Is the Nothing Phone (3) a true flagship phone?

Nothing has revealed its latest weapon in the war against boring tech with the Nothing Phone (3). Company founder, Carl Pei, took to the stage at Magazine London to detail the new phone, alongside another new product, the Nothing Headphone (1), its first foray into over-ear headphones.

Nothing claims that the Phone (3) is its first true flagship phone, taking the time to define “flagship” as something that “expresses our vision”. When Nothing launched 5 years ago, Carl Pei outlined that tech had become boring, harking back to devices like the Game Boy and original iPod that really caught the public’s attention, something that this phone is designed to address.

The Nothing Phone (3) isn’t just a dalliance in nostalgia-tech. Following the company’s now-established design language, and following from the Phone (3a) and (3a) Pro, there’s a transparent back showing off the phone’s innards.

In a slight twist on the formula, we come to Nothing’s kink, the Glyph Interface. The old LED strips that adorned the last few devices have been retired, with a new round Glyph Matrix sitting in the top right-hand corner instead.

The Glyph Matrix has 489 individual LEDs and is supported by a range of Glyph Toys: it’s more graphically interactive than the strip-based Glyph Interface ever was, and contains some fun elements, like spin the bottle and stone paper scissors games.

There’s a Glyph Button on the rear of the phone that you can use to cycle through the various tools and games it offers.

Flagship specs?

In modern tech circles, flagship is usually defined not by a product’s aims, but by its spec sheet. The Nothing Phone (3) is powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, which is immediately offset against the £799 asking price. It’s almost a flagship processor, but it falls squarely into the sub-flagship bracket.

For Nothing, this is about making sure that you get good value for money, but there’s no shortage of tech fans who will look at that decision and declare that this isn’t a flagship phone.

Where Nothing outdoes some of its mainstream rivals is in the battery. Turning to silicon-carbon tech, there’s a 5,150mAh battery, with 65W charging. That’s an increase over the Nothing Phone (2), and more capacious than phones like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, but it still sounds a little small compared to the likes of the OnePlus 13.

A testing moment for Nothing’s camera

But above everything else, for all the effort that’s put into a phone, often it will only be judged by the camera performance. The Nothing Phone (3) has three cameras on the rear, each using a 50-megapixel sensor and offering a wide aperture main camera, 3x optical periscope zoom and an ultrawide camera. This is joined by a 50-megapixel front facing camera too.

What Nothing didn’t spend time doing was really talking about the camera. We didn’t see comparison photos against rivals, or hear any great claims about what it might do, but Nothing’s Gallery was in the spotlight for a while.

A software experience that stands Nothing apart

Nothing OS has found favour with fans for looking a little different to other Android devices and offering plenty of customisation and unique features. Sure, you could say that about Samsung or Xiaomi or any other Android phone, but Nothing OS has a sense of cohesion you don’t find on all devices.

One area where Nothing is really placing its efforts is in Essential Space. This was introduced on the Nothing Phone (3a), paired with the Essential Key and acts like a second memory. The idea is that you can save information here and AI understands what it is for when you need it again.

Screenshots, voice notes, recordings, all these things fall into Essential Space. It feels like the shoots of an AI experience that’s not yet come to fruition. Carl Pei has previously talked about a phone experience that isn’t tied into individual apps – and Essential Space has that sort of vibe to it.

Expanding the “essential” theme, Nothing Phone (3) also introduces Essential Search, allowing universal searching across the device – contacts, photos, files – it’s designed to return more dynamically, so you don’t have to search in your calendar to find an appointment or in your photos for a particular image, it can do it all. It’s similar to Moto AI’s search function and its usefulness is still to be determined.

Is there anything new here?

Carl Pei will be the first to admit that Nothing is a design-led organisation and if you’re looking for a phone that stands out, then the Nothing Phone (3) certainly does. There’s nothing else that looks like this out there. Sure, there are other devices with LEDs on the back (ROG Phone), there are others who have used transparency before, and many of the software features remain defined by Google and bound by the app experience.

But with most rivals pushing phones that cost more than £1,000 in the flagship space, Nothing’s focus on something more affordable is worthy. There’s a disctinctly different vibe to the design, so you’re not left holding a phone that feels like a compromised version of something more expensive.

Exactly how this transforms into a daily experience remains to be seen; the Nothing Phone (3) is now available for pre-order, starting at £799, with general sale from 15 July.