The Nothing Phone (3) — we’ll call it Phone 3 for short — is the London phone maker’s first flagship. It is far from perfect, but it’s a handset that’s impacted me. I’ve seen smartphone companies come and go throughout my life, and brands like LG, HTC, Nokia, Blackberry, and more all fail, but after reviewing the Phone 3, I really hope Nothing (the company) succeeds. The tech startup led by OnePlus’s 35-year-old co-founder Carl Pei has some crazy and weird ideas, but as far as gimmicks go, I’m finding them useful.

Still, if you’re looking for the best smartphone on the market, I wouldn’t recommend the Phone 3, but as I’ll explain, I’d actually consider using the handset as a primary driver.

WTF Design

All right, so let’s start off with the design of the Phone 3. From the front on, the handset looks pretty normal with somewhat thin bezels and a hole-punch selfie camera. The phone has a 6.67-inch display with a 1260 x 2800-pixel resolution, meaning that everything on the screen looks pretty good, nothing outstanding, especially if you were to compare it with the QHD panels on the S25 Ultra or the OnePlus 13, but it’s definitely serviceable and in the same vein as the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro. Surrounding the phone is an anti-fingerprint aluminum frame, which makes the handset look premium and feel nice in the hand.

The left side of the frame has two buttons for the volume keys. I love when they’re separated instead of one long volume rocker. The bottom of the frame sports a USB-C port, micro-SD card slot, and a speaker grill. On the right, there’s the power key and a silver button that has a gloss to it and protrudes a bit more than the other buttons. This is the Essential Key, a feature that I’ve grown to absolutely love, but more on this later.

Now, the back of the handset has a lot to talk about. It’s probably one of the ugliest rear camera setups, with the lenses kind of in the shape of an ‘L’, but then there’s also a black circle in the top right corner that might appear to some as a camera sensor, but it’s not. It’s actually a tiny dot matrix display with several functions.

Additionally, the phone has a transparent rear, but it doesn’t actually show the internals of the device. There’s a force touch-like button as well. It’s all strange, and best seen through photos like the one above. I have no clue what Nothing was thinking when they designed this handset, but it definitely has uniqueness compared to other phones on the market, which is something I can appreciate.

Enter the Matrix

Ditching the Glyph Lighting on the rear of the Nothing Phone (2), the Phone 3 has the new Glyph Matrix, which is a tiny circular screen that uses a dot matrix for certain functions. I used the Glyph Matrix mostly as a notification light, to check the time or to easily see how much battery the handset has left. It can also be used as a countdown timer for your camera, a flashlight, and it’ll light up for notifications as well.

However, I find it’s best to use the Glyph Matrix like a viewfinder for the rear-facing camera, and though you’re only getting a pixelated dot matrix version of a regular viewfinder, it’s serviceable and has allowed me to take some fun selfies. Honestly, I’ve barely used the 50-megapixel shooter on the front because I’ve just been taking pictures with the rear-facing shooter. I love this, as it’s like using a foldable phone, but with a regular form factor and a much more affordable price tag.

Nothing Special

Speaking of the cameras, the Phone 3 takes pretty solid pictures with its trio of 50-megapixel rear-facing cameras. Colours are serviceable, and while other phones can capture more detail, I don’t mind sharing these pictures on social media. If you’re a photographer, I maybe wouldn’t use the Phone 3, but it works for me.

Personally, I think 3x optical zoom isn’t enough for a flagship camera nowadays. I wish the phone had a periscope lens with a bigger zoom, but given the price of the handset compared to something like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which lacks a zoom shooter, the Phone 3, isn’t that bad.

Essential

It feels weird that any part of this device is called ‘Essential,’ especially since it gives Essential PH-1 vibes, but as I mentioned previously, there’s a button on the right side of the handset called the Essential Key.

The Essential Key works as a second memory, and screenshots anything on your display and places it in the Essential Space for later. Everything is locally stored on-device, and when AI is used to process the data, Nothing says that it’s encrypted and automatically deleted.

I’ve been using it to help me stay a lot more organized and on top of what I need to do during the day. If I receive a text message from a friend asking to hang out on Tuesday, I press the Essential Key, and that information is saved and added to my Google Calendar. You can also leave written or audio notes and add it to each screenshot. It’s thoughtless and doesn’t take any time. I use it for work whenever I get an email invite to an event, meet up with friends, medical appointments, and so much more. I’ve even used it to quickly put an anime comedy show in my calendar on a bulletin, by turning on my camera, and pressing the Essential Key, so that it’s entering details in real life into the Essential Space.

I love this feature and have found it incredibly useful, I wish the Pixel Screenshot app worked liked this, and hoping it does in the future. And of course, you can use something like Gemini to add details to your calendar, but you have to do the extra step of telling it to add what’s on your screen to the calendar. And if it’s an appointment, the Essential Space will also add a reminder to the appointment earlier in the day. It’s clutch, and I’ve since switched phones (for review purposes), and I already miss it.

Not-so-flagship

While Nothing has marketed the Phone 3 as a flagship phone, the device sports the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, built on a 4nm process, alongside 12-16GB of RAM. Out of all the smartphones I’ve reviewed this year, including one of Samsung’s A-series devices, this phone gets hot. It’s not all the time, and definitely when the handset is working a little harder, but the handset isn’t for those who are gamers, or working on anything too power-intensive.

Seriously, after playing a single game of Marvel Snap, the phone heats up. After four, it’s too hot to hold. Even with the app running in the background, it gets too warm. While the handset isn’t lagging, all the heat is frustrating. I’ve had it happen when editing a photo on Instagram before posting, and charging the device (which can happen to other phones, but usually not flagships). Additionally, when I ran benchmarks on the device, I forgot to screenshot my results, and had to run it twice, and the handset sort of just gave up and closed the app, and I had to wait for a moment to cool down.

These aren’t necessarily easy tasks for any phone, but after using every single flagship available in Canada for the past several years, it was weird to see from a phone that’s been marketed as such.  Speaking of benchmarks, the handset had a single-core score of 2,120 and a multi-core score of 6,671 in Geekbench 6, which is in the realm of the iPhone 16e, notably not a flagship. It also falls way short of handsets like the S25 Ultra, ROG Phone 9, and others using the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Unfortunately in Canada, there’s no other phone running the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, so I had nothing to compare the Phone 3 against. That said, it’s not entirely important as benchmarks don’t typically equate to regular daily experience.

On the bright side, the 5,150mAh battery is pretty solid and I haven’t had any issues with the device lasting well into the second day. This takes a toll if I play a lot of Marvel Snap (maybe it’s an addiction?), but I haven’t had an instance where the phone was fully charged at the beginning of the day and it died before 10pm.

Value

The Nothing Phone 3 costs $1,179.99 in Canada, making it more affordable than the Pixel 9 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S25+ and the OnePlus 13 (though that device is currently on sale for $1,049.99). The handset gets warm, the cameras could be better, and the design is weird, but it’s been my daily driver for several weeks, and I’ve enjoyed using it. The Essential Key has made organizing my life a lot easier, and I love taking selfies with the Glyph Matrix.

If you want something unique on the market, and you’re not much a mobile gamer, mostly using it to watch videos, or scrolling social media, and taking a pic for Insta, the Phone 3 could be for you. However, it hurts to say that there are better phones on the market if you need something that takes excellent photos, plays games well, or if you’re a productivity user, you might need to spend more money and go with the S25 Ultra, or grab the OnePlus 13 that’s currently on sale.

Despite it not being perfect, when I’m done reviewing my next phone, I still might return to the Phone 3 because it’s becoming a key Essential part of my life.

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