- 6 months ago
Hands on and initial impressions of the Nothing Phone(3) - including camera, screen, battery, specs, price and more! Take your personal data back with Incogni - use code MRWHOSETHEBOSS at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/mrwhosetheboss
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TechTranscript
00:00This has been a long time coming.
00:02The Nothing Company appeared five years ago.
00:04They first released a pair of earphones,
00:05then they dabbled in entry-level and mid-range smartphones,
00:07but the Nothing Phone 3 is the first time
00:10they have ever released a flagship phone.
00:12Why have they waited this long?
00:13Well, basically because this is the single hardest
00:16type of product to actually pull off.
00:18The second you start charging $799 like they are doing here,
00:21you are now directly competing against some of the best phones
00:24from massive companies with practically unlimited investment budgets
00:28like Samsung's Galaxy S25 and Apple's iPhone 16,
00:31both of which also launched at exactly $799.
00:35So the question that we have to answer is actually really simple.
00:38Is this better?
00:40Starting with the design.
00:41I've actually been a big fan of Nothing's whole transparent aesthetic.
00:45Pretty much every Nothing Phone I've seen thus far
00:47has instantly vibed with me.
00:49But this is the first one that hasn't.
00:52It just looks a bit spotty with like half an NFC coil over here,
00:55this strange spacing between the various points of interest
00:59and the fact that this camera is very close to being aligned with this one,
01:02but it's just a little tiny bit off.
01:05It all gives me real unfinished prototype energy.
01:08Plus, materially speaking, nothing is a little behind.
01:11They have now introduced IP68 for water and dust,
01:14like you would expect on a flagship.
01:15The midframe is made from aluminium, again, just like its peers.
01:19But the glass protecting the front is Gorilla Glass 7i,
01:23which is actually a mid-range alternative to the much stronger Victus 2
01:27that you would get on Samsung's S25.
01:29So the Nothing Phone might not take a drop as well.
01:32One thing I have to say I do like is the recording light,
01:34which turns on when you're capturing voice or video.
01:37It could do with being a tad brighter,
01:39but I think in concept,
01:40it's just courteous to let other people know when they're being recorded,
01:44but also functional.
01:45Given that the whole idea of this phone is that you put it face down
01:48when you don't want to be distracted,
01:49I could so see sitting in a meeting that you're also recording
01:52and just wanting to be able to glance to double-check
01:55that the recording is still going.
01:56So mixed opinions on how the thing looks.
01:59But part of this very unique design
02:01is also to accommodate one of the phone's very unique features.
02:05You remember the Glyph light bars
02:06that we used to have on the backs of Nothing phones?
02:09Well, they're all gone.
02:10And all of their functionality has been bottled into this.
02:13The Glyph Matrix.
02:15489 individual LEDs,
02:16or I guess, in other words,
02:19basically a tiny second screen,
02:21which we kind of predicted.
02:22It was becoming pretty clear with the past few Nothing phones
02:24that we were approaching the limit
02:26of how much information you can actually convey
02:28with just light strips.
02:30Like, yes, they could light up if you had a pending notification.
02:34Yes, you could specify which contacts are important enough
02:36that they will cause your Glyph to come on.
02:38And even with what pattern.
02:40So you could be at dinner, for example,
02:42with your phone face down,
02:43but still know who has tried to contact you.
02:45But then these lights,
02:47they could never give you anything about the context of that notification.
02:50So you'd never really know enough
02:52to be able to decide if it was actually important or not
02:54without then flipping the phone over into attack position.
02:58But then that defeats the entire purpose.
03:00So, is the Glyph Matrix better?
03:04Um, mixed opinions.
03:06So, my very first thought was,
03:08I don't really like it.
03:09The Glyph lights were, while clearly flawed,
03:12still iconic and extremely cool.
03:15Whereas this is just a screen.
03:18We've seen plenty of phones already with screens on the back,
03:21and those screens have already been bigger,
03:23higher resolution, and in color.
03:25But then I started interacting with it,
03:26and my opinion improved a little.
03:29One thing that you can rely on Nothing doing is
03:31putting the work in software-wise.
03:34And so, while as a piece of hardware,
03:35this Matrix is extremely underwhelming in 2025,
03:39what you're getting here is Nothing's software curation.
03:42So, at any one time,
03:43the Matrix can display one widget,
03:45or Glyph toy, as they're calling them.
03:47You tap this hidden capacitive Glyph button down here
03:50to cycle between your Glyph toys.
03:51It reminds me a little of Apple Force Touch.
03:53It doesn't activate just by resting your finger on it.
03:56You actually have to apply a little bit of pressure
03:58till you feel a vibration.
03:59And then you hold that button to interact
04:01with whichever Glyph toy is selected.
04:04So, as I was messing around with this,
04:05I was like, oh, cool, there's a clock now.
04:07That's something that the previous Nothing phones couldn't do.
04:09And as an extension of that, a stopwatch,
04:11which is probably just about faster to use
04:14than opening up the clock app on your phone
04:16to justify existing.
04:18They're opening this Matrix up to the community.
04:20So, already, that community has made a leveler tool,
04:22and I am sure, down the line,
04:24there'll be a bunch of even more unique little applets
04:27that they've cooked up.
04:28But now I've thought about it even more,
04:29and I have gone full circle.
04:32And back to where I started.
04:33I am not a big fan of the Glyph Matrix.
04:36I think it's less cool and less different
04:39compared to the lights,
04:40and so far, at least,
04:41it doesn't really fix the limitations that they had either.
04:44Like, okay, what's the total list of Glyph toys we have?
04:47You've got battery percentage,
04:49which, I mean, I can't remember the last time
04:50I've wanted to know my battery percentage
04:52when I have specifically put my phone down
04:54so I avoid looking at it.
04:55You've got Spin the Bottle and Rock, Paper, Scissors,
04:58which, you know, I'm glad they're having fun with it,
05:01but who's challenging their phone to Rock, Paper, Scissors?
05:04And who's playing Spin the Bottle
05:05in an environment where the best bottle to use
05:08is a 50-pixel one on someone's Glyph Matrix?
05:12Now, the Glyph toys aren't everything.
05:13The Matrix does also interact with things
05:16that you do while actively using your phone.
05:18And I would say this stuff varies pretty wildly
05:21from completely useless,
05:23like how the LEDs can expand and contract
05:25based on your volume level,
05:27like who's looking,
05:29how it can act as a torch,
05:30but a much dimmer, less evenly spread torch
05:34than the Glyphs used to be able to provide,
05:36and how in a future update,
05:37you'll be able to see the caller ID
05:39of someone who's ringing you
05:40by long pressing on the Glyph button,
05:42which makes no sense at all
05:45because it takes the same amount of time
05:47to just turn your phone around and check,
05:49and at least that way you can also answer if you want to.
05:51There are some things about it that are not useful,
05:54but still cool,
05:55like the nothing signals,
05:56which are nothing style ringtones and notifications,
05:59but they're the complete package.
06:01Sound, haptic feedback,
06:02all paired with an accompanying animation
06:04on the Glyph Matrix.
06:05It's very satisfying.
06:06And then I would only say there's one thing
06:08that is actually very useful.
06:10The ability to use this second screen
06:12as a preview for your rear cameras
06:15to take full quality selfies.
06:17But then if you think about it,
06:18what I'm really saying is that
06:19the best feature of the Glyph Matrix
06:21is something that every past phone
06:23that's had a second screen
06:24has already been able to do better.
06:26There are also improvements to essential notifications.
06:29You know what I was saying,
06:30how you can set a few contacts
06:32or a few types of message
06:33that you deem important enough
06:35to give you a notification
06:36when your phone is flipped over.
06:38Well, now you can also assign a profile picture
06:41specific to each of those contacts.
06:43But yeah, you can see why
06:44it doesn't actually fix the problem.
06:46That even if let's say I can see their picture,
06:48so I know from the back of my phone,
06:50whether it's Jeremy or David,
06:52there's still a very wide range of messages
06:54that each of those contacts could be sending me.
06:56So I've still got to fully check the message myself
06:58on the front of the phone
06:59to decide if what they've just sent
07:01is one of the important ones.
07:03So really the two most unique things about this phone,
07:06the design and the glyph matrix,
07:08not in love with either of them.
07:10And I don't think either is a very good reason
07:12to get this over an iPhone or a Samsung.
07:15So then really the only way
07:17that I recommend this phone three
07:18is if it just straight up beats those other phones
07:21in hand-to-hand combat
07:23in terms of the phone fundamentals.
07:26So let's start with the red flags.
07:28The chipset that nothing has gone for
07:30is the Snapdragon 8S Gen 4,
07:33which is not the very highest-end Snapdragon 8 Elite
07:36that Samsung uses.
07:37Plus no real mention
07:38of any kind of advanced cooling system.
07:41So while nothing has been pretty good so far
07:43at always picking the sensible middle ground chip
07:46and doing a lot of software work behind the scenes
07:48to get the most out of it,
07:50there's no way that it doesn't get absolutely mowed down
07:53by Samsung in a head-to-head.
07:54We're talking 30 to 40% performance lead to Samsung.
07:58So like if you're into graphically intensive phone games,
08:01then that already writes this off for you.
08:04The other one is the display.
08:05So this is very much a flagship screen
08:08in terms of color reproduction,
08:10in terms of brightness, fantastic.
08:11The screen has exactly the same pixel density
08:13as the iPhone 16.
08:15So it's incredibly sharp.
08:16The only thing is nothing's display
08:19relies on slightly cheaper LTPS tech
08:22as opposed to the LTPO on Samsung
08:24and most Android phones at this price,
08:26which means that while Samsung can dial its refresh rate
08:29all the way down to one hertz,
08:31this can only go as low as 30.
08:33So in practice,
08:34that doesn't actually make the display look any worse.
08:37It'll just be a bit of a hit to battery life.
08:39But this is where things start to turn around
08:42because even with that hit,
08:43I think it's pretty safe to say
08:45that the nothing phone 3 will still outlast an iPhone 16
08:48or a Samsung Galaxy S25.
08:50The phone 3's battery capacity is 5,150 million powers,
08:54which compares quite well to Samsung's 4,000.
08:57Now, on one hand, it's a bigger phone.
08:59Of course, it has a bigger capacity.
09:01The phone 3 is actually more similar in size
09:03to the S25+, which has 4,900 million powers.
09:07But then the S25+, starts at $999.
09:10So I feel like it makes more sense to compare this
09:13to what Samsung gives you at this 799 price.
09:16And if you do that,
09:18I would expect the phone 3 to outlast them pretty significantly.
09:21I use the nothing phone 2 for quite a while.
09:23The battery life there was outstanding
09:25and everything about this phone makes me think
09:27it is going to last pretty much as long as that.
09:30Longer if all you were doing was surfing and watching YouTube
09:33and not pushing that chip,
09:34but then back to being about the same if it's mixed usage,
09:37including some demanding stuff like camera and gaming.
09:40Now, there is one weird thing,
09:41which is that this same phone is being marketed
09:43as having 5,500 million powers of battery in India.
09:47So just to address that,
09:48no, they haven't created two different versions of this
09:51with different dimensions and different weights.
09:52It is actually the same battery inside.
09:54It's just that there's a software limitation
09:57being put on it in this country and many other countries
09:59because if the battery capacity goes above a certain amount,
10:02then it becomes classed as a dangerous good,
10:05which can make your shipping costs go crazy.
10:07The end battery life you get should be the same.
10:09This is more just the semantics of how it's being presented.
10:12And so you shouldn't be having battery problems,
10:14especially since the phone can charge with 65 watts of power
10:17compared to Samsung's 25.
10:19The phone 3 has dual speakers and,
10:22I mean, at least based on my very early first impressions,
10:24they're not spectacular, but they're decent for a flagship.
10:28They're not quite as rich as the ones on iPhone or Samsung.
10:30But software is where this becomes
10:33a little bit more of a unique offering.
10:34So the phone 3 runs Nothing OS 3.5,
10:37basically a very slightly tweaked version
10:39of the Nothing OS you've already seen,
10:41which is essentially a mostly untouched version of Android
10:45with the only changes being purely aesthetic.
10:48I do think, though, while it's very difficult
10:49to compare it to Samsung's One UI,
10:52which is immensely more customizable,
10:54I do think that Nothing's OS is one of the best ways
10:57to experience Android.
10:58I like the fact that your icons aren't screaming
11:00for your attention.
11:01There are some parts of the UI which are quite unconventional
11:03and, in my opinion, just very beautifully laid out.
11:06And the biggest thing, it's completely bloatware free.
11:09The only actually unique features of Nothing OS
11:12are Essential Space, which to me feels like
11:15a somewhat half-baked way to keep track
11:17of all the things that you need to remember
11:18with a bit of a learning curve
11:20when it comes to understanding it.
11:21And then the thing that is completely new this time,
11:23Essential Search, which is swipe up
11:26from the bottom of your screen
11:27to be able to quickly get to anything.
11:29So the idea is very similar
11:31to your phone's Universal Search,
11:33but it's just a little bit broader.
11:34Like, it can solve math problems
11:36directly on device in that search box.
11:38And if you ask questions,
11:39it'll use a tweaked version of Gemini AI
11:42to give you an answer
11:43that's specifically designed to be short.
11:45You know, for those random quick lookups.
11:47It's a good idea.
11:48I'm all about having to go into each app less
11:51because one app does more.
11:53One thing Nothing has definitely done better
11:55this time around is their update promise.
11:57It's now five years of major Android upgrades
11:59and seven years of security updates,
12:02which, while not quite matching Samsung's
12:04seven years of full Android upgrades,
12:07is plenty.
12:07Especially considering how minuscule
12:09the actual upgrades are becoming now.
12:11So Phone 3 feels like a bit of a mixed bag right now.
12:15Some things I like, some things I don't like.
12:17But where it seems to shine is the cameras.
12:20Every camera sensor on the Phone 3,
12:22one, two, three, and even the front camera,
12:24is a 50 megapixel sensor.
12:26That, just for context,
12:28compares to 50, 10, 12, and 12 on Samsung.
12:32And megapixels are not everything.
12:33Don't pay too much attention to them.
12:35But using the camera for a short period of time,
12:38it feels to me like each one of the cameras here
12:40is also just better than what you would get on Samsung.
12:43The ultrawide, which is usually where you can first notice
12:46images fall apart, looks pretty detailed to me.
12:48The three times telephoto camera
12:49has a much more sizable sensor than the one on Sammy.
12:52And I like the fact that when you get past 30 times zoom,
12:55it will activate AI super res.
12:57And yes, it's a very gray area
12:59on if it then counts as a photo at that point,
13:01but I like having the option at least.
13:03And I particularly respect the fact
13:05that this telephoto camera
13:06is also what you use to take your macro shots.
13:09Which means, unlike having to shoot your close-ups
13:11using your ultrawide camera,
13:12like you do on most phones,
13:14you don't have to shove this phone
13:16super close to your subject
13:17and block out all the light going to it.
13:19And you can now focus from 10 centimeters away
13:21instead of 15,
13:22like you could the last time,
13:24nothing had this feature.
13:25Although I gotta say,
13:26this is a very funny example of marketing
13:27because while this is the story they're telling you
13:30that, oh, it can focus even closer
13:31than the last time we did this,
13:33the reason for that is that this is a smaller sensor
13:36than the last time they did it.
13:37They have reassured me though,
13:38that even then the photo quality from this telephoto
13:41should still be better just because of processing.
13:43So overall, nothing about the Nothing Phone 3,
13:46at least right now, is blowing me away.
13:48It feels like all of the actually unique things about it
13:51have a lot to prove.
13:52And aside from that,
13:53all of the core pillars of a flagship phone
13:55feel well covered, but not exceeded.
13:58That said, what is it up against at this price?
14:01I guess a bunch of other flagships
14:02that also aren't really pushing the boat out.
14:04So when you match it up side by side,
14:06I still think it compares quite well,
14:08but it also doesn't feel like that instant no-brainer
14:11that some past Nothing phones have been.
14:13Now, while I did mention that I love the fact
14:15that Nothing doesn't pre-install tons of bloat
14:17onto your phone,
14:18doesn't it always feel like bloat finds a way?
14:21Like, you always start your new phone completely clean,
14:23but then two months later,
14:24you're getting one spam text per day.
14:26You're getting random callers suddenly asking
14:29if you've been in an accident
14:29when you don't even drive.
14:31And then these emails offering you crypto advice
14:33from a guy named Dylan.
14:34So here's how I actually keep my phone clean.
14:37See, there's a very good chance
14:39that if you get a ton of random messages,
14:41a data broker has bought your data
14:43and wants to use it to make some money.
14:45And so what I found really helpful
14:46is using Incogni, our sponsor,
14:48being able to first see all of the data brokers
14:51that have my data,
14:52and then in a total of two taps,
14:54being able to instruct Incogni to go get it back.
14:57Bye bye, Dylan.
14:57And to be honest,
14:58the best bit I think is customer removals.
15:00If you Google yourself
15:01and you find a little bit more personal information
15:03than you wanted to share,
15:05you can also just ping the link to Incogni
15:06and then watch it disappear.
15:08So go to incogni.com slash MrWhosTheBoss
15:10to set it up yourself,
15:11which with the code MrWhosTheBoss,
15:13you can do for a 60% discount.
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