Nothing officially unveiled its latest flagship smartphone—the Phone (3)—at an industry event in London, breaking a two-year silence since its last flagship release. With an entry price tag of $799, the Phone (3) positions itself squarely against industry titans such as Samsung and Apple, hoping its distinctive look and innovative features will appeal strongly to tech enthusiasts.
Since the introduction of its original Phone (1) in 2022, the GV-backed company has consistently leaned on its signature transparent-back design, creating immediate brand recognition in a crowded mobile phone market. Continuing this visual convention for the Phone (3), designers at Nothing introduced one quirky modification: an unconventional camera module layout, abandoning traditional squared or circular arrangements for an intentionally asymmetrical design. Users sensitive to visual symmetry may find this arrangement uniquely provocative.
Furthermore, Nothing has replaced its previous Glyph interface—a series of LED lights designed to convey notifications—with an upgraded small circular LED panel dubbed the Glyph Matrix. Located on the upper-right corner at the back of the device, the Glyph Matrix produces recognizable 16-bit graphical icons offering richer notification signals and supporting compact interactive mini-apps such as digital spins on classics like spin the bottle and rock-paper-scissors.
Acknowledging current trends, Nothing has also integrated cutting-edge artificial intelligence features into the Phone (3). Two AI-driven elements make their debut: Essential Space and Essential Search. Essential Space, which previously debuted on the Phone 3a Pro as a note-taking and screenshot-saving utility, has received an upgrade, now allowing users to capture meeting recordings along with AI-generated real-time transcriptions and summarizations. Users activate this convenient function simply by pressing the dedicated Essential key and placing the phone screen-down. However, the company has not yet developed a web-based interface to access these recordings externally.
Essential Search, Nothing’s answer to Apple’s Spotlight search, also incorporates AI capabilities. Users can type natural language queries or traditional keywords to search through settings, files, folders, images, or directly access information from the web using a dedicated button placed alongside the search bar—mirroring Apple’s latest Siri integration with ChatGPT-like functionalities.
Under the hood, Nothing’s latest release offers specifications designed to stay competitive among high-end Android phones in 2025. The Phone (3) sports a 6.67-inch AMOLED display at 1.5K resolution, shielded by the advanced Gorilla Glass 7i. A powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip, built using a 4nm process, drives the device’s performance.
In terms of photography, the Phone (3)’s triple-camera system boasts three separate 50-megapixel sensors. The device’s main camera features an enlarged 1.3-inch sensor—20% larger than the previous generation’s—with a bright aperture of f/1.68. It shares space with a powerful periscope telephoto lens enabling 3x optical zoom and up to 60x digital zoom, boosted by AI Super Res Zoom, while the ultra-wide-angle lens captures scenes with a 114-degree field of view. Nothing has also significantly enhanced the selfie camera, upgrading resolution to 50 megapixels, from 32 megapixels in the previous iteration.
As for power, the Phone (3) carries a hefty 5,150 mAh battery (5,500 mAh for the Indian variant) which supports rapid 65W wired charging as well as 15W wireless charging. The software side includes the brand-new Nothing OS 3.5—built on Android 15—promising an update to Nothing OS 4.0, based on Android 16, later this year. Nothing further guarantees five years of active software updates and an extended seven years of regular security patches for longer lifecycle support than most competitors.
Customers will have options between two storage configurations: a 256GB model priced at $799 and a 512GB version retailing for $899. In terms of direct competition, this pricing puts the Phone (3) head-to-head with Samsung’s Galaxy S25, which launched earlier this year at $799.
Interested buyers across the U.S. can place pre-orders starting July 4, with the official release scheduled for July 15. Unlike its limited availability phones released previously through restrictive beta releases, Phone (3) will be broadly available for general purchase through Nothing’s official website as well as Amazon.
