The third generation of the Nothing Phone should take a different approach. We see Glyph Matrix on the Nothing Phone (3) and the smartphone is moved up a segment. Over the past few weeks, we have tested the smartphone extensively. We give you the ins-and-outs in the Nothing Phone (3) review.
Nothing Phone (3) review
Grabbing the date 12 July 2022, it was the day the Nothing Phone (1) saw the light of day. Former OnePlus founder Carl Pei's brand wanted to go in a different direction with smartphones. It needed to become distinctive again. That started with the luminous back, which Nothing called the Glyph Interface. With the Nothing Phone (3), the manufacturer wants to go in a new direction, and reach a higher segment. Furthermore, it says goodbye to the Glyph Interface, and with the '3' we see the Glyph Matrix. What you can do with it, and how the device otherwise performs, I have put together for you in the Nothing Phone (3) review.
Unboxing
That we are dealing with something other than an 'ordinary smartphone' can already be seen in the packaging of the Nothing. The square box of the Nothing Phone (3) contains the device, of course. This along with a transparent case (nice!), a USB-C cable and a simpin. The latter two are completely in the style of Nothing, with a transparent end. A (plastic) screen protector has been stuck on the phone's screen by the brand. So you can get started right away to use your phone worry-free.
Design and interface
On the front, the design of the Nothing Phone (3) is not particularly exciting, and it doesn't need to be. After all, it just has to be functional. As such, the device shows similarities to the Nothing Phone (2). We see a 6.67-inch screen with a 50-megapixel front camera. The screen is fine to read on sunny days. We also see the necessary keys on the side of the phone. On the left are the two volume keys; on the right is the power button with the Essential button underneath. We will come back to that later in the review of the Nothing Phone (3).
I have found that very button regularly annoying recently. You press it by mistake far too often, causing the entire Essential Space to be restarted. Incidentally, it could also be down to me, but I also regularly experience that when putting it away, you grab it right on the volume-down button and the power button and so the gallery is regularly replenished with yet another pointless screenshot.
You can unlock the device with the fingerprint scanner integrated into the screen. At first, this didn't quite go smoothly. I had to add my thumb no less than three times to use it without any problems. Maybe it is a coincidence, but it is remarkable.
Then the back of the Nothing Phone (3). There is quite a bit to say about that, in fact. What has been retained is the phone's transparent back. The Nothing has three cameras, not all of which are in a neat position, but somewhat messily distributed. It makes the design look a bit busy. The LED flash is also on the back, which can serve as a torch. If you hold down the torch icon a little longer, the Glyph Matrix takes over the torch function; albeit less brightly of course.
Glyph Matrix
The circular object in the top right corner is Glyph Matrix. It is multifunctional, albeit still somewhat limited. You can specify which functions you want to use in the settings. You control Glyph Matrix with the white button a little below it. You still have to press this one down quite a bit for the touch to be detected. Touch lets you navigate through the different functions, pressing and holding activates the function.
For example, you can do rock-paper-scissors, query the phone's battery percentage, start the digital clock, stopwatch or sundial, as well as start a kind of matrix LED mirror and more. It's a nice gimmick, but personally I expected more from it. For example, you can set it to show an icon, when you receive a notification from a particular app, but it does not show the icon of the app itself. For example, I only chose an octopus icon for Telegram. Just try to remember all of those. You can also load a photo and convert it to a Glyph Matrix pattern, but this is not always clear. This is where Nothing can get more out of it.
Essential Space
Another feature on the Nothing is Essential Space. It is very reminiscent of Mind Space from OnePlus AI. With the hotkey, you save content to your virtual memory. For instance, of what you see on your screen. You can then comment on it or add audio comments. You can then add the content to a collection for easy retrieval. The button is located under the power button and I accidentally touched it a little too often in the past few weeks.
I must honestly say that I haven't used the Essential Space. If I want to remember something, I have other apps and lists for that, but possibly that's personal.
Interface
Nothing layers its own Nothing OS skin over the Android system. This gives you a sleek interface that you can customise quite a bit. Think colour palette, icons and layout. You can also remove the Google search bar, or replace it with one that can search the entire phone. Nothing also has a whole set of handy widgets you can add to the home screen. Fine!
The entire interface is cast in its own mono-Nothing sauce; it looks sleek and feels tidy too. The same goes for the menu, where frequently used apps are shown in the top row (if you want to). You can also set a swipe up to immediately open the search bar to quickly search for an app in the menu. A very useful addition.
We mentioned it in a previous review of a Nothing smartphone; the wake-up sounds for the Nothing's alarm clock, you'd better replace it with your own alarm tone as soon as possible. Some alarm clock ring tones are even more irritating or violent to wake up to than others. You can forget about birds or a quiet violin waking you up. Fortunately, you can also load your own sound, or choose Spotify or YouTube Music.
Communication and multimedia
Making calls and browsing the internet; the Nothing Phone (3) does it all just fine, just as you'd expect. Calls and SMS are made via Google's own apps. You can insert a SIM card into the device, but you can also add an eSIM. We experienced no problems with coverage and phone calls are of high quality.
The Nothing also has plenty to offer in terms of multimedia. The picture quality is fine with good readability on sunny days. As for audio quality, the Nothing Phone (3) is equipped with stereo speakers. These make the sound sound fine. At times, we still find it a little on the 'light' side on the maximum setting, but it's not distracting.
Camera
On the back of the Nothing Phone (3) are three camera lenses. These are three 50-megapixel lenses; with a main camera, wide-angle lens and a periscope lens. What is striking about the latter is that compared to the mid-end, the Noting Phone (3a) Pro, it is a downgrade. Namely, it has a smaller sensor and a lower aperture than on the (3). This is not necessarily an immediate drawback, but we are curious to see what it does in practice.
The camera app is nice and fast and clear to use, You can still choose additional settings via the arrow in the screen; like using a watermark, HDR, manual mode and more. In addition, you can still choose from various modes; think night mode, macro mode or action shot.
We took photos with the Nothing Phone (3) in many different conditions. Taken photos generally look very good on the device. But what about when you view them on the big screen? Then it's not always perfect. The row of trees in the distance, behind the water, is quite dark overall and looks a bit drab. We see that drabness reflected in several photos taken with the Nothing. The camera does not always handle large differences in light very well. Still, we have to say that overall the camera did satisfy us, with good quality images. But there is room for improvement here and there, if Nothing likes to portray the smartphone as a high-end device.
One annoying feature of the camera is the way it focuses. As an example; a pigeon on a railing. The pigeon didn't even move crazy much, but it really took a while for the Nothing to take a sharp picture of the beast once. Time and again 'the (3)' kept focusing on the background, while I myself had manually set the focus on the pigeon several times.
The zoom lens delivers above-average quality photos, it turns out when looking back. Details stand out well. The same goes for many macro shots that the Nothing Phone (3) is fine at taking. A colourful result with lots of details. We hope Nothing can refine the camera further with a software update.
Below, we made a comparison between the Nothing Phone (3) and the OnePlus 13.
Selfies shoot the 50-megapixel front camera in fine quality with lots of detail.
We took the photos below with the Nothing. If you want to see more pictures, check out the digital photo album here, which includes 50 photos!
Video camera
The video camera of the Nothing Phone (3) films in 4K with 60fps as the highest quality. Of course, you can also opt for a lower frame rate or video quality. The video below comes straight from the device. The video quality is generally good, but again we see losing focus frequently.
Performance and battery life
The Nothing Phone (3) is one of the first devices with a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset. Despite being an s-model, which usually performs a bit less, you don't notice any of that with daily use. The phone performs tasks quickly and we didn't notice any annoying hiccups. Gaming also goes well with the device. However, if the device is heavily loaded, it can get quite warm. This started when the phone was set up and all apps were pulled from the Google Play Store. The phone got really unpleasantly hot.
The test model came with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. You can also go for a cheaper variant with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.
Battery
Under the partly transparent bonnet of the Nothing Phone (3) is a 5150 mAh battery. This is one of the so-called Si/C Li-Ion technology, the latest technology that allows more capacity to take up less space. So it should be fine. At least, you would think so. The battery is a ding with the device, though. Battery life is below average with the device.
On a quiet day with little use, often via WiFi, we only get a maximum of 4.5 hours of screen time out of the device, and by the end of the day it is almost empty. On a more intense day, we are at the end of the day with an empty battery with 3, maximum 4 hours of screen time. Although we always made it to the end of the day, there is little slack with the Nothing. Charging can be done with 65W.
Update policy
Seven years of updates; you can be sure of that if you buy for the Nothing Phone (3). This consists of the full period security updates and software updates from the brand itself. The smartphone, which comes with Android 15, gets five Android updates. This means up to Android 20 and security patches through 2032. Very neat, especially for such a young manufacturer like Nothing.
Review
Nothing wants to appeal to a higher segment with the Nothing Phone (3). In doing so, it works with its own design language, which is refreshing. After all, I don't believe Samsung will ever introduce something like Glyph Matrix. Is it a successful move? I wonder. I think Glyph Interface is more of a gimmick, but it could possibly add more value if you see app icons, for example. The luminous back did more for me.
The device is otherwise pleasant to use; thanks to the very fine Nothing OS. It looks tidy, but you can still use it in many ways. On top of that, you get a fine update policy with it. However, the phone could still use improvements. The camera could do with a bit more attention if it wants to compete with many competitors. In addition, the phone really gets too hot in heavy use and the battery life is below average. Can Nothing tackle that with an update, perhaps. Nothing is not shy about releasing updates with new features and improvements, but you would think these things would be noticed at an earlier stage.
You can buy the Nothing Phone (3) at: Coolblue, Bol.com (now with upgrade benefit), Belsimpel and Mobiel.
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