![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/nothing-phone-3-1-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t<\/p>\n
Nothing\u2019s made a pretty sizeable splash this year with the launch of three smartphones \u2014 including its first-ever flagship-adjacent device \u2014 but it hasn\u2019t been without controversy. Following a controversial video comparison earlier this year between the Phone (3a) and iPhone 16 Pro Max, Nothing\u2019s been caught using professionally-sourced stock imagery on in-store demo units of the Phone (3).<\/p>\n
As is usual for in-store displays, Nothing\u2019s devices showcase a series of demos promoting the abilities of each of its respective devices. On the Nothing Phone (3), however, a demonstration of the power of its camera system instead uses five stock photos shot with professional cameras, rather than using samples captured with the actual device. Nothing has since confirmed the misuse<\/a> of these samples on Twitter, with the company\u2019s co-founder Akis Evangelidis claiming these images were meant to be placeholders used with \u201cno ill intent.\u201d He also described the entire debacle as \u201can unfortunate oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n Reports from several outlets confirmed the images as fake following an anonymous tip from a photographer responsible for taking one of the images. The Verge<\/a> was able to examine the EXIF data from the original image, confirming it wasn\u2019t captured with the Nothing Phone (3) and, in fact, dates back to 2023. 9to5Google was also one of the outlets contacted over the weekend from this tipster, alongside<\/a> links<\/a> to all<\/a> five<\/a> images<\/a> used within the in-store demo marketing experience available for sale at Stills, a stock photographer marketplace.<\/p>\n Evangelidis expanded<\/a> on the incident in several replies to his initial post, explaining that older Nothing images used to be sourced as placeholders while laying the blame on \u201cnew teams\/people involved\u201d for the switch to professional stock imagery. Still, it\u2019s unclear as to why Nothing would pay for photos destined to be replaced prior to shipping demo units to retailers when practically any image would do the trick of filling in vacant space. Even following the company\u2019s logic, utilizing professional photography like this rather than clearly marked placeholders simply raises the odds of a mistake like this happening in the first place.<\/p>\n \tAdvertisement – scroll for more content<\/p>\n While it\u2019s tough to definitively say whether this incident truly was an internal slip-up on Nothing\u2019s part, it marks the second camera-based debacle the brand has faced this year. In February, Nothing was forced to issue a correction<\/a> to its iPhone 16 Pro Max video comparison<\/a> after viewers realized the iPhone\u2019s video was shot in ultra-wide mode, rather than using its main \u2014 and much higher quality \u2014 sensor. At the time, Nothing promised to \u201cbe more careful to ensure greater scrutiny in future comparisons.\u201d While this in-store demo experience wasn\u2019t based around a comparison, it does bring into question whether or not that level of scrutiny was ever actually improved.<\/p>\n FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot_20250606-230833.png\")
The in-store demo experience showing the five sourced images from Stills.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756311787_403_08-19-Pixel-10-Series-Grip-Banner.png\"){kind=tracking}
<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing\u2019s made a pretty sizeable splash this year with the launch of three smartphones \u2014 including its first-ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[64,63,203,105],"class_list":["post-100042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}