Nothing Phone 3 Review: They Lied!

Summary

MKBHD reviews the Nothing Phone 3, challenging Nothing’s claim that this is their first “true flagship” phone at $799. While the phone looks and feels like a flagship with its massive 6.67” AMOLED display, triple 50MP cameras, and up to 16GB RAM, under the surface it still follows Nothing’s playbook of cutting corners in ways most users won’t notice. Instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite, it uses the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip. The display uses Gorilla Glass 7i (mid-range) and LTPS instead of LTPO. However, the phone excels in battery life with its 5,200mAh silicon carbon battery, clean Nothing OS software, and the new Glyph Matrix display replacing the traditional glyph lights. The verdict: it’s still a Nothing phone through and through - a phone you buy for unique design and clean software rather than raw flagship specs.

Highlights

”This is No More of a Flagship Than Nothing’s Previous Phones”

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“I’ve been using this for the last week and I’m gonna disagree with the whole premise here actually. This is no more of a flagship than Nothing’s previous phones. Now are they lying to us? Eh, not exactly but kind of.” — Marques Brownlee, 2:01

”The Playbook is to Cut Back Just a Little”

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“The playbook is to just cut back just a little, stuff in ways that hopefully you won’t notice. And it still feels like a flagship, but that allows ‘em to cut costs and undercut the competition a little bit.” — Marques Brownlee, 3:17

”Flagship Battery for Sure”

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“It’s silicon carbon, it supports wireless charging, reverse wired charging. It’s great. It sips power in standby and it’s genuinely a two day phone even without the more efficient LTPO display. So honestly flagship battery for sure.” — Marques Brownlee, 7:03

”The Real Best Part of a Nothing Phone”

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“The real best part of a Nothing phone is still the software, because Nothing OS 3.5, soon to be updated to 4.0. Like they have this tastefully modified version of Android with finely-tuned, smooth performance and a handful of useful features.” — Marques Brownlee, 12:48

”They Did Marketing”

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“Flagship, the word flagship, is a marketing term. And so maybe the review title should just been Nothing Phone 3, They Did Marketing, whatever. But the point is, it still stands. They’re charging 799 for this phone and there are other really good phones that you can get for that much money.” — Marques Brownlee, 14:44

Key Points

• Carcinisation of Smartphones (0:46) - MKBHD introduces the concept of “carcinisation” (evolution toward crab-like forms) as a metaphor for how smartphones all converge to similar designs
• $799 Price Point (1:53) - Nothing calls this their first “true flagship” at $799, competing directly with Galaxy S25, Pixel 9, and iPhone 16
• Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 (3:48) - Uses the upper mid-range chip instead of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite, offering 40% better CPU and 90% better GPU than Nothing Phone 2
• Sub-$500 Competition (4:46) - Same chip found in Poco F7 and Iqoo Neo 10, both under $500
• 6.67” AMOLED Display (5:15) - Gorgeous display with 4,500 nits peak brightness, but uses Gorilla Glass 7i (mid-range) instead of Victus
• LTPS vs LTPO (6:31) - Display can only refresh at 30-120Hz instead of the more efficient 1-120Hz range of LTPO
• 5,200mAh Silicon Carbon Battery (6:53) - Marketed as 5,100mAh, genuinely a two-day phone with wireless and reverse wired charging
• Triple 50MP Camera System (7:21) - Main sensor over 1.3 inches, but images frequently soft compared to mainstream flagships
• 3x Telephoto (8:22) - Also handles macro shots, very useful addition
• Camera Design Engineering (9:11) - To eliminate camera bump, the PCB has a hole allowing optics to pass through instead of stacking on top
• Glyph Matrix Replaces Glyph Lights (9:58) - New 489 LED pixel display in upper corner replaces traditional glyph lights
• Essential Notifications (10:43) - Can set up specific icons for important contacts so you never miss messages from specific people
• Touch-Sensitive Circle (11:30) - Physical touch target on back to cycle through glyph toys like timer, viewfinder, spin the bottle
• Open API (12:16) - Developers can create apps for the back screen, though adoption remains uncertain
• Nothing OS 3.5 (12:48) - Clean, tastefully modified Android with smooth performance and optional AI features
• Universal Search with AI (13:49) - App drawer search can optionally use AI to provide brief answers
• Software Updates (14:27) - Promises major software updates, though not as many as Samsung or Apple

Mentions

Companies

• Nothing (1:47) - The phone manufacturer, known for design-focused approach
• Samsung (2:21) - Galaxy S25 comparison at $799
• Google (2:23) - Pixel 9 comparison
• Apple (2:28) - iPhone 16 comparison, software update leader
• Qualcomm (3:54) - Makes both the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 and flagship 8 Elite chips
• Poco (4:48) - F7 uses same chip for under $500
• Iqoo (4:50) - Neo 10 uses same chip for under $500
• Corning (6:01) - Gorilla Glass 7i is mid-range vs Victus for flagships
• Spotify (12:26) - Potential developer for Glyph Matrix apps

Products & Technologies

• Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 (3:50) - Upper mid-range chip in Nothing Phone 3
• Snapdragon 8 Elite (3:54) - True flagship chip Nothing didn’t use
• Silicon Carbon Battery (7:03) - Enables larger capacity in same form factor
• UFS 4.0 (4:59) - Fast storage standard
• Glyph Matrix (10:08) - 489 LED pixel display replacing traditional glyphs
• Nothing OS 3.5 (12:54) - Clean Android skin, upcoming 4.0 update
• LTPO vs LTPS (6:33) - Display technologies with different power efficiency
• Gorilla Glass 7i (6:01) - Mid-range glass protection

Surprising Quotes

“This is the Nothing Phone 3 and yeah, it’s ugly.” — 0:18

“Carcinisation. I learned about this recently. This is a strange phenomenon in evolutionary biology where a bunch of undersea crustaceans have evolved independently to have the same, flat, robust, crab-like shape.” — 0:46

“It’s still a notch behind the Galaxy S25’s and iPhone 16’s of the world. The mainstream flagships.” — 7:36

“You can play Rock, Paper, Scissors against your own phone.” — 12:05

Transcript

0:18 This is the Nothing Phone 3 and yeah, it’s ugly. You know, people say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and stuff like that. I get it. You can find beauty in things that feel good. And you know, when things are where they should be, doesn’t that feel better?

0:46 Okay. All right, carcinisation. I learned about this recently. This is a strange phenomenon in evolutionary biology where a bunch of undersea crustaceans have evolved independently to have the same, flat, robust, crab-like shape because it seems to be optimal for surviving in the ocean. Oversimplified, it feels like everything is evolving towards a crab. And look at all these crabs, lots of smartphones today look alike.

1:14 So when something comes along that looks different, well it’s gonna feel weird, isn’t it? But hey, maybe someone’s into the text in various places. Maybe you’re into the functional record light. Maybe you’re into a bit of a lobster. Real talk though, it feels like every time Nothing comes out with a new phone and people hate on all the pictures on the internet ‘cause they look weird. And then two months later we forget about the looks and we can focus on the product itself.

1:44 So let’s just skip all that. This is what Nothing is calling their first “true flagship” which is what you would expect when you’re charging $799 for a phone after rolling around in the budget and mid-range space for a few years. But I’ve been using this for the last week and I’m gonna disagree with the whole premise here actually. This is no more of a flagship than Nothing’s previous phones.

2:14 Now are they lying to us? Eh, not exactly but kind of. Hear me out. 799 is the same price as the Galaxy S25, or the Pixel 9, or right around the iPhone 16. Like they’re competing against companies with basically unlimited money. And part of what we’ve come to expect from the flagship class is basically giving you the best of everything.

2:46 Like it’s kind of this unspoken rule, but if you’re spending flagship money you expect to just get the best parts, right? That’s why it’s been so easy for me to rag on like the Pixel in the past for not having the best performance or the iPhone for not having the best battery life.

2:55 So this Nothing Phone 3, it’s certainly dressed up like a flagship and it is the most flagship Nothing phone ever. It is huge. It’s got this super bright gorgeous display. It has a massive new triple 50 megapixel camera system, up to 16 gigs of RAM. Like it’s got all the makings of a flagship.

3:17 But when you peel back the layers, like right under the surface, you see the same playbook that Nothing has been running on all their previous phones in the past. The playbook is to just cut back just a little, stuff in ways that hopefully you won’t notice. And it still feels like a flagship, but that allows ‘em to cut costs and undercut the competition a little bit. So it works. It’s not a bad strategy. It’s allowed ‘em to make money, but it’s just harder to sell as a flagship.

3:48 So for starters, the chip inside, right? It’s not the expensive, top of the line Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. This is running the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4. It’s one of the first phones to have it. And to be fair, it is much faster than the chip in any previous Nothing phone. It’s a four nanometer chip, it’s something like 40% better CPU and like 90% better GPU than Nothing Phone 2. The phone is zippy and smooth as hell, basically all the time.

4:23 But is it the best available? No. The Snapdragon 8 Elite still smokes this. You can see in benchmarks that’s still the flagship chip. Now you as the user probably wouldn’t notice a difference. In fact you probably wouldn’t be able to tell them apart side by side in a lot of situations. But if you happen to get into heavy gaming or the most intense tasks, you will see a difference from an upper mid-range chip.

4:46 So for some context, some other phones with this chip are the Poco F7 and the Iqoo Neo 10, both of these are sub $500 phones. I also think they were available with 12 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage. It’s fast RAM, it’s UFS 4.0 and then the upgraded model has 16 gigs of RAM and half a terabyte. Awesome to see that. But there’s no Pro model with Snapdragon 8 Elite. And I think if they did make one, that would probably be the actual flagship.

5:15 Now when we get to the outside again, huge new AMOLED display. Surely it’s a flagship display, right? It’s gigantic. It’s 6.67 inches corner to corner with perfectly even bezels that takes extra work. It’s a gorgeous AMOLED, and it’s a high resolution panel. It’s nice and sharp, smooth with that dynamic refresh rate and it gets crazy bright, 4,500 nits peak brightness with HDR. So the numbers on paper go crazy and it’s just, it’s such a nice display. I’ve loved using it.

5:54 So what’s the catch? Well one, you would never notice unless you check the spec sheet, but the glass protecting it is Gorilla Glass 7i, and that is a mid-range glass where you might see flagships using Gorilla Glass Victus or Victus 2. And normally I wouldn’t even bring that up but that’s definitely something that is meant to cut costs a little bit.

6:16 And then another thing, there are a lot of like really nice, subtle display features here. Like it has a 1,000Hz touch sampling rate so it’s even more responsive to touches. It also has 2160 hertz PWM dimming and it also has a very acceptable chin down near the bottom. But it’s also an LTPS display, instead of the most premium LTPO. And all that really means is instead of varying a refresh rate from 1 to 120 hertz, it can go from 30 to 120 hertz. You would never notice, but it means slightly worse power efficiency.

6:53 I’ll tell you what though, it more than makes up for the slightly worse power efficiency because the battery in this phone is huge. It’s marketed as a 5100mAh battery but according to Nothing it’s actually rated at a 5,200mAh capacity. It’s silicon carbon, it charges quickly. It supports wireless charging, reverse wired charging. It’s great. It sips power in standby and it’s genuinely a two day phone even without the more efficient LTPO. So honestly flagship battery for sure.

7:21 So then, okay, what about the cameras? Triple 50 megapixel cameras on the back. And you know what, again, it is closer to a flagship than any previous Nothing phone has ever been, but I’ve used this now for a little bit. It’s still a notch behind the Galaxy S25’s and iPhone 16’s of the world. The mainstream flagships are still better.

7:44 This main sensor is the largest ever in a Nothing phone, one over 1.3 inches. It lets a ton more light in and I realize as I’m looking through all the pictures I’ve taken, for some reason it’s frequently soft. Like even on a perfectly normal shot, the colors will be fine, but the subject of the photo that should be in sharp focus is a little soft. I think you can blame this maybe a little bit on the larger sensor with shallower depth of field. It’s definitely capable of good pictures and it’s a little bit wider than before but yeah, that’s a little bit odd.

8:22 Then the telephoto is 3x, also 50 megapixels but also very useful. It’s where your macro shots come from and you can get some really nice close-ups. And the ultra wide and the selfie cameras, they are the most consistent performers here. But yeah, like I said, the whole camera setup is just one notch behind those flagships. And you may only notice when comparing and pixel peeping. But again, that’s the point. Mostly good enough for most people.

8:51 I think with a little tuning, I think a perfect execution of this phone would be great. I mean, the unique aspects of this phone are, I mean the design. It’s an insane design but I mean the rings obviously look cool but most flagship phones at this point have some sort of big camera bump that they all sit on. It turns out to get this phone to not have a bump, that actually required the PCB or the board inside to have a hole in it. So the optics could pass through the PCB instead of being stacked totally on top of it. I’m sure we’ll see this in a tear down video at some point. But yeah, basically mission accomplished on that but that also meant they had to use some smaller parts to make it work. And this is actually a smaller camera sensor than the cheaper Nothing Phone 3a Pro. So spoiler, the design of this phone has always been the priority, always has been.

9:50 But let’s talk about the most important part of this design, which is the glyphs, which made Nothing Phones famous for a couple years. This year, the glyph lights are gone and replacing them is this new display in the upper corner of the phone. It’s 489 LED pixels. They’re calling it Glyph Matrix. On its face, this has some genuine utility, but then it’s also surrounded by gimmicks.

10:20 Okay, so the basic idea is your phone is face down and then the lights on the back light up and you could tell something from the pattern to decide if you wanna actually pick up your phone. So if that is all you’re after, then okay, success, you know, more power to you. The new essential notifications are more powerful and informative. It’s better than ever before. I can set up a certain pattern whenever I get a certain type of notification or anything from a certain person or from a certain app. Let’s say I wanna be able to ignore most texts but I never wanna miss any from mom. Okay, set that up. No matter what she sends, I will get an icon or a specific pattern or something that it can display. Anytime mom calls or texts or whatever, I can’t see what they said, but I can see that she sent me something. So that’s convenient, that’s functional.

11:15 Outside of that, it immediately starts feeling gimmicky. If you take another look at the back of the phone you see this little dot near the camera. This little circle is actually a touch-sensitive area. And when you press that, it lights up and then you can use a swipe gesture through these glyph toys and then a long press to select one. So you can cycle to a timer and then start a timer on the back of the phone which doesn’t sync up with any other timers. So if you turn your phone over, the timer stops. So be careful.

11:52 You can also use the back display as a viewfinder for your rear cameras, or you can play spin the bottle. Maybe you’re into that. Maybe you and your friends are at a party but you have your Nothing phone. Or you can play Rock, Paper, Scissors against your own phone. I think you get the idea. They’re fun tech demos, but the actual utility is limited.

12:16 Now they have opened up the API. So developers, if they want to, can make more stuff for the back screen. I, you know, with this small of an install base I don’t know how many actually will, like, is Spotify gonna make like album art, cover art on the back of the phone here? I don’t know. But the Nothing community has already started making some stuff and messing with it. They’ve made a magic eight ball app. So instead of turning your phone over and asking Google for a magic eight ball, you can ask the back of your phone and it’ll give you a little message. Cool.

12:48 Look, the real best part of a Nothing phone is still the software side of the phone because Nothing OS 3.5, soon to be updated to 4.0. Like they have this tastefully modified version of Android with finely-tuned, smooth performance and a handful of useful features that they just sort of sprinkle in there. So you can sort of choose to use them or easily ignore. The AI-powered essential features are there and get more features, though it doesn’t sync with anything externally. So I don’t use it. And yes, there’s still a custom button for it on the side of the phone, but it’s not too in-your-face. You can ignore it if you want.

13:27 And the little things like being able to resize the quick settings toggles or the way you can swipe up through presets, which is so clean. Everything is clean, and the whole OS is responsive in ways that feel higher end than the spec sheet would suggest.

13:45 I think the best new software feature is the universal search box. So you might actually notice there’s a permanent search box at the bottom of the home screen at all times. Not that search box, but when you pull up the app drawer. Now, that one searches through apps and settings like usual, or you can ask it a question and hit that AI button and it’ll use a modified language model and pull up a short and helpful answer. It’s tuned to kind of just be brief and give you answers to stuff. It’s nice. And again, you can choose to use it or just never even try. You can just leave it tucked away.

14:27 And this is also gonna get updates. They are gonna do three years of major software updates. I could do the nitpicky thing and be like, oh, Samsung does seven and Apple does even more. So it’s not quite a flagship level of support, but you’ve seen how flagships kind of vary all over the board. So I’m giving them flagship credit here.

14:44 So at the end of the day, is the title of this review a little dramatic? Maybe. Sure. But flagship, the word flagship is just a marketing term. And so maybe the review title should just been Nothing Phone 3, They Did Marketing, whatever. But the point is, it still stands. They’re charging 799 for this phone and there are other really good phones that you can get for that much money.

15:12 So this phone, just like previous Nothing phones, is still a phone that you would get if you really care not so much about raw specs, but about clean software and a unique design. You don’t want another crab phone. Thanks for watching. Peace.