Weekly poll: Nothing Phone (3), the good, the bad or the ugly?

After releasing the Nothing Phone (2) in 2023, Nothing took a year off from premium phones – but it promised a proper flagship for 2025. And, uh, here it is. The Nothing Phone (3) quickly became the talk of the town and not in a good way. Where should we start?

The design is one of the more controversial aspects of the phone and it’s hard to ignore. Nothing has built a reputation for out-of-the-box designs and the brand’s style is instantly recognizable. However, this latest model – remember, it was two years in the making! – caused an avalanche of negative reactions.

And that may not be the worst of it – let’s look at the prices next.

For context, a 12/256GB OnePlus 13 is $900/£900/€1,000/₹70,000 without any discounts. No, you’re not reading it wrong, the OnePlus flagship has a lower MSRP in India than the Nothing phone.

The Nothing Phone (3) has a non-LTPO 6.67” 120Hz OLED display and a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 instead of Elite. The triple 50MP camera has a large 1/1.3” main sensor, but the 3x periscope has a smaller sensor than the Phone (3a) Pro (1/2.75” vs. 1/1.95”). The battery is 5,150mAh in most of the world and 5,500mAh in India – in either case you are looking at 65W wired and 15W wireless charging. The dust and water resistance is the best of any Nothing phone so far but it’s still only IP68.

Those are not exactly flagship specs, are they? So far, Nothing phones have been better value for money than much of the competition, but the same can’t be said of the Phone (3). How much does that dot matrix display on the back cost, anyway?

The phone will receive 5 OS updates and 7 years of security patches. Nothing OS 4.0/Android 16 is coming “later this autumn”. Check out our hands-on to learn more about the Nothing Phone (3).

What do you think – will you buy the Nothing Phone (3) or are you looking at other models?