Nothing Phone 3 Review: Transparent Design, Smart Glyphs & Bold AI in 2025

Nothing Phone 3 Review: A Bold Step into a Transparent Future

By NeoGearz • July 2025

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The Nothing Phone 3 is Carl Pei’s boldest statement yet — not just about aesthetics, but about what a “flagship” can mean in 2025. With transparent elements, animated glyph lights, and a sprinkle of AI, Nothing wants to turn heads and keep your hands satisfied.

But here’s the real question:
Is this art piece of a phone actually a top-tier performer? Or is it just a designer toy dressed in tech?

Let’s break it down.

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🧊 Design: Transparency Refined

Transparency, Nothing is standing by its guns — and it gets results. It fine-tunes what it is his predecessors with more svelte lines and an even more balanced design in the form of its Glyph Matrix LED. It’s simultaneously futuristic and playful, an anime gadget from a cyberpunk reality.

• Weight & feel: The phone feels solid, but not heavy. Bonded body means no bumps on the exterior of the device. Gorilla Glass 7i at the front and back gives it a smooth and scratch-resistant feel.

• Glyph Matrix: It’s a bit more interactive now — there are support for mini-animations, icon flashes, and even a quirky rhythm game (gasp) implemented.

Downsides? If standing out isn’t your thing, this isn’t your phone.

Rating: 9/10 for design uniqueness.

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⚙️ Performance: Not a Beast, But Plenty Capable

The Phone 3 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, a capable chip if not quite Qualcomm’s most powerful. Daily use, there's not going to be that much of a difference unless you're really pushing some hardcore gaming or video rendering.

• Multitasking: With 12GB or 16GB RAM, things are buttery smooth.

• Thermals: Phone doesn’t heat up. Could be the vapor chamber cooling or the optimization.

• Gaming: Games such as Genshin Impact and CoD: Mobile are playable at high settings, but the 8s Gen 4 does not quite reach the top flagship tier.

Geekbench scores: 1950 (single-core); 5400 (multi-core)
In real life: 8/10 for speed, 10/10 for stability

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📸 Cameras: The True Mixed Bag

On paper, the triple 50MP array certainly seems impressive, with wide, ultrawide and 3x telephoto lenses. In practice, it’s … good, not great.

• Daylight photography: Punchy colors, natural contrast, speedy shutter.

• Low-light: This is where it gets shaky. There’s noise creeping in, shadows are shallow, and it never quite stands up to Pixel or iPhone in the dark.

• Selfies: The 50MP front camera is impressive with detail, though edge detection while shooting in portrait mode still needs some tweaking.

Bonus: Wasn’t aware that glyph lighting can be used as a subtle fill light — neat!

Camera score: 7.5/10

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🔋 Battery & Charging

Battery life: Finally, a boost we’ve been needing to get.

It’s 5,150mAh (or in India, 5,500mAh) of battery also keeps it chugging to a full day for heavy use.

• Charging: 65W wired do 0–100% in ~40 minutes. The slower wireless charging (15W) remains, but it’s also consistent.

• Optimization: Battery optimization through Nothing OS 3.5 is truly commendable, especially with AI app-sleeping and adaptive refresh rate.

Battery score: 9/10

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🧠 Software & AIfff: Subtle and Smart

Nothing OS 3.5 Android 15 with a monochrome twist — and more.

AI Features Worth Noting:

• On-Device Intelligence: Organize your day, Connect with Calendar, Relate notes with Voice memos.

• Required Search: This is AI-driven search, at the universal level, that has some of that ChatGPT and a surprise of helpfulness.

• Custom LED patterns: Set animations for contacts, apps for actions.

The experience is lightweight, neat, and bloat-free. And major kudos for committing to 5 years of OS updates and 7 years of security updates.

Software score: 9.5/10

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💵 Value & Verdict

At $799 / ₹64,999, the Phone 3 sits an awkward distance from better-specced rivals such as the Pixel 9 or Galaxy S25.

But what you get is:

• A design nobody else is brave enough to attempt.

• Trustworthy, easy work for 95% of people.

• AI features that seem helpful, not gimmicky.

• Solid, but not industry-leading, cameras.

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🏁 Final Verdict

Thing Phone 3 is to effect what limited-edition sneakers are to speed:
You won’t win any sprints, but you’ll win all the temples at the race.

Pros: Beautiful design, intelligent software, long battery life, unique identity.
Cons: Just-miss camera, not truly flagship chip, premium price.

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⭐ NeoGearz Rating: 8.3 / 10

A phone for the bold. If you’re tired of the same old rectangles and spec sheets, Nothing Phone 3 is a breath of fresh glyph-lit air.