll have to wait for hands-on testing to see how they fare, but having a total of four 50MP shooters isn't too shabby.

This is all powered by a 5,150mAh silicon-carbon battery that promises all-day battery life, with support for 65W wired and 15W fast wireless charging.

Nothing is offering the Phone (3) in white and black colorways. Pricing is set at $799 for the 12GB/256GB model and $899 for the 16GB/512GB configuration. Global preorders open on July 4 at Nothing's website, with the handset releasing on July 15. It will ship with Android 15 and Nothing OS 3.5, with plans to update the phone to Android 16 and Nothing OS 4.0 in the third quarter. Nothing is also promising five years of major Android updates and seven years of security updates.