• Fairphone has poked fun at the Nothing Phone (4b)'s visible screws
• The company highlighted in an Instagram story that they're just 'for show' rather than being accessible
• The Fairphone 6, on the other hand, has visible screws that users can access

The Nothing Phone (4b) was unveiled earlier today, and it sounds like a reasonable budget handset, with a 6.77-inch 120Hz screen, a 5,200mAh battery with 33W charging, a 50MP wide camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset paired with 8GB of RAM. But despite having visible screws on the back, it might not be very easy to repair or to replace its components.

We won’t know for sure until someone has done a teardown of the (4b), but Fairphone has shared an Instagram story pointing out that while quite a few screws are visible on the rear of the device, you can’t actually get to them without breaking into the glued-on cover.

The Instagram story — an image of which can be seen below — shows the Fairphone 6, complete with its own visible screws, overlaid with text reading “every screw is functional on Fairphones. Nothing is for show.” Then, at the bottom, directed at the Nothing Phone (4b), it says, “next time, maybe the screws can be… outside?”

A fair criticism

And it’s a fair point. The Fairphone 6 is a reasonably stylish handset itself, with the visible screws helping it stand out, much like on the Nothing Phone (4b).

But the difference is that the Fairphone’s screws are accessible, making for a modular design where you can easily swap out components, rather than having to replace the whole phone.

So, if you want a handset that’s designed to last, you might want to consider a Fairphone instead of the Nothing Phone (4b) — though Fairphone’s CEO recently teased that two new products are on the way, so you might want to wait for those first, since one of them is likely to be the Fairphone 7.

And, of course, we'll be testing the Nothing Phone (4b) for ourselves in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for our real, experience-backed verdict on that device.

We’re now halfway through the calendar year (yes, really), so what better time to round up our favorite phones of 2026 so far?

I say ‘our favorite phones’, but I really mean ‘my favorite phones’ — I’ve collated five models that may not have perfect TechRadar review scores, but either surprised me in testing or offer something unique in today’s busy smartphone landscape.

The reviews for each model (which I’ve included in each entry) may have been written by someone else, but I’ve personally used all the phones listed below for specific feature deep-dives, video shoots, or general device comparisons. Don’t agree with my list? Let me know your favorite phone(s) of 2026 so far in the comments below.

5. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

• Release date: March 11
• Review rating: 4.5 / 5

Any phone-related ‘best of’ list has to include Samsung’s latest Ultra-branded Galaxy device. This year’s edition is the feature-packed Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and while it’s not the most surprising phone I’ve tested this year (hence its place at number 5), it is the most powerful and versatile of the bunch. It’s an everything phone — an all-you-can-eat buffet of top-end hardware and software.

Chief among the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s new software features are Privacy Display and Super Steady Horizontal Lock. The former stops prying eyes from viewing content on your screen, while the latter stabilizes videos even when you turn the phone a full 360 degrees. I’m a die-hard Apple fan, but the iPhone 17 Pro doesn’t have either of these features, nor classic Samsung tools like DeX and the S Pen, so the Galaxy S26 Ultra feels like a cut above the current best iPhone when it comes to productivity.

Add in some customarily premium hardware specs, and you’ve got a formidable pocket companion — albeit one that will cost you an arm and a leg to own.

Read our in-depth Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra review

4. Google Pixel 10a

• Release date: March 5
• Review rating: 4 / 5

Like the Galaxy S26 Ultra, the Google Pixel 10a is the definition of ‘iterative upgrade’, but it’s still my go-to recommendation for buyers looking for an affordable Android phone with great cameras. Google’s excellent Android software is just as good on this cheaper device as it is on the premium Google Pixel 10 Pro, and I’d go as far as to say that the 10a is actually the better-looking of the two phones (look at that flush camera!).

Sure, Google’s Tensor G4 chipset is underpowered compared to the midrange competition, and you don’t get any PixelSnap compatibility here, but at $499 / £499 / AU$849, it’s hard to argue against the Pixel 10a’s value for money. Its 6.3-inch Actua display is gorgeous, its two cameras are as good as anything you’ll find for the same price, and its AI-powered software features — from Camera Coach to Call Screen — are genuinely useful. Bravo, Google.

Read our in-depth Google Pixel 10a review

3. Motorola Edge 70 Fusion

• Release date: March 2
• Review rating: 4.5 / 5

I know what you’re thinking: the Motorola Edge 70 Fusion? Surely this little-known device — which isn’t even available in the US — is not my third-favorite phone of 2026 so far? Well, it is, if only because it surprised me (and our reviewer) so much in testing.

The Edge 70 Fusion costs just £379.99 / AU$499, but it looks like a flagship phone. It’s slim and lightweight for its large size, and boasts a nice textured finish on its rear panel. Its 6.78-inch display can reach 144Hz, and the 7,000mAh battery routinely got me through two days on a single charge. And don’t forget the IP68 and IP69 resistance ratings.

There are, of course, compromises. Motorola’s software continues to be… just OK, while the Edge 70 Fusion specifically is only due to receive three years of major software updates. But for such a low price, these shouldn’t be deal-breakers. The Edge 70 Fusion is my surprise package of 2026 so far, and it deserves more attention than it’s been given.

Read our in-depth Motorola Edge 70 Fusion review

2. Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

• Release date: March 19
• Review rating: 4.5 / 5

I recently played around with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro for an upcoming ‘best midrange phones’ video, and it floors the competition in terms of value for money.

As much as I love the Google Pixel 10a (as you’ll have read above), for the same price, Nothing’s latest a-series phone adds a 50MP telephoto camera, faster charging, and a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset into the mix. And best of all, the (4a) Pro is a thoroughly unique-looking device.

Nothing swapped the transparent rear panel of its other phones for an industrial, aluminum backplate on the (4a) Pro, making the huge camera module the star of the show. This module also features the gimmicky-but-fun Glyph Matrix introduced on the Nothing Phone 3, which, for me, has drawn as much attention in public places as the iPhone Air this year.

If the Google Pixel 10a is my safe value-for-money Android pick of 2026, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is my exciting value-for-money Android pick.

Read our in-depth Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review

1. Oppo Find X9 Ultra

• Release date: May 8
• Review rating: 4.5 / 5

And now we come to the Oppo Find X9 Ultra — my favorite phone of 2026 so far. This is the first Ultra-branded Oppo phone to ship outside of China (though it’s unfortunately still not available in the US), and it blows the competition out of the water in terms of camera performance.

Specifically, the Find X9 Ultra boasts a 200MP (f/1.5) main lens, a 50MP ultra-wide (f/2) lens, a 200MP 3x telephoto (f/2.2) lens, and a 50MP 10x telephoto (f/3.5) lens, which is the sort of combination we rarely see on even the best camera phones.

We recently compared the Oppo Find X9 Ultra against the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and the Chinese flagship won out in almost every category. My colleague, Tim, even compared the Oppo Find X9 Ultra to a Lumix TZ300 and Nikon Z8, and the phone absolutely held its own, particularly at 10x zoom.

Away from camera performance, the Find X9 Ultra boasts a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, 12GB of RAM, a 6.8-inch OLED display, and an enormous 7,050mAh battery, so it doesn’t leave you wanting for power or endurance.

It’s heavy, it’s thick, and it’s eye-wateringly expensive, but the Oppo Find X9 Ultra is still the most exciting phone of 2026 so far.

Read our in-depth Oppo Find X9 Ultra review

I’ve always favored clean, minimal phone homescreens — the fewer icons, the better, with the wallpaper fully visible. This usually means I have to delete a lot of icons and widgets after initial setup, especially with a Samsung Phone and an iPhone to achieve that look. Pixel phones are much less cluttered in comparison, though I still have to tweak some settings a bit to personalize the homescreen fully.

Then, a few months back, I got my hands on the Nothing Phone 4a Pro, and it was love at first sight. Not only does it look great and punch above its weight class with its hardware, but Nothing OS seemed tailor-made for me — it’s now my favourite Android skin.

I found the monochrome color scheme and minimal interface very appealing, reminding me somewhat of Pixel UI’s stock Android experience but with more character. The home screen widgets follow the same design philosophy, and community-made ones add extra functionality and whimsy I didn’t know I needed.

Clean, distraction-free bliss

My usual homescreen setup features just a single row of my most-used apps at the bottom, with icons set to a monochrome color scheme and maybe one or two widgets.

These settings are readily available on iOS and Pixel UI, and easy to apply, while Samsung’s One UI has a wide range of icon packs to choose from. But where you have to manually opt to have this minimal look, it’s the default on Nothing OS. It’s in no way a groundbreaking innovation, but it’s my favorite part of using the Nothing Phone 4a Pro.

Nothing OS widgets also set themselves apart from typical Android or iOS widgets — they come in small square tiles (just enough to fit 4 icons in a 2x2 arrangement) that match the icons’ look. Even when I load up the 4a Pro’s homescreen to the brim with widgets and icons, it still looks clean and slick.

Don’t care for the default widgets? No problem. There are plenty of community-made ones you can download from Nothing Playground, a portal for widgets (found under Essential Apps in Settings) and equalizer profiles for audio. These are unique and can show off your personality too. Some of my favorite community-made widgets include a tic-tac-toe game, a functioning piano, and a meter that tracks CPU usage and temperature.

The latest major Nothing OS update introduced simple breathing exercise widgets — one each for Focus, Calm and Relax — with on-screen prompts that tell you when to inhale and exhale while music plays. Again, it’s not revolutionary, but I like being able to tap a widget on the homescreen instead of digging through menus in a dedicated health app.

These little things add up to making a fabulous user experience in my books.

Innovations and experiments

In my opinion, an even more impressive addition in that update is Essential Voice, an AI-powered speech-to-text feature that has produced the most accurate results I’ve seen on a phone so far.

Powered by Gemini 3 Flash, Essential Voice automatically removes filler words and sounds like “um”, “ah” and “basically” — something I tend to do a lot myself — and also auto-formats bullet lists. I tested this feature by dictating my rather long, rambling notes into Google Docs and it produced a neat outline to build the article I was working on.

There’s support for more than 100 languages and regional variants, which I tested by reciting phrases in Spanish, Italian, French and Filipino — the results were clean and accurate. While a similar feature called Rambler is coming to more phones via Android 17, it’s nice to see it already in action on Nothing OS. While I’m not quite ready to forgo keyboards just yet and talk to my phone instead, I still think it’s a fantastic shortcut to typing.

Nothing OS also lets you try experimental features like using the Glyph Matrix (the secondary screen on the 4a Pro’s back) as a progress bar for third-party apps (it only supports Uber, Zomato and Google Calendar for now) and improving Apple AirPods support — well, for an Android phone at least. They’re not the most earth-shattering features, sure, but they’re a promising sign of Nothing’s willingness to try new ideas and let users play around with them.

Admittedly, Nothing OS’s quirky design won’t be for everyone, as some users will prefer more conventionally designed widgets or colorful icons that are easy to identify, but the short 3-year software support window is what’s most disappointing here, especially when Samsung and Google offer 7 years, while Apple is pushing that to 8 years in some cases.

Nevertheless, Nothing’s phones stand out as aesthetically pleasing handsets that punch above their price range, with the software experience as the unheralded star of the show — at least for me. It’s the perfect minimalist experience out of the box, without sacrificing functionality, and it includes some useful extras enhancing the experience.

With Nothing changing its flagship release schedule for 2027, I’m curious to see how Nothing OS will evolve alongside a potentially more powerful phone. Perhaps it will offer more ways to encourage community innovation? Either way, I’m certainly keeping my eyes peeled for what’s next.

• Nothing has shown off the design of the Phone (4b)
• This includes a dual-lens camera, an LED light bar, and big bezels
• Fans aren't sold on it, but would buy the concept phone that Nothing also recently showed off

Following a recent tease, Nothing has now shown off the full design of the Phone (4b), even though the handset won’t be fully detailed until July 7.

From this, we know that the Nothing Phone (4b) has a dual-lens camera with vertically arranged lenses, in a large camera block with a textured finish. It also has an LED light bar similar to the Nothing Phone (4a)’s, while around the front there’s a punch-hole camera and a flat screen with large bezels.

It’s a design that seems fine if a little less unusual or inspired than many Nothing handsets, but it’s one that fans largely aren’t impressed by.

Responses to the teaser on X include “most average Nothing design,” and “very disappointing,” while over on Reddit, comments include “looks bad” and a simple “eww.”

So unless the specs or price make up for the design it seems this might not be a big hit for Nothing, and if — as we’ve previously speculated — this was originally intended as a CMF phone, it’s unlikely it will have too much going for it in the specs department, while the Nothing branding will likely mean a higher price than it would have had as a CMF device.

The phone fans want

But Nothing also recently showed off a handset that fans actually are excited about — sadly though this was just a concept device, which is unlikely to ever see the light of day.

The phone in question appeared in a YouTube video, where Nothing designed a handset with the dream features put forward by the brand’s community. These include a small (sub-6-inch) screen, a pop-up selfie camera, a dual-lens rear camera, a headphone port, and a microSD card slot.

The company did note that to make this a reality it would need to be quite thick, and even then probably couldn’t fit in more than a 3,800mAh silicon-carbon battery, so that’s perhaps part of why the team doesn’t seem interested in making this a real device.

But perhaps it should, as reactions to the video included “I would 100% buy this,” “beautiful,” and “forget Nothing Phone 4. Just make this.”

So it seems that — at least among Nothing’s most vocal fans — there’s real demand for this handset, and little interest in the Phone (4b).

• Nothing has just revealed its biggest Phone (4b) teaser yet
• It's a lower-end alternative to the Nothing Phone (4a), which makes us wonder whether it was originally planned to be a CMF model
• It'll be announced on July 7

Something strange is going on at Nothing — just a few days ago the company announced that there wouldn’t be any new CMF phones this year, but now it’s back with a teaser for the first in a new line of phones, dubbed the Nothing Phone (4b). And there are reasons to think this is the CMF Phone 3 Pro in all but name.

The main teaser for the Nothing Phone (4b) comes from Nothing’s official X account and includes sketches of various possible designs, thereby not actually giving much away. But it also says that we’ll learn more on July 7 at 11am BST, which is 3am PT / 6am ET / 8pm AEST.

We do know a bit more already though, as Nothing’s co-founder Akis Evangelidis has explained on X that “the B Series builds on the success of the A Series by expanding into a new segment, while maintaining a clear product hierarchy.”

More tellingly, they added that “the A Series remains our most premium line below our flagship products, which doesn't carry a letter designation.” That’s a roundabout way of saying that the Nothing Phone (4b) will be lower end than the Nothing Phone (4a), and you know what else would have been lower end? The canceled CMF Phone 3 Pro.

A CMF phone at a higher price?

So why would Nothing repackage the CMF Phone 3 Pro as the Phone (4b)? Well, Nothing has stated that we won’t see any new CMF phones this year thanks to the ongoing RAM crisis, which has meant that “we can't build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF.”

What they might be able to do though is sell that phone at a price that makes sense for the more premium Nothing brand. So in other words there’s a chance this is the CMF Phone 3 Pro, just at a higher price than Nothing could get away with while using CMF branding.

Of course, that’s just speculation. It’s entirely possible that along with the budget CMF Phone 3 Pro, Nothing was also working on the budget Phone (4a), and that it just happened to tease the latter mere days after canceling the former. But the timing does seem odd.

We’ll probably never know for sure whether this was originally designed as a CMF model or not, but we should at least learn more about the specs, features, and perhaps pricing of this phone very soon.

• A Nothing exec has announced that there won't be a new CMF phone this year
• They say the ongoing RAM crisis is to blame
• There will, however, be other CMF products and other Nothing phones

The CMF Phone 2 Pro from Nothing combined distinctive looks with a bargain price when it launched last year, but if you’ve been hoping for a CMF Phone 3 Pro this year, you’re out of luck, as the company has just confirmed that no new models are coming.

Posting on X, Nothing’s co-founder Akis Evangelidis claimed that while the company was previously working on a successor, “with memory prices where they are right now, we can't build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF.”

As a result, there won’t be a new CMF phone this year — though he added that other new CMF products are still planned, including “entirely new categories,” and also that there will be new phones from Nothing, just without CMF branding, meaning they’ll presumably be pricier models.

An unsurprising development

This news isn’t entirely surprising, and indeed not long ago, Counterpoint predicted that low-end phones could face a “permanent removal” in some markets.

This is all thanks to rising RAM costs, with AI data centers demanding huge quantities of the stuff, therefore leading to shortages and skyrocketing prices. This, in turn, makes it increasingly hard for companies to make cheap phones.

For now, Nothing has only announced that we won’t see a new CMF phone this year, but the company will likely be facing the same issues next year too, so don’t be surprised if it’s a long time before we see another CMF handset.

So, if you’re hoping to upgrade your phone any time soon, you might have to be prepared to spend a bit more — and to look at more premium ranges like the standard Nothing line.

No matter which brand you prefer, the best phones are always improving. From the iPhone 17 Pro’s elite Fusion Camera system to the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s Privacy Display, expensive flagships routinely bring something new to the table. Except when it comes to design.

As we’ve discussed before here at TechRadar, the unfortunate truth is that phones have never looked more boring. Gone are the days of the motorized LG Wing and Oppo Find X, or even the flashy gold-colored iPhone 14 Pro — pick a modern flagship phone off the shelf and, more often than not, it’ll be some bland melange of glass and aluminum.

Nothing is the exception to this rule. Since emerging in 2021, the best Nothing phones have caught the eyes of tech fans with their bold and bizarre designs. The brand's arcane Glyph LED systems and Y2K-style see-through panels have made it a go-to for tech fans who want something unique, even definitive.

And to be fair, if you are trying to make something definitive, it helps to have the defining pop star of the 2020s at the center of your latest ad campaign.

I'm your number one

Last month, Nothing announced Charli XCX as its first global brand ambassador with a campaign simply titled NOTHING (CHARLI XCX).

In the campaign, Charli poses with a handful of Nothing phones and headphones, doing her usual thing of strutting, smoldering, and generally looking cooler than most of us could ever hope to look.

It’s genuinely difficult to explain the impact Charli XCX has had on popular culture in the last few years. After a brief flirtation with the charts in the early 2010s and close to a decade as an online cult icon, Charli conquered the mainstream in 2024 with Brat, an album so immense in impact that it spawned a tsunami of memes, two deluxe editions, the self-ironicizing movie The Moment, and even infiltrated political campaigns.

Needless to say, Nothing getting her on board — not just for this campaign but as a global ambassador who will, presumably, be sticking around — is a huge win.

Speaking on the campaign, Charli XCX said: “I’m always thinking about how my work will be experienced out in the world… [Nothing’s] ethos of prioritizing creatives is really something I look for when working with a partner.”

Nothing CEO Carl Pei added: “The tech industry has spent a decade making everything quieter, more minimal, more monotonous. Charli has spent her career going the other way in pop. We want Nothing to feel more like that.”

Indeed, the Charli collaboration is part of a wider trend in tech, as brands attempt to market increasingly streamlined products as fashion items as well as performance-based tools to a younger generation that cares more about vibes than anything else. It’s been true for a long time that most phones can do most of the things that most people need them to do, so phone makers look to trending celebs to capture the Gen-Z dollar.

For example, Euphoria actor Sydney Sweeney serves as Samsung’s brand ambassador, with a particular focus on the stylish Galaxy Z Flip series of folding phones. Oppo partners with Spanish midfielder Lamine Yamal to boost its image. And The Last of Us star Bella Ramsay featured in a string of Apple Intelligence adverts around the time of the iPhone 16’s release.

“The young people I teach are of a different generation — their emotion towards technology is much more intense. I would say it's love or hate, but somehow always addictive,” says Dr. Soomi Park, a designer and researcher who teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research concerns, among other things, design and its effect on social psychology

“Nothing has Charli XCX in that promotional role, towards a targeted audience of younger people with a contradictory mindset towards new technology, where they feel more and more isolated or more and more connected,” Park adds. “Perhaps having that admirable musician character could get them to think ‘why not try it?’”

Speaking personally, I think Charli’s partnership with Nothing does feel different from other celebrity endorsements. Yes, I'm a fan of her music, but there's something particularly authentic about this collaboration; Charli has decided to become a Nothing shareholder because of a genuine alignment between the two brands. Just as Charli XCX dominated mainstream discourse with 2024’s Brat after almost a decade in the indie pop scene, Nothing hit the big leagues with 2025’s flagship Nothing Phone 3 after years of courting enthusiasts and experimenting with design.

Nothing has built its entire brand on the back of its design philosophy. Its phones and other products are playfully weird without straying too far into the chaotic, and they're some of the only mobiles on the market that actively spurn symmetry, making them instantly recognizable and already fairly iconic.

In kind, Charli XCX is a fashion icon — her impact is as much about image as it is rhythm and melody, blending the slick electronics of post-pandemic pop music with Berghain-ready all-black outfits and appearances at the Met Gala. If the Nothing Phone 3 were a person, it might have a similar sense of style.

I Don't Care (about specs)

Fair warning to the TechRadar audience, innocent as you are, some of the images in this campaign are a little risqué, so you might want to avoid checking them out while at work. That is, unless you work in an office exclusively populated by open-minded, tote bag-wielding, matcha-drinking fashionistas — AKA this campaign’s target audience.

You see, as a tech nerd first and a Charli fan a close second, what I notice about this campaign is its near-total lack of detailed specs. While the video clip ostensibly centers on the long battery life of the Nothing Headphone (a), the rest of the campaign forgoes any mention of the things that light us up here at TechRadar; details on the sound quality of Nothing's headphones or the camera capabilities of its phones are non-existent.

Instead, Nothing has set itself a new goal with this exquisitely ‘brat’-ty campaign — make its products chic.

To my eye, this is an intentional break from recent trends in tech messaging. Silicon Valley has pivoted to talking about AI capabilities and compute power above all else. Even the best folding phones, all of which sit at the cutting edge of mobile design, are promoted in terms of their engineering and productivity prowess, rather than how they make you look — how they make you feel.

“Technology is inherently affective, even when it presents itself as neutral or functional,” designer, lecturer, and TEDx speaker Morchen Liu tells me, “and the devices we carry are never just tools — they shape mood, self-perception, ritual, attention, and social identity. They sit very close to the body, and very close to the self.”

“What campaigns like this do is make that more visible,” he adds, “they acknowledge that people do not only choose devices based on utility, but also based on feeling, symbolism, and the kind of person they imagine themselves to be.”

Liu’s work — which he shares with more than 30,000 Instagram followers — is deeply involved in the blending of fashion with AI tools, reflecting a wider prioritization of software in the tech industry due to plateauing hardware capabilities.

He continues: “Hardware has become harder to differentiate in purely technical terms, especially for consumers… one response is to make hardware feel culturally alive again. Nothing is essentially trying to reposition hardware as something expressive, not just a neutral container for software.”

Taking a step back, it seems that Nothing has been planning to cross over into the fashion space since the beginning. It's been partnered with Swedish tech and design firm Teenage Engineering since day one, and at the end of 2025, it hired Charlie Smith, previously head of marketing at luxury fashion house Loewe, as Chief Brand Officer, adding serious haute couture experience to its leadership.

By hiring Smith and working with Charli, Nothing has won headlines in titles not normally associated with mid-tier phone companies — there's been Vogue and Hypebeast on the fashion side, as well as music mags like MusicTech and Clash.

For curator Adam Murray, who teaches fashion communication, promotion, and image at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, Nothing’s fashion focus and its campaign with Charli xcx could be an effort to garner Gen-Z support: “Appeal to the younger people and get them as loyal consumers into their 30s — that seems to be what Nothing is aiming for.”

He continues: “It’s about how significant Charli has been in the last two or three years — if she did a collaboration with Apple, you wouldn’t necessarily be that surprised that they could get someone like her, so for a relatively small brand to be able to get her is quite a coup. The way they’re presenting it makes it feel rather significant, and I’m sure that will garner lots of attention.”

“As a celebrity pop star, Charli is one of the most credible, and she’s still got that cool factor that a lot of them don’t have,” Murray adds.

However, Murray notes that, like all fashion campaigns, each element on display has been carefully engineered: "They're trying to align themselves with what Charli means to people. The authenticity aspect is constantly there with fashion, there's always this sense of trying to present the real [...] but it's all as constructed as everything else."

It helps that Nothing can offer some substance behind the shining lights. As our Nothing Phone 3 review, Nothing Phone 4(a) Pro review, and Nothing Headphone (a) review detail, this is a brand that’s really hit its stride in the last year or so. Nothing phones offer great value for money and reasonable performance for their price, even if they miss the odd cutting-edge component or next-gen feature.

Make phones SXC again

Back in 2025, I pondered that the then-unreleased Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge could represent a new era for smartphones by splitting the flagship category into two branches: one focused on thin designs and lighter builds, and the other going all out with performance and camera specs at the expense of bulk.

However, this hasn’t really come to pass. Though thin phones like the iPhone Air have their fans (TechRadar Phones Editor Axel Metz among them), it’s fair to say that the thin phone trend hasn’t taken off in the way that some (and certainly Apple) hoped, with reports of low sales since, effectively, day one for both the iPhone Air and Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge.

And while top-tier phones like the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra have pushed the limits of mobile performance more than ever, these are much more expensive than the already costly slimline phones they sit above in their respective lineups.

Nothing’s campaign with Charli has got me reconsidering my position. Rather than thinness as the crucial counterweight to heavier photo-focused flagships, maybe it’s more about style.

Indeed, while we have seen a slate of iPhone Air clones hit the market, we’ve also seen middleweight brands getting creative in what seems like a backlash against the stagnating designs of Apple, Samsung, and Google.

The Xiaomi 17 Pro, for instance, features a full-width display on its rear panel, while the liquid-cooled RedMagic 11 Pro gaming phone looks like something plucked from the set of Alien. The aforementioned Oppo Find X9 Ultra is basically a point-and-shoot camera with a phone attached, while Motorola’s Razr Fold has put a geometric spin on tablet-style foldables.

I’m all for a future of weirder phone designs and fashion-first advertising. The big brands — namely Apple, Google, and Samsung — are well overdue for a design philosophy makeover (see the barely different Samsung Galaxy S24, S25, and S26, and the physically identical Google Pixel 9a and Pixel 10a).

Thanks to its partnerships with pop culture icons and luxury fashion experts, Nothing is well placed to capitalize on this shift towards aesthetics — working with Charli XCX feels like a natural extension of the groundwork the company has sought to establish since the very beginning.

As Morchen Liu explains: “The overlap between fashion and tech is increasingly natural; it’s becoming a core part of how products are positioned. I absolutely expect more brands to invest in this space, but the most successful ones will understand fashion not just as styling or campaign imagery, but as a system of identity, ritual, aspiration, and social signalling.”

On occasion, I make the wrong call. Like the time I claimed Disney Plus would never take off, saying, "Who wants to pay yet another subscription for a bunch of kids' movies?" Or the occasion I passed on an interview with Ed Sheeran because I'd "never heard of him", months before he became a household name.

Well, here's another thing I'm happy to add to the list: I've realized I was totally wrong about the design of Nothing's phones. While I once thought the brand's debut phone was more about style than substance, getting my hands on their latest model, the Phone (4a) Pro, has utterly converted me.

Don't get me wrong: I was fully convinced by Nothing's mission. Phone designs have become polished, but their iterative improvements have also become incredibly predictable, resulting in a lot of identical-looking handsets. And that’s why I was definitely open to some of the rule-shattering rhetoric leading up to the release of Nothing’s first handset, the Nothing Phone 1.

And yet on the release of that device in 2022, I’ll admit I wasn’t totally blown away. While the brutalist-looking design dreamt up in collaboration with Teenage Engineering was definitely distinctive, I didn’t feel like it quite matched up to either the hype of a whole new direction in phone design, or to the best phones of the time in terms of hardware.

The much-vaunted transparent design didn’t seem to actually be, you know, transparent, while the limited utility of the Glyph Lights made them feel flashy yet a little gimmicky. It looked decent, but it wasn’t quite trailblazing enough to make me want to trade in my staid but still gorgeously refined flagship.

But Nothing has been consistently evolving its formula since then, releasing handset after handset with improved looks and more versatile features. And the more I followed its journey, I began to appreciate how well the brand adapted its design language to new products, from the Nothing Ear earbuds to the Headphone (1) over-ears. So by the time the opportunity came up to test its latest model for my Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review, my curiosity had been fully piqued.

Putting the phone through its paces, I quickly realized how wrong I’d been in my judgments of Nothing's debut. Not only does the company's latest handset feel incredibly well built, but I actually think its design is pitched perfectly, looking distinctive enough to draw comment when you draw it out of your pocket while feeling wonderfully polished. And Nothing has put serious work into making features like its evolved Glyph Matrix feel actually useful, offering you countless ways to utilize it during your everyday activities. Its design feels smart without tripping into the self-seriousness so many smartphone brands fall into these days.

Honestly, I enjoyed using the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro so much, I was actively a little sad when the time came to switch back to my old handset. Don’t get me wrong — my trusty iPhone offers superior photography with richer, more consistent colors and a more powerful chipset. But still, Nothing’s handset is the first Android phone I’ve genuinely missed when switching back to my usual phone.

Why I’ve been converted by the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

So why have I become such a big fan of this handset? Well, there are several reasons, all of which connect to smart design choices made by the brand.

First off, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro exhibits a seriously premium-feeling build for its price. I know some Nothing purists will miss the trademark transparent back plate that its phones are known for, but the aluminum unibody here is gorgeous, feeling weighty and premium even compared to my titanium iPhone 16 Pro. And its industrial-looking camera module keeps enough of that unorthodox Nothing design, so it still stands out from the crowd.

My appreciation of Nothing’s design nous doesn’t just run skin deep, though. I also love how elements of its design center your experience as a user, rather than just focusing on the next big trend.

Often, newer tech like folding phone screens seems flashy, but few brands have successfully managed to persuade consumers that these innovations offer significant utility in return for their higher price. Conversely, the (4a) Pro’s Glyph Matrix adds very little to the cost of the device, and yet Nothing has found a whole heap of ways for it to add to your experience, whether that’s displaying caller ID on a shake or showing a real-time progress bar for your inbound Uber.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying every smartphone brand should rush to copy glyph lighting into their own phones. But having the guts to innovate in these small ways and really thinking through how each addition can be tied into the user’s everyday experience could really shake up the homogenized smartphone market.

But, really, the biggest factor that’s won me over is that the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is just flat-out fun. A lot of the new features to hit phone handsets in recent years have felt very po-faced, with incremental improvements framed as groundbreaking advancements.

Conversely, Nothing’s design doesn’t take itself too seriously, offering many ways to customize your phone that feel trivial yet joyful. Whether you want custom AI backgrounds to increase the scale of your most-used apps on your home screen, or, like I did, to set a custom cat glyph every time someone mentions your pet’s name, the (4a) Pro makes interacting with your phone a far more engaging experience.

I’m not ready to give up my flagship for a mid-market phone — at least, not yet. However, using the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro has got me excited again about the variety of forms phones could potentially take. After so long being resigned to uniform, incrementally updated candy-bar phones with ballooning camera modules, the changes feel like a real step in the right direction to me.

The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is a budget phone with its sights firmly trained on flagships. It offers a huge 5000-nit AMOLED display, a seriously stylish 0.31-inch / 7.95mm thick aluminum unibody, and a sufficiently powerful mid-range chipset to play games without breaking much of a sweat. More importantly, it continues to champion Nothing’s disruptive attitude to design and brings back the Phone 3’s super-flexible Glyph Matrix.

Let’s start with the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro’s display: at 6.83 inches, it gives you a serious amount of screen estate. I fired up some 2K videos and its picture always looked clean and precise, while its 5000-nit peak brightness is probably enough that you could use it as a reading torch. I did find its colors weren’t quite as rich as my iPhone 16 Pro’s Super Retina XDR display, but it looked pretty lush all the same.

But for me, the (4a) Pro’s design is what earns it a place among the best phones. Its aluminum unibody feels solid yet light, and while I think some diehard Nothing fans might miss the transparent back plate from its predecessors, it keeps just enough of those iconoclastic design touches in its camera and glyph module to really stand out in a world of interchangeable gray rectangles.

Not gonna lie: I had a lot of fun playing with Nothing’s Glyph Matrix. While it could easily be read as gimmicky, the sheer quantity of functions it offers meant I found a bunch of ways to use it that genuinely felt helpful. From being able to tell when my girlfriend had messaged to seeing a custom dollar glyph every time I got a transaction notification from my bank, I could easily keep tabs on important things without getting distracted by the daily noise. It went beyond flashing lights and started to actively feel really useful.

More generally, software on the (4a) Pro is also seriously polished, feeling fun to use yet knowing when to stay out of your way. Built on Android 16, Nothing OS 4.1 offers a whole load of customizability, while still feeling clean and bloat-free. Its AI tools allow you to analyze notes, screenshots, and recordings but – crucially – you can also choose which files you want this AI to access, and how much you want to engage with it.

This is backed up by the phone's admirable performance. While its Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset isn’t exactly top of the range, I found that, coupled with the 12GB RAM of my testing model, it handled productivity tasks and multitasking without complaint. On top of this, the (4a) Pro happily crunched through any game I threw at it on the highest settings without any perceptible lag or frame rate drops; its 5,300mm² vapor chamber cooling system keeps it from getting too hot during these kinds of heavy loads.

Unfortunately, this can’t be a total love-fest, and I’m a little less enamored with the (4a) Pro’s camera system. On the positive side, the images I shot with it felt sufficiently sharp and detailed – the 3.5x optical zoom produces deliciously crisp images, for example – while night photography is bright and grain-free. However, I did find color reproduction to be a little more subdued than on the best phones on the market, and the exposure on my snaps could be weirdly inconsistent at times.

There’s a slightly mixed picture with the (4a) Pro’s battery, too. While it offers a seriously ample 5,080mAh cell, I couldn’t quite eke out the 21 hours of YouTube vids that Nothing indicated it should deliver – I found it delivered a little over 13 hours of 2K streaming instead. Still, that’s very decent and, thanks to its 50W wired charging, you can quickly top it up to full in a little over an hour.

Fundamentally, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is just a little bit different from everything else out there. After finishing up my testing, I honestly felt a bit sad going back to my play-it-safe iPhone, something I never would have predicted going into this review.

Of course, if you want top-of-the-range power and an unimpeachable camera, you’ll want to pick up a flagship. But if you’re after a mid-range handset, I’d happily recommend the (4a) Pro.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: price and availability

• Launched on March 19, 2026
• List price from $499 / £499 / AU$949

Launched on March 19, 2026, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is available now. It has a list price of $499 / £499, which will net you the spec with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. While that version isn’t available in Australia, don’t feel left out – you can still get your hands on the edition with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, which retails for $599 / £549 / AU$949.

As well as those two different versions, you can also pick between three different colorways: black, white, and a dusty pink. The pink looks awesome and I’m glad there are options for those who don’t just want a monochrome handset, but the pick of the litter for me is the white I tested here, as it really shows off that aluminum body and stark, semi-transparent camera module.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: specs

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: design

• Stunning build quality
• Expansive yet easy to handle
• Gorgeous Glyph Matrix module

I’ll be honest: when Nothing phones first entered the market, I wasn’t totally swayed by their style. At the time the Phone (1) was released, it both felt a little too brutalist and yet not quite as outré as the pre-release hype had led me to expect. I’ve gradually come around on this, particularly as more concrete innovations like the series' Glyph notifications have been introduced alongside those stark looks.

Why do I mention this? To add a little context to what I’m about to say next.

I love the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro’s design. There’s something effortlessly understated about its build, which manages to remain both unique and instantly recognizable. I know some will be sorry not to see the series’ full transparent backplate here – you might want to opt for the base (4a) if you prefer that look – but the (4a) Pro’s aircraft-grade aluminium body still looks suitably industrial while also feeling pleasingly premium to the touch.

It’s also Nothing’s slimmest phone to date, measuring just 7.95mm / 0.313 inches and weighing in at 210g / 7.41oz. As a result, even taking into account its expansive 163.66 x 76.62mm / 6.44 x 3.02 inches height and width, the (4a) Pro never felt anything less than comfortable in my hand. Yet it’s no delicate flower either – its Gorilla Glass 7i screen should help protect it against scratches and drops, while its IP65 rating should entirely keep dust at bay and, Nothing promises, allow it to endure a dunking in 25cm / 9.84 inches of water for up to 20 minutes.

Undoubtedly, the phone's most prominent feature is that chunky camera module on the back. Nothing is very much on board with the full-width camera trend we’ve seen from the Google Pixel series and the iPhone 17 Pro. But while these blocky camera bulges sometimes look a little unsightly to my eye, I have to say, Nothing has nailed it here – not only has the brand broken it up by using its transparent design language, but that expansive Glyph Matrix turns it from dead space into a striking visual feature.

Speaking of: the Glyph Matrix itself is also seriously well designed. Comprising 137 mini-LEDs, it offers fantastic versatility, allowing you to display a wide range of moving and still glyphs to accompany various functions on your phone, which I’ll explore more in the software section below. And it’s also ludicrously bright at 3,000 nits – when I first excitedly showed off what it could do to my partner, she winced as if I’d just let off a flashbulb in her face. Oops. Fortunately, you can turn the brightness down if you don’t want it set to ‘stadium floodlight’.

After using the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, my trusty iPhone 16 Pro has genuinely felt a little drab by comparison. Given how much I loved the latter’s looks when I first bought it, that shows the high bar the (4a) Pro has set in terms of its design.

• Design score: 5 / 5

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: display

• Huge 6.83-inch screen
• Wonderfully bright
• Colors less vibrant than some flagships

Almost immediately, the first thing that will strike you about the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro’s display is its size. It’s huge. At 6.83 inches, it’s only a shade smaller than the Samsung Galaxy 26 Ultra’s gargantuan 6.9 inches, although the 2,800 x 1,260 resolution of its AMOLED panel can’t quite reach the 3120 x 1440 pixels offered by Samsung’s flagship.

Still, during my testing, I found it looked impressively crisp. To really try out what it could do, I watched Planet Earth III on BBC iPlayer and was impressed by how clear the footage seemed, rendering elements like the huge, red glistening eyes of a gliding tree frog in gorgeous detail. It also shows off images with bags of contrast; that AMOLED display is capable of hitting deep blacks that offer a real HDR pop to everything you see.

The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is also impressively bright. While it didn’t quite hit the supernova-like glare that its 5,000 nit peak brightness would suggest – I’d peg it as not dissimilar to the brightness hit by the 3,000 nit-peak iPhone 17 Pro – it still absolutely glowed. Whether I was testing under our office’s fluorescent lights or one of those rare guest appearances the sun makes in the British sky, it never appeared anything less than luminous.

There’s pretty much only one area in which I found the (4a) Pro's display wasn’t quite able to keep pace with flagships: color. Comparing it side-by-side with my iPhone 16 Pro, its hues felt just a tiny bit too cool by contrast – for example, a burning sunset over a colossal river delta looked a tiny bit less amber and glowing, missing out on the rich realism of the more premium phone. But the fact that the (4a) Pro can be credibly compared with handsets nearly twice its price, even if it can’t quite best them, shows just how impressive its display is.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: software

• Slick, bloat-free OS
• Wonderfully innovative Glyph Matrix functions
• Good AI tools that aren’t forced on you

Software can be the Achilles heel of some Android handsets. I’ve seen a few too many OSes over the years that focused on aesthetics over usability and came crammed with low-quality, third-party apps – forcing apps like Temu on me does not endear me to your phones.

Fortunately, Nothing OS sidesteps all of these issues. It’s lean and intuitive – within a few hours of starting to use the (4a) Pro, I understood pretty much everything about how it worked – but more importantly, there’s almost zero bloat. After setting the phone up, pretty much the only third-party apps in the App Drawer were ones I’d imported from my old phone, while the homescreen was kept wonderfully clean. Take note, Android developers.

It also looks great. I’ve tried minimal, monochrome interfaces on phones like the iPhone in the past, but I’ve often found that, without the cognitive cue color provides, I just spend longer hunting for the app I need. Yet here, Nothing OS not only looks pleasingly stylized, but it also manages to do so without increasing my cognitive friction when navigating, thanks to those clear app icons and the ability to scale up my most commonly used apps.

The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro also offers plenty of AI features. But unlike some brands that make these tools impossible to avoid, Nothing largely confines them to its Essential Space section.

Press the button on the left side of the screen to capture a screenshot, record your screen, or take a voice note – these are then added to the Essential Space app for your easy access, and made available to be analyzed and have key information extracted. This info can then be harnessed by Essential Search or Essential Apps, which are effectively apps created by your prompts, customized to your specific needs. Kudos to Nothing for taking such a balanced approach here between giving users access to these tools and allowing them to choose how much they want to engage with them.

Right, time to put adultish things away – let's talk about some of the fun stuff the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro has to offer.

The Flip to Glyph feature allows you to mute your ringtone and notifications by turning your phone face down – I found this invaluable, given I often place my phone screen down to minimize distractions at work. You can even restrict calls and notifications to only come through from essential contacts like your partner or kids. Should you want to see a caller’s ID or check your battery level without getting drawn in by the screen, you can just wiggle your phone, and it’ll show up on the Glyph Matrix.

That’s far from all the Glyph Matrix can do, though. Always-on Glyph Toys let you assign information like the time, battery level, sun’s position in the sky, or even the phases of the moon to the display. On a more practical level, you can also use it to track the progress of timers or even third-party apps – although currently the only ones that appear to offer integration right now are Google Calendar, Uber, and Zomato, which rather limits this feature’s usefulness right now.

But perhaps my favorite feature is the ability to create your own rules and assign custom glyphs to them. As well as allowing you to assign unique glyphs to specific people – I set my partner's calls and messages to display as a heart, for example – you can also set rules for specific apps, allowing you to differentiate between a WhatsApp and an Instagram notification. You can even set glyphs for specific keywords: I set it so any message mentioning my cat’s name would flash the cat glyph.

Not only is the Glyph Matrix an incredibly fun feature, but Nothing has found countless ways for it to actually materially improve your experience using the device. I definitely think that elevates it from a mere gimmick to something I genuinely used.

• Software score: 4.5 / 5

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: cameras

• Crisp, well-defined details
• Sometimes looks over-exposed
• Colors a little pale

Overall, I found images captured with the Nothing (4a) Pro to be pretty crisp. While using the 50MP main camera, edges were largely as well defined as on my iPhone 16 Pro, and it maintains this detail well when using the 3.5x optical zoom. I’m less keen on digital zooms, given the same results can usually be achieved with judicious cropping, but the (4a) Pro’s 7x lossless zoom was almost as crisp as the 16 Pro’s 5x optical zoom, despite some slight haloing around highlights.

On the whole, night photography was pretty impressive too. The (4a) Pro merges seven frames into one, which Nothing claims lets in 500% more light than rival cameras, and you can definitely see that in the finished results. None of the photos I took looked dingy or underexposed, and there wasn’t a hint of grain there, although I would personally prefer a little less brightening of the mid-tones, as a bit more HDR punch would make these photos look even more bold and contrasty.

Unfortunately, the (4a) Pro’s camera system has some definite weaknesses too. Although black levels were consistently deep, highlights were a lot less reliable – some of my shots of feeding swans ended up looking totally overexposed, while my snaps of magnolias in the park didn’t quite capture the same brilliant whites as the ones I shot on my iPhone. I’m used to exposure levels remaining pretty stable from shot to shot, but sometimes the Nothing feels like it can produce weirdly divergent shots from the exact same lighting conditions.

Additionally, colors don’t always look totally true to life. Shooting tulips on the brink of bloom, some of the hues were a lot more muted than I was hoping, looking a little more washed out than the iPhone’s intense reds. And while I look pretty pale and pasty in most selfies, the (4a) Pro’s front-facing cam sometimes made me look a little like Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Fundamentally, you can’t expect a totally flagship experience from a mid-range phone – compromises have to be made somewhere to keep costs this low. But I think the (4a) Pro meets such a high standard in several other areas that this one shortcoming is a lot more noticeable by contrast. It’s a decent camera on the whole – it just doesn’t reach the same heights as the rest of the phone.

• Cameras score: 3.5 / 5

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: performance

• No noticeable lag or hanging when multi-tasking
• Great gaming performance
• Stays cool even under a heavy load

The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro’s impressive design isn’t just skin deep – under the hood, it’s packing the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4. While this isn’t the most powerful CPU on the market, it still gives the (4a) Pro the edge over many mid-market rivals – for example, the Samsung Galaxy A56 relies on the weaker Exynos 1580. Add in the fact that you can spec Nothing’s phone with up to 12GB RAM, and you can see why I was expecting some pretty serious performance here.

And I’m delighted to say that the (4a) Pro more than lived up to these expectations. During everyday use, I didn’t experience any hanging or appreciable slowdown. Swiping between various apps, I was able to quickly pivot from watching YouTube videos to navigating on Google Maps. Even when multi-tasking, the phone didn’t seem to break much of a sweat – I cheekily loaded up a game and left it running picture-in-picture while I typed some of this review in Google Docs, and both apps continued to run fluidly, like this wasn’t a slightly outrageous thing to ask of the phone.

On top of that, while we criticized the Samsung Galaxy A56 for its weaker gaming capabilities, I found the (4a) Pro’s gaming performance to be pretty unimpeachable. Loading up Genshin Impact, I found there wasn’t a hint of lag or stuttering, whether I was battling Hilichurls or charging around cities. Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Mobile was silky smooth, seeming to deliver on Nothing’s promise of 90Hz refresh rates and making it easy to gun down my bewildered opponents while they were still desperately swiping their screens trying to train me in their sights.

But this kind of performance is no good if your phone can’t sustain it. Fortunately, I found that, thanks to its 5,300mm² VC cooling system, the (4a) Pro was able to keep its cooling under this kind of strain. Despite the fact that I spent a couple of hours gaming on the (4a) Pro, there was only very mild warming on the back – and I think that was much more likely from my sweaty mitts than its CPU overheating. Given that quite a few phones still get blisteringly hot from demanding games, I was really glad to see how chill the Nothing Phone was.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: battery life

• Large 5,080mAh capacity
• Fell a little short of Nothing’s usage estimates
• 50W charging juices it up fast

With a capacity of 5,080mAh, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro is able to keep pace with huge flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, which has a typical capacity of 5,000mAh – although it can’t quite beat the OnePlus 15 with its voluminous 7,300mAh battery.

What does this mean in practical terms? Well, despite using it pretty intensively during my testing, I found that the (4a) Pro would often last well into a second day’s usage, meaning you’re unlikely to need to worry about it lasting your whole day.

In terms of hard numbers, Nothing estimates it should give you 17 hours of combined usage or 21 hours of YouTube viewing. Putting this claim to the test, I set the (4a) Pro streaming 2K video for hours on end to see how it held up. After six hours, its battery had dropped to 56% – that means I’d expect it to last around 13 hours 40 minutes in total. That’s quite a way short of what was estimated, but this was at max brightness, which likely brought its life down somewhat.

Fortunately, even when the phone does run out, juicing it up again is lightning fast, thanks to its 50W wired charging. Nothing’s estimates weren’t quite borne out by my testing here either: rather than the 0% to 60% they suggested I’d see in just 30 minutes, I got to 47%. Still, that’s seriously fast, meaning you’ll likely be full after just an hour’s charging – that's still speedier than many mainstream handsets, even if the phone can’t quite hit the absurd pace of something like the 100W charging of the OnePlus 15.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro review: also consider

How I tested the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

• Used it consistently over a week and a half
• Tested every core function in real-world scenarios
• Utilized years of gadget testing experience

I tested the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro over the course of a week and a half. To test out its display, I engaged in plenty of browsing and watched multiple 2K HDR videos to compare it to flagship devices. When assessing performance, I tested it out both in a variety of productivity contexts and by playing demanding games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty: Mobile on max settings.

When putting its camera through its paces, I took a variety of photographs in different contexts, from floral shots during bright sunlight to nighttime shots in a city, comparing them to my iPhone 16 Pro for context. And to try out its battery life, I looped 2K YouTube videos for six hours to see how much the battery drained, before juicing it up with a 50W charger to see how quickly it would refill.

In terms of my experience, I’ve been reviewing a wide variety of gadgets for many years, as well as editing plenty of phone and tablet reviews written by the reviews team. I’m also a regular mobile gamer and have shot some 46,000 photos on my iPhone over the years, meaning I have a lot of experience shooting on mobile.

• First reviewed: March 2026
• Read more about how we test

Nothing Phone (4a): two-minute review

If there’s one phone brand that’s got an instantly recognisable aesthetic, it’s certainly Nothing. The UK electronics company has built a unique, attention-grabbing brand over the years, and its latest device, the Nothing Phone (4a) fully mirrors that.

In my view, this is one of the best-looking budget phones on the market, with a see-through shell, piercing red details, and an array of appealing colour options. The inclusion of a new and improved Glyph Bar – which flashes differently depending on the notification you receive – is also a fun inclusion, even if some may perceive it as gimmicky.

Like a lot of the best phones, the (4a) runs Android 16 out of the box, which powers the Nothing OS 4.1. Also, you can choose between a more traditional Android experience, or one that’s centred around the Nothing aesthetic. I went with the latter, and found the UI to be stylish and super easy to use.

It’s not all about style with this phone, though. It also has a lot of good stuff going on under the hood, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset keeping things moving nicely. I experienced very little in the way of delay or performance hiccups during my time with the (4a), and it coped with multi-tasking, video streaming, and most gaming activity without fault.

OK, if you want the best performance around and ultra-smooth framerates for the most demanding games, you may want to opt for the Nothing Phone (3) or a real powerhouse like the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but otherwise the (4a)’s chip will handle your day-to-day use without a hitch. You can also purchase the phone with 12GB of RAM, rather than 8GB, if you want the best user experience possible.

Another thing that impressed me about this model was its display. It uses a 6.8-inch AMOLED display and supports HDR, meaning you’ll be treated to punchy colours with solid contrast, and relatively detailed on-screen images. The 120Hz refresh rate is also good to see, and will no doubt be a big plus for gamers. The resolution also got a bump from the (3a) to 2720 x 1224, which is a nice improvement over the predecessor’s Full HD+ quality.

To be honest, I was very satisfied with the vast majority of what the Nothing Phone (4a) had to offer. There’s a pretty much bloat-free, well streamlined software experience. AI isn’t thrown in your face constantly, although there are a few useful integrations. And even the battery life is good – you’re getting a 5,080mAh capacity with support for 50W wired charging. Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging here, though.

The only aspect of the phone that I didn’t love was its camera quality. Nothing has clearly poured effort into the cameras on this model, with an upgraded periscopic lens, a 50MP wide camera from Samsung, and an 8MP ultra-wide sensor from Sony. However, the results just didn’t impress me all too much during testing. A lot of photos lacked detail, or looked a little washed out – something I’m not used to from my mid-range Samsung phone.

Still, that’s not to say that the cameras here are bad. You still get decently clear snaps, with 3.5x optical zoom and 4K 30fps video helping to keep things interesting. Plus, this is the only area that didn’t score at least four stars out of five when I came to decide the phone’s final rating, which is impressive in itself.

Before I wrap up, it’s worth touching on price. Now, it may be true that this model is more expensive than the Nothing Phone (3a), but not by much at all. I’d also argue that the upgrades, from resolution through to design, make the (4a) well worth picking over its predecessor. Nothing’s new phone is also priced very competitively against budget rivals from the likes of Google and Motorola, giving it a real fighting chance in a tough market.

Ultimately, the Nothing Phone (4a) is a great budget-friendly phone. It's oozing with style, it performs commendably, and it offers a streamlined user experience. Could the camera be better? Sure, but at the end of the day, I’d sacrifice better photos for all of the good stuff you get from this stand-out device.

Nothing Phone (4a) review: price and availability

• 8GB RAM & 128GB storage: £349 / AU$649
• 8GB RAM & 256GB storage: £379 / AU$749
• 12GB RAM & 256GB storage: £399 / AU$849

The Nothing Phone (4a) launched in early March 2026, a year after its predecessor the Nothing Phone (3a). It's available from as little as £349 / AU$649, but you can get a model with extra storage for £379 / AU$749, or a variant with another 4GB of RAM as well for £399 / AU$849. This represents a slight bump up in price over the (3a), which went on sale for as little as £329 / AU$599 when it was released in March 2025.

Nothing Phone (4a) review: specs

Nothing Phone (4a) review: design

• Beautiful build with hi-tech design
• New Glyph Bar may be gimmicky, but I love it
• Gorgeous colour options

Over the last few years, I’ve often seen people describe Nothing devices having ‘divisive’ designs, that will be loved by many, but loathed by others. Well, I’ll put my cards on the table right now. I think the Nothing (4a) is an absolutely stunning smartphone.

I love tech that stands out, and this phone does just that – everything from its transparent shell through to its red details make it a joy to behold. On top of that, each and every colour variant you can purchase looks sensational – I like the traditional white, which makes that splash of red even more impactful, but the blue, pink, and black alternatives are striking too.

Another aspect that makes the (4a) stand out is its new Glyph Bar. This is a rectangular strip of 63 mini-LEDs in seven squares, and flashes variably depending on the kind of notification you receive. Nothing claims that this is an extension of its philosophy “to reduce the distractions that take you out of your world and onto your screen”.

I’ll admit, it is a little bit of a gimmick. But still, the Glyph Bar undoubtedly functions really well, and it’s just another thing that helps the Phone (4a) to stand out in a highly convoluted market.

It’s not only a pretty face, though. The Nothing Phone (4a) is decently durable, and uses Gorilla Glass 7i to resist scratches and drops. Nothing also claims that it souped up the mobile’s bend resistance by 34%, compared to the (3a) – something I couldn’t quite verify myself, although it didn’t bend at all when I applied some pressure.

This phone’s protection against the elements also piqued my interest. See, on the face of it, the (4a) has an IP64 rating. That means that it's fully dustproof, and protected from multi-directional water splashes. However, Nothing also claims that this model can be submerged under 25cm of water for as long as 20 minutes. As a result, you won’t need to worry if it gets a little wet.

• Design score: 5/5

Nothing Phone (4a) review: display

• 6.8-inch AMOLED display
• 120Hz refresh rate
• Very solid 4,500 peak brightness

The Nothing Phone (4a) has a neat AMOLED display, which measures just below 6.8 inches, meaning it’s plenty large enough to enjoy movies or games on the go, but not exactly the largest device out there. A happy medium, if you will.

In terms of resolution, you’re getting 2720 x 1224, which is an improvement over the (3a)’s Full HD+ output. The result? Surprisingly detailed, colour-rich images that appear far more intricate than you’d expect from a phone in this price range. This device also supports HDR, meaning you can unlock commendable contrast, and generally vibrant-looking visuals.

Something else I appreciated about the (4a) was its brightness. This model has a peak brightness of 4,500 nits – the same as pricier models like the Motorola Edge 70 – so it’s vivid and easy to use when in outdoor spaces.

Look, overall, you’re not going to get the detail levels and refinement of the fancier phones out there, like the iPhone 17 Pro, for instance, but the (4a) does do itself justice. Its 120Hz display makes it a nice pick for gamers, it’s 23% brighter than its predecessor, and its improved resolution is a big plus.

• Display score: 4/5

Nothing Phone (4a) review: software

• Android 16 out of the box, with Nothing OS 4.1
• Three years of OS updates, six years of security updates
• Some AI functions are useful, others less so

The Nothing Phone (4a) runs Android 16 out of the box, which powers the Nothing OS 4.1. Nothing is promising three years worth of OS updates, alongside six years of security updates – nothing amazing, but better than what some rivals can offer.

When you fire the phone up initially, you can opt for a more traditional Android experience, or go for the Nothing UI. I went for the latter option, and found it to be great – I loved its visual style, felt it was easy to navigate, and appreciated the little quirks that my Samsung phone leaves out.

I’ve reviewed quite a few phones here at TechRadar, and something that often bothers me is the sheer volume of bloatware Android phones subject me to. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve set up a new phone, gone to open up an app, and been greeted with a screen filled with Temu and unwanted mobile games. But the Nothing Phone (4a) bucks that trend. It’s basically bloatware-free, which is a huge plus in my book.

Elsewhere, this model is pretty solid in the software department. Like just about every other manufacturer, a lot of focus has been channeled into AI functionality. At the heart of this, you’ll find the Essential Key – a button positioned on the left edge of the phone. You can use this to make an audio recording with AI transcription, or to analyse notes you’ve taken.

The Essential Key works pretty well, although some of the features – like the aforementioned transcription function – don’t work perfectly. I wasn’t loving stuff like AI generated wallpapers, and I don’t use ChatGPT or Gemini, meaning those integrations failed to interest me. But AI isn’t shoved down your throat constantly like it is on some rival devices, and is kept pretty streamlined, ensuring it doesn’t get in the way of Nothing’s solid performance in the software area.

• Software score: 4/5

Nothing Phone (4a) review: cameras

• 50MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, 50MP periscope
• AI stabilisation and 4K video capturing
• Performance is just OK

The Nothing Phone (4a) has an upgraded three camera system, with a 50MP wide camera from Samsung, an 8MP ultra-wide Sony sensor, and a new 50MP tetraprism periscopic photo lens, which also comes from Samsung. There’s also a 32MP front-facing camera for taking selfies or video calls.

But in spite of all that fancy tech, I’d actually argue that the Phone (4a)’s camera quality is one of its biggest drawbacks. Photo quality is by no means bad, especially for a budget device, but when I compared images to those taken on my older Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, the Nothing Phone really struggled to compete.

When taking images outside in natural light, details on trees and buildings looked pretty unrefined, and some darker shades looked a little flushed out. Still, images didn’t appear blurry or anything, and the intense yellow of daffodils was captured with decent accuracy.

3.5x optical zoom is effective on the (4a), and when I tried to snap a squirrel across the road, I was fairly happy with the results. Was it the clearest, sharpest looking photo ever? Well no, but it was certainly fine for a budget-friendly phone. You can also access 7x lossless zoom and up to 70x ultra zoom on the Nothing Phone (4a), although you won’t get particularly clear results when homing in from super-long distances.

Photos taken inside under artificial light didn’t always have the most true-to-life colour replication, and sometimes kept the finer details concealed but, again, images looked defined enough. It was the same case in low-light conditions too, making for basic albeit effective camera performance.

One thing I encountered during testing is that 50MP photos can only be taken in the 4:3 aspect ratio, which is a bit restrictive, and something I’m not used to on my Samsung Galaxy S24 FE.

Anyway, it’s worth flagging the video capturing capabilities of the Nothing Phone (4a). You can record in 4K at 30fps, and even take slow-motion 120fps content. You also get image stabilisation and AI-powered anti-shake tech, ensuring you get smooth motion.

• Camera score: 3/5

Nothing Phone (4a) review: performance

• Smooth user experience
• 8GB or 12GB RAM versions available
• Support for aptX, but no Dolby Atmos

The Nothing Phone (4a) is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 and offers great performance for a phone in its price bracket. Whether I was surfing the net with multiple tabs open, using productivity applications for work, or playing games, the (4a) kept things moving nicely.

OK, it’s not the almighty device that the more committed mobile gamers may wish for – I couldn’t quite squeeze 60fps out of Genshin Impact, for instance. But its 120Hz refresh rate and solid processing power means it’s certainly good enough for casual players. And if you’re less of a gamer and more interested in streaming video content, using social media, and surfing the net, the (4a) will have more than enough power for you.

Full disclosure here, I used the version of the (4a) with 12GB of RAM, so performance may vary if you go for the 8GB alternative, but my user experience was smooth, hassle-free, and well tuned for a multitasker.

Another part of performance I want to touch on is the (4a)’s audio capabilities. The built-in stereo speakers aren’t anything special, and won’t wow with massively powerful or clear audio, but that’s pretty common for a cheap phone.

Under the hood, things are a bit more interesting. This device supports some higher-res codecs like aptX Adaptive, meaning you can enjoy more detailed, revealing audio if you’ve got a compatible speaker like the Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 3rd Gen or headphones like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2. It’s worth noting that there’s no Dolby Atmos support, though, which is a little bit of a shame.

• Performance score: 4/5

Nothing Phone (4a) review: battery life

• Very decent 5,080mAh battery capacity
• 50W wired charging is plenty good enough
• But there’s no wireless charging support

The Nothing Phone (4a) has a 5,080mAh battery, which is the largest battery on any of Nothing’s (a) series products.

That battery is comparable to other budget-friendly models like the Google Pixel 10a, and superior to some pricier rivals such as the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE. I found that the phone easily lasted me a day, even when intensely testing, downloading apps, and playing games. Nothing states that the device is good for 17 hours of combined usage, so you won’t need to charge it all too often.

Speaking of, you’re getting 50W wired charging here, which means that you can juice your mobile up pretty quickly. Nothing says that the device can go from 1% to 50% in 22 minutes, and I found that to be accurate in my testing. Sure, some rivals can charge closer to the 100W mark now, but the (4a) can be revived plenty fast enough for my money.

One thing that may disappoint some users, though, is the lack of wireless charging. Sure, it’s something that’s typically associated with more premium models, but I would’ve loved to have seen it here.

Finally, you can uncover plenty of battery customization options through system settings. Here, you can alter battery health options, adaptive battery settings, activate battery saver mode, and more.

• Battery life score: 4/5

Should I buy the Nothing Phone (4a)?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Nothing Phone (4a) review: also consider

How I tested Nothing Phone (4a)

• Tested intensively across multiple days
• Used for work, gaming, and general productivity
• Exhausted the phone’s various features and camera settings

I spent multiple days testing the Nothing Phone (4a), during which time I essentially used it as my main mobile device. I tried out just about every feature it had to offer, took a whole host of photos, and used it for gaming.

On top of this, I made sure to compare the (4a) against my mid-range Samsung phone, to assess the quality of photos and videos, and compare general performance.

When taking photos, I made sure to capture objects and environments in a wide array of conditions, including natural, artificial, and low-light settings. Where possible, I used the 50MP setting on the main camera, although I took a few shots in 12MP for 16:9 images.

More generally, I’ve tested a ton of phones here at TechRadar, including budget-friendly models like the Motorola Moto G06 Power and alternatives like the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE.

• Read more about how we test
• First reviewed: March 2026

• Nothing's CEO has said there won't be a Phone 4 this year
• That's apparently to ensure the next flagship feels like a significant upgrade
• There will however be a Nothing Phone 4a

Following on from his refreshingly frank claim that phones – including Nothing’s own devices – will get more expensive this year, the company’s CEO is back with more potentially bad news.

In a video on the company’s YouTube channel, Nothing’s CEO Carl Pei has stated that the company won’t release the Nothing Phone 4 this year – so in other words there won’t be a new flagship model in 2026.

Pei explained that “we’re not just going to churn out a flagship phone every year just for the sake of it,” adding that “we want every upgrade to feel significant.”

That’s a refreshing stance, albeit one that some Nothing fans might be disappointed in. But the yearly upgrade cycle we see across most of the smartphone industry doesn’t always lead to interesting new devices every year – often the upgrades are little more than a marginal spec bump.

So by having less frequent upgrades on a less predictable schedule, Nothing could make the flagships it does release more exciting.

Of course, if you wanted to be cynical you could suggest that perhaps the company has run low on ideas – which could be a problem, particularly when it always aims for its products to stand out. And perhaps the rising RAM prices are also a factor, as they could make a Phone 4 prohibitively expensive.

A different approach

But that’s just speculation, and it’s believable that Pei’s explanation is the main reason for no flagship this year. After all, as Pei pointed out “just because the rest of the industry does things a certain way, doesn’t mean we’re going to do it the same way, if it were that case why did we start this company to begin with?”

And there are some new products coming this year, including the Nothing Phone 4a series, which Pei claims will be a “complete evolution” of the Nothing Phone 3a series, complete with upgrades to the cameras, screen, materials, design, and performance, bringing these phones closer to being flagships than ever.

That said, these handsets still won’t match the Nothing Phone 3, which will remain the company’s flagship until at least next year.

• Nothing's CEO has said smartphone prices could rise by 30% or more
• This is due to rising memory costs, fueled by AI
• As a result, they argue the 'specs race' is over

2026 could mark the biggest shift yet in the smartphone landscape – and not for good reasons, as prices could dramatically rise, and specs could be downgraded.

This is according to Nothing’s CEO Carl Pei, who, in a rather bleak post on X, has claimed that “the long-term downward trend in memory and display costs allowed for annual spec bumps without price hikes. In 2026, that model has finally broken, driven by a sharp and unprecedented surge in memory costs.”

That “unprecedented surge” is, of course, driven by AI, as AI data centers require the same memory technologies, meaning that – in Pei’s words – “for the first time, smartphones are competing directly with AI infrastructure and memory prices are rising sharply as a result.”

So just how much of a price increase are we talking? Well, according to Pei, in some cases, memory costs have already increased by 3x, with further rises expected. He added that “memory modules which cost less than $20 a year ago could exceed $100 by year-end for top-tier models.”

Higher prices or worse specs

The result of this, according to Pei, is that “brands now face a simple choice: raise prices, by 30% or more in some cases, or downgrade specs.” This is the opposite of what we’ve seen in previous years, where components typically get cheaper over time.

Pei predicts that entry-level and mid-tier smartphone makers will particularly struggle as a result of this, and that Nothing’s own smartphone prices will inevitably increase too.

But despite this bleak outlook, in Nothing’s case, Pei argues this is an “opportunity”, as the company has always focused more on how its phones look and feel than the raw numbers, so with rising costs, the brand can simply double down on that approach.

He concluded that “2026 is the year the ‘specs race’ ends. As the industry resets, experience becomes the only real differentiator. That is exactly what Nothing was built for. The era of cheap silicon is over. The era of intentional design is just beginning.”

It’s a nicely put argument, and he’s not wrong that Nothing’s experience will probably give it an advantage over brands that have traditionally competed primarily on specs, but still, prices will rise – that much is bad news for everyone. And even if Nothing itself thrives in this environment, it paints a bleak picture for the smartphone industry as a whole.

Hopefully, this will lead to more creative innovations that don’t rely on pure power, but it might instead just mean that fewer phones are made and purchased. We'll see how things play out as the year gets underway.

Nothing Phone 3 two-minute review

After several years of standing at the edge of the pool and occasionally dipping its toes in, British phone maker Nothing has finally decided to jump into the cold lido that is the premium smartphone market. Perhaps it took those “no running” signs too literally, because while the Nothing Phone 3 is one of the best Android phones I've tested recently, it hasn’t made enough of a splash to truly threaten its big-name rivals.

The Nothing Phone (3), as it’s officially called – excuse the odd bracketing, but if you're new to the brand, the company is a grammatical law unto itself – marks an ascension from the mid-range Phone 1 and Phone 2. It's now priced akin to the Samsung Galaxy S25 and iPhone 17, and shall be judged accordingly.

In many ways, this is a phone that meets or even exceeds any expectations that such comparisons may evoke. Its quartet of 50MP cameras gives the big-name phones some needed pointers in hardware, especially with its far-reaching periscope lens. The battery is bigger than what Apple or Samsung use in their similarly priced mobiles, and the Phone 3's charging speed likewise outstrips the competition (as long as you don't treat mid-range Android phones from non-Samsung companies as 'the competition', because you can spend less and get more from certain lesser-known devices).

I also like some of the software touches Nothing has brought to its fork of Android. The icons of apps you download will automatically be converted into Nothing's house style, which, on my sample, worked more often than it didn't and maintained a consistency to the Phone 3's design that's rare among smartphones these days.

What I'm about to write next will upset Nothing fans, but it's something that struck me repeatedly through weeks of testing the Phone 3: it's the most novel and ‘Nothing’ touches to the phone's software that might put people off.

Take, for example, the design. Nothing likes a unique, blocky design for its phones, but ‘unique’ isn't the same as ‘good’. The Phone 3 is also a fair bit heavier than the average handset and feels ungainly to hold.

The extra side button that Nothing has added to the edge of the mobile is useful in certain situations, as it lets you take a screenshot with one tap. However, it's poorly placed – I kept mistaking it for the power button – and doesn't do as much as I would've liked. I was longing for it to double as a camera app shutter button, like on the Sony Xperia 1 VII, but no cigar.

As I've already alluded to, I can also see many people finding the software as divisive as the phone’s design, although with Nothing OS, you get out as much as you put in (i.e, if you don’t like its look, you can change a lot about it), which can't be said for every Android fork.

Going into this review, with knowledge of the price in mind, I imagined that the Phone 3 would be a Samsung Galaxy S25 and iPhone 17 rival that would pale in comparison to two of the most popular devices out there. And having used the handset for four weeks, I don’t imagine it’ll challenge those heavyweights in terms of sales.

But at the same time, I do understand the appeal of the Nothing Phone 3. It’s slick, but unafraid of its rough edges; not attempting to be the ‘everyone phone’ but trying to do something different. And you've got to respect that.

Nothing Phone 3 review: price and availability

• Released in July 2025
• 12GB / 256GB: $799 / £799 / AU$1,509
• 16GB / 512GB: $899 / £899 / AU$1,689

The Nothing Phone 3 was released in July 2025 in two variations. You can pick up the Phone 3 with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, and that’ll cost you $799 / £799 / AU$1,509, or there’s a model with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, and that sells for $899 / £899 / AU$1,689.

That’s a fairly premium price, and a marked step up from the $599 / £579 / AU$1,049 asking price of the Nothing Phone 2, but the brand is pushing this as its first "true flagship", and so the bump makes sense.

For context, the 256GB model of the iPhone 17 costs $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, and the Samsung Galaxy S25’s lowest-storage variant starts at the same price everywhere except Australia (where it isn’t on sale). Admittedly, for the latter, that’s a 128GB model, but you get the picture – this is the ‘premium’ price to aim for.

If that price increase is too much for you to stomach, you should consider all of the Phone 3's budget siblings, which are already out: there's the Phone 3a, Phone 3a Pro, and Phone 3a Lite.

Nothing Phone 3 review: specs

Nothing Phone 3 review: design

• Chunky (9mm) and heavy (218g)
• Unique twists: Glyph Matrix and Essential Key
• Blocky design

It’s been a while since I’ve used a phone that felt quite as chunky as the Nothing Phone 3. Partly, this is down to the 218g heft, putting it in a weight class above many of its premium rivals (it matches the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, despite being smaller in most regards), but partly it’s the sheer blocky design of the thing.

I’m no thin-phone evangelist, but at 9mm thick, the Phone 3 is at the other end of the spectrum from the likes of the iPhone Air. It’s 160.6mm tall and 75.6mm wide, so it’s big, but it’s not Ultra or Pro Max big. But in some ineffable way, it still feels chunkier than its bigger rivals. This is clearly a phone that’s been designed meticulously, yet in a lot of ways it feels poorly thought-out.

Like its predecessors, the Nothing Phone 3 has a robot-like, mechanical-looking back, which is ostensibly see-through so you can see some screws, but not any of the real internals. The two horizontal camera lenses stick out quite far, though the higher, periscope one doesn’t; the orderly part of me hated how slightly offset this camera was. I see the whole aesthetic of the Phone 3 being quite divisive, but if you know enough about the brand to be reading this review, you’ve already decided whether you like it or not.

A new feature for the Phone 3 is the Glyph Matrix, which is an upgrade on the Glyph interface that past Nothing phones had (which were basically just light strips). The Matrix lets you display information like a stopwatch or the battery level, and there are a few games too, like Spin the Bottle and Rock, Paper, Scissors. You can scroll through the options or select them by pressing or holding the white circle midway down the body below it. Many of the Matrix functions that Nothing touts on its website, like photo previews or a torch mode, were not readily available on the phone I tested (at least via the Glyph menu, or anywhere else I checked).

So, the Glyph Matrix is an interesting feature with a few neat use cases, but there weren’t enough useful features to make it a core part of my user experience, and due to the nature of pressing the touch button, I found it easier just to flip over my phone to see the time or battery percentage.

Another feature worth flagging is the Essential Key button, which Nothing has spitefully put exactly where a power button would be on any other handset. Due to this placement, I was constantly accidentally pressing it when I wanted the phone to power up or down; hopefully, experience would eventually teach me not to do this, but it was endlessly frustrating.

The button’s actual function is fine: press it for a screenshot or hold it for a video, both of which you can caption with a written or voice memo, before they’re sent over to the Essential Space. More on that later.

Above the Essential Key is the power button, with the two positioned close enough to each other that, at first glance, you could think they were both part of the volume rocker. The latter is on the left edge of the phone, positioned high enough that I couldn’t reach volume up with my fingers, but could get to volume down.

Due to it being 2025, there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, so the USB-C port on the bottom edge serves instead. The other important thing to note is the phone's IP68 protection, meaning it’s sealed up from dust and water resistant up to depths of 1.5 meters for up to half an hour.

• Design score: 3.5 / 5

Nothing Phone 3 review: display

• 6.67 inches, 2800 x 1260 resolution
• 120Hz refresh rate, 4500 nits max brightness
• Protected with Gorilla Glass 7i

Nothing’s apparently still not decided on the perfect screen size. After bumping up the inch count from Phone 1 to 2, it’s now dropped it ever so slightly on the 3; you’re now looking at a 6.67-inch panel, though one with a higher pixel count. That’s 1260 x 2800, for an FHD display.

The screen supports a billion colors with a 10-bit color depth, and it’s noticeable when you’re watching supported content on streaming services or online.

Some more specs: like many premium phones, the refresh rate is 120Hz, with a lower touch sampling rate than previous models at 1,000Hz, but that’s not a spec most people notice. The peak brightness is a glorious 4500 nits, and if the sun had come out once during my testing period, I’m sure I would’ve reaped the benefits of this particular spec.

The screen’s made from Corning Gorilla Glass 7I, which is designed to offer mid-range and budget phones added toughness. Bearing in mind the aforementioned IP68 rating, the handset seems very hardy.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Nothing Phone 3 review: software

• Android 15 with Nothing OS 4 atop
• Five guaranteed updates; one already here
• Unique look and many bespoke features

When the Nothing Phone 3 launched, it ran Android 15, but by the time I tested it, the rollout to Android 16 had commenced. That's the first of the five major software updates promised to the phone, taking it to Android 20 if Google keeps its numbering system consistent.

Of course, you've seen pictures of the phone, so you know it doesn't run stock Android. Layered atop Google’s software is the company's fork: Nothing OS 4. This is quite a dramatic change versus Android proper, bringing a new look and extra features.

Design-wise, there's obviously the retro-inspired blocky look, which isn't mandatory but which I opted for. I was impressed by how the system converted app icons for all my downloads into the house style, which kept a consistency across the board that I haven't seen before in forks like this. Admittedly, it stumbled a few times – the NYT Puzzles app lost basically its entire logo, and several of Nothing’s own apps have near-identical logos to one another – but it shows admirable commitment to a look.

There are also a few novel features that are unique to Nothing OS, or are at least rare among other brands. Essential Space is a repository of your screenshots, notes, and memos, with organization tools to create collections. The Recorder app has extra features to focus on voices or environmental sounds, and the Essential Key has a shortcut to quickly begin recording. And, of course, there’s the Glyph Matrix and everything that comes with it.

Nothing OS has some AI tools, like integration with ChatGPT and a wallpaper generation tool, but thankfully, these are optional and turned off by default.

There’s some degree of customization in Nothing OS, as you can change the color scheme, add widgets, and create shortcuts, but you’re not getting as much versatility as in most other Android forks. You can change the icon shapes between Nothing’s versions and the standard Android model, and there’s also a storefront to buy alternatives, although, for the most part, these cost money.

• Software score: 4 / 5

Nothing Phone 3 review: cameras

• 50MP main, 50MP ultra-wide and 50MP periscope lenses
• 50MP front-facing
• Testing is a work in progress; more samples to come

Nothing has decked the Phone 3 out with a camera array that's easy to remember: 50MP, 50MP, and 50MP. One of those is the main snapper, another has an ultra-wide lens with a 114-degree field of view, and the other has a periscope lens for 3x optical zoom.

I'm particularly glad to see the periscope camera, as lenses like this add a certain 'oomph' to a camera array. Not only is it useful for long-range shots, but it also improves the natural bokeh of Portrait photos and the close-up detail of Macro mode. Plus, a sharpening tool means that really zoomed-in digital-zoom snaps look a lot less blurry than they usually do.

The selfie camera is – you guessed it – another 50MP snapper, f/2.2. That marks a megapixel increase over the Phone 2, although both use pixel-binning. I found selfies a little washed-out, and in Portrait mode, the artificial bokeh kept fuzzing out parts of my hair.

Overall the hardware is impressive, giving you versatility over your photography and taking snaps that are detailed. On paper, and in initial testing. But when I really began to push the phone, it returned results that weren't as impressive as I'd hoped.

Some of the basics work well: autofocus is quick, Night Mode cuts through the darkness and the modifiable bokeh in Portrait mode adds nice touches. But then sometimes the camera app will go unresponsive for a while, refusing to take pictures, or doing so with a weird several-second delay which sometimes results in you missing your shot.

There's some odd coloration going between lenses too; just look at the camera sample gallery below for evidence. Wide shots are vibrant with lots of contrast but they lack detail, while periscope snaps are the complete opposite and standard photos sit somewhere in between.

Photos offer a noticeable lack of dynamic range, as you can see in the gallery, and it hurts especially in low-light settings where a little vibrancy would go a long way. I can't help but feel that Nothing's scene optimization tweakery doesn't hold a candle to those on the big dogs like Samsung or Apple, and that's an issue when you're paying this much for a phone.

I must say, though, that if I was a camera photographer, I'd still consider this over the iPhone 17 or Samsung Galaxy S25. While its software is inferior, its hardware is superior, and I imagine some time in Photoshop could make up that distance.

• Camera score: 3.5 / 5

Nothing Phone 3 camera samples

Nothing Phone 3 review: performance and audio

• Top-end Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset
• 12GB or 16GB RAM and 256GB or 512GB Storage
• Stereo speakers or Bluetooth 6.0

Nothing hasn’t given the Phone 3 the very best chipset available, but one so close that you’d only know the difference by looking at its specs sheet. This is the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 from Qualcomm, with that little ‘s’ denoting that this is a step behind the top option (which was the Snapdragon 8 Elite at the time of release, though the Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 has since debuted in newer Android phones like the OnePlus 15).

At the top end of chipsets, though, the performance differences are so minuscule that this really doesn’t matter. When I put the Phone 3 through the Geekbench 6 benchmark tests, the average multi-core score was 6847, and as of the 2025 generation of flagships, any score around 6,500 is the realm of the giants.

I tested the phone on a number of popular mobile titles, and I could always crank the game’s graphics to the max and still enjoy a cracking time. At certain times, including during benchmarking and in certain games, I did notice the phone heat up a fair amount, so be warned if you’re planning on gaming all day.

Depending on which phone you opt for, you’ll get 12GB or 16GB RAM, and I tested a model with the latter. For most people, 12GB is enough, though power users or people buying phones for specific high-intensity use cases might prefer 16GB. The same goes for the storage capacity, which is 256GB or 512GB – I know the former would be enough for me, but if you’re using the handset for work or photography, maybe you’ll want to stretch.

Audio-wise, Nothing has never released a phone with a headphone jack to my knowledge. Instead, you can use a USB-C adaptor, connect headphones through Bluetooth 6.0 or, if you’re home alone and not bothering anyone by using them, the stereo loudspeakers which sound just the same as on every other smartphone.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Nothing Phone 3 review: battery life

• 5,150mAh battery
• 65W wired charging
• 15W wireless powering, 7.5W reverse

The Nothing Phone 3 has a 5,150mAh battery – I’m told the Indian model has an extra 350mAh on top of that, but the rest of us get slightly less – which is slightly smaller than many of its contemporary flagships but does beat Samsung and Apple’s price-for-price alternatives.

That’s a solid battery capacity, and it facilitates full-day phone use; I don’t imagine many people will need to charge the Phone 3 mid-way through the working day.

I wouldn’t rely on the phone for a second day of use, though, with the big screen, powerful processor, and Glyph lights all demanding juice.

You’ve got the full hat-trick of charging options here. There’s 65W wired, 15W wireless, and 7.5W reverse wireless (that’s when you use your phone as a wireless charging mat for other devices). None of those speeds is the best in the biz, but – in what’s becoming a refrain for this section – they trump the respective charging speeds of the Galaxy 25 and iPhone 17.

• Battery score: 3.5 / 5

Nothing Phone 3 review: value

The problem with Nothing’s jump into the big leagues is that the brand’s existing fans, who know the company for mid-range mobiles, might feel a little left in the lurch.

Specifically, fans who are used to the usual Nothing value proposition might not feel that the increased price demanded by the Phone 3 is matched by its spec improvements. Case in point, you can get faster charging, a more premium design, and a bigger battery on much cheaper Android phones.

In short, you’re getting what you pay for, but that’s not the Nothing way – you usually get a little more.

• Value score: 3.5 / 5

Should you buy the Nothing Phone 3?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Nothing Phone 3 review: Also consider

I keep comparing the Nothing Phone 3 to two particular rivals, so let's take a proper look at them as well as the Phone 3's predecessor.

How I tested the Nothing Phone 3

• Review test period = 3 weeks
• Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used = Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats

I used the Nothing Phone 3 for four weeks before writing this review, and continued additional testing during the writing process.

During said process, I used the Nothing Phone 3 as my main smartphone. This meant it was my tool for taking photos, scrolling social media, gaming, and working. Before and after this testing, I also conducted benchmarks, as well as standardized battery and charging tests.

During the testing period I took the phone on holiday, where I captured over 350 photos and about 20 videos, so it really got put through its paces.

I've been testing smartphones for TechRadar for nearly seven years now, so I have copious amounts of experience in experimenting with gadgets and assessing whether they're right for the general consumer.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed November 2025

• Snapdragon and Nothing have both announced plans to support AirDrop
• That means the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Nothing Phone 3 could get this feature soon
• Though there's still a chance that Apple might decide to block it

Last week something unexpected happened – Google announced that Android Quick Share would now work with AirDrop, meaning that Android and iPhone users could quickly and easily share files with each other. Right now this only works with Google Pixel 10 series devices, but we’re now learning about other Android phones that could support this soon.

The biggest news here is that the Snapdragon X account has posted saying “can't wait for people to use this once enabled on Snapdragon in the near future.” Now, while this doesn’t mention any specific phones, a huge number of Android handsets have Snapdragon chipsets, so that might mean that many or even most of them will soon support this.

Big names under that umbrella include the Samsung Galaxy S25, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, and the OnePlus 15, among other phones.

So as well as giving us some idea of which Android phones might be next in line to get AirDrop support, this also confirms that it won’t be limited to handsets with Google’s Tensor chipsets.

And we have some idea of specific brands that might support this, as Nothing CEO Carl Pei has also posted on X, saying “we’re already exploring how to bring this to Nothing phones as soon as we can.” Though notably many Nothing handsets have Snapdragon chipsets anyway.

Still, this means we can be almost certain that the Nothing Phone 3 specifically will get this feature, since that’s Nothing’s flagship handset.

The Apple question

Neither of these companies have been very specific about when we might start seeing this feature on more phones, but it sounds like they’re aiming for sooner rather than later, so that’s good news too.

Still, there’s the lingering question of whether Apple will let this continue or whether the company will decide to block AirDrop on Android, as from Google’s press release announcing the feature, it sounds like Apple wasn’t involved in it.

Hopefully Apple won’t block it though, as this is surely good for iPhone owners as well as those on Android.

Black Friday proper is a few weeks away, but we’re already seeing some great deals on the best Android phones on the market; the best I’ve seen so far might be for the weird and wonderful Nothing Phone 3, which you can now get for $678.99 at Amazon US and £629 at Amazon UK.

• Shop Amazon's full Black Friday sale

In a rare alignment of the Black Friday deals cosmos, the Nothing Phone 3 is discounted in both its 256GB variant and 512GB variant in both the US and UK. In the UK specifically, Amazon has sneakily undercut Nothing’s own Black Friday sale prices by £20 on the model with 256GB of storage and £30 on the model with 512GB of storage. Let’s take a look at the deals.

Today's best Nothing Phone 3 Black Friday deals

The Nothing Phone 3 is the company’s first undeniably “flagship” phone – Nothing made a big deal of that title when it launched the handset earlier this year. Equipped with a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, 12GB or 16GB of RAM (tied to storage), and a triple 50MP camera system with 3x optical zoom, the Nothing Phone 3 looks to contend with the likes of the iPhone 17 and Samsung Galaxy S25.

But what you’ll notice first about the Nothing Phone 3 is its one-of-a-kind design – this is a properly unique-looking phone that builds on the qualities of its predecessors, with intentionally misaligned cameras and a quirky rear-mounted “glyph display” dot-matrix interface.

The Nothing Phone 3 doesn’t have quite the same processing power as its mainstream rivals, but does offer a lot for even its usual retail price of $799 / £799 / AU$1,509. As well as the aforementioned triple camera system, it has a 6.67-inch display, a 5,150mAh battery, and support for 65W charging.

We went hands-on with the Nothing Phone 3 just after launch, finding it to be an “abstract, asymmetrical vibe” of a handset. Nothing fans also swear by the clean and simple Nothing OS Android wrapper, though the brand has faced some controversy recently for its handling of the software experience. Still, this remains a strong contender from a quirky outsider brand.

More Black Friday phone deals

Shop more of today's best Black Friday US sales

• Amazon: 45% off TVs, AirPods, air fryers & vacuums
• Apple: iPads, AirPods & MacBooks from $119
• Best Buy: $1,000 off TVs, laptops & headphones
• Dell: laptop deals from $249.99
• Home Depot: 40% off appliances, furniture, grills & tools
• Lenovo: 45% off laptops & tablets
• Lowe's: up to 30% off appliances, holiday decor & tools
• Samsung: up to $2,000 off appliances, TVs & phones
• Target: 40% off Christmas decor, clothing & furniture
• Walmart: furniture, cheap TVs & vacs from $69
• Wayfair: 54% off Christmas, furniture & decor

Shop more of today's best Black Friday UK sales

• Amazon: up to 66% off tech & essentials
• AO: up to £500 off Dyson, Bosch & Hisense
• Argos: up to 50% off appliances, tech & toys
• Boots: save on 1,000s of beauty products
• Currys: deals on Ninja, Shark & Lenovo
• Decathlon: up to 50% off
• Dell: laptops from £279
• Dyson: up to £550 off vacuums
• Ebay: up to 50% off refurb tech & fashion
• EE: Switch 2 bundles from £20/month
• Honor: up to 50% off tablets & phones
• John Lewis: up to 50% off tech & fashion
• Lego: sets & accessories from £2.99
• Music Magpie: extra 10% off
• Ninja: up to 30% off air fryers & blenders
• Samsung: deals on appliances & phones
• Shark: up to £130 off vacuums & fans
• Sky: Essential TV & Full Fibre 500 for £35/m
• Smarty: 50GB SIM-only deal for £8
• Superdrug: up to 55% off fragrances & gifts
• Very: up to 40% off tech, toys & fashion
• Virgin Media: 3 months free TV & broadband

• Nothing has announced that it will allow users to fully uninstall Meta apps in Nothing OS 4.0
• The move follows backlash after the Nothing Phone 3a Lite shipped with unremovable Meta Services features
• The fix will roll out towards the end of November

Nothing, the UK-based phone maker led by OnePlus founder Carl Pei, found itself facing controversy this week after users spoke out against pre-installed bloatware on the brand’s Phone 3a series of mid-range and budget smartphones.

As Android Authority reports, Nothing recently issued the Android 16-based Nothing OS 4.0 update to its current lineup of smartphones, and while the entire lineup got new features and fixes with the update, Nothing also made it impossible to remove pre-installed apps on the new Phone 3a Lite, including apps like Meta Services and Meta's Facebook app.

Naturally, this caused a stir among the passionate Nothing fan base. As a smaller phone brand, Nothing makes a point of privacy and simplicity – and whatever you think of Meta, there’s no denying that the tech giant doesn’t exactly share this reputation.

Worse still, there's no way to completely remove Meta Services, Meta App Installer, and Meta App Manager from a phone running Nothing OS 4.0 – though, as 9to5Google explains, users can fully uninstall Facebook and Instagram.

Luckily, Nothing has pulled a U-turn on this issue and released a fix. In an update to a prior statement on the Nothing Community forum, Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis announced that users will be able to completely uninstall Meta apps, the Meta App Installer, Meta App Manager, and Meta Services with a forthcoming update.

Nothing is targeting the end of November as a deadline to begin rolling out the fix.

In the updated post, Evangelidis wrote: “Previously, these [apps] could only be disabled. While we recommended keeping them active for better stability of pre-installed apps like Instagram or Facebook, we understand that some users prefer full control over what stays on their device.”

Solving an avoidable problem

To be frank, it’s disappointing that Nothing would push pre-installed apps after having such a great year when it comes to hardware.

We’ve been impressed by the Nothing Phone 3, Phone 3a, and Phone 3a Pro (which ranks amongst the best cheap phones), so this issue has flattened the launch of the Phone 3a Lite in comparison.

That’s why I’m hesitant to give Nothing much credit for this latest fix – it’s a solution to a problem that should never have existed.

I understand that economic pressures may lead phone makers to accept payment from major tech companies to pre-install apps, but not allowing users to fully uninstall said software is the real mistake here. That takes bloatware from a day one annoyance to a real problem you might deliberate before you buy a phone.

Anyhow, I’m glad Nothing has corrected course on this – if you’ve been affected by this Nothing issue, let us know in the comments below.

Nothing has partnered with Mumsnet, the UK’s largest online community of parents, on a safety-focused smartphone for teenagers dubbed the 'Other Phone'.

Described as “the safest phone for children on the market,” the Other Phone is essentially a Nothing CMF Phone 2 Pro pre-installed with SafetyMode Plus, a software package that blocks inappropriate on-screen content in real-time and lets parents control app access remotely.

On paper, the device sounds similar to the HMD Fuse, which uses SafeToNet’s HarmBlock+ AI to detect and block harmful content. The Other Phone, however, costs less than half the price of HMD’s kid-friendly phone, and in being a modified version of the best cheap phone on the market, it may better resonate with style-conscious teens.

In the UK, the Other Phone costs £279 upfront, then £5.99 per month for SafetyMode Plus. For reference, the standard CMF Phone 2 Pro costs $279 / £249 / AU$509, which we described in our CMF Phone 2 Pro review as “an incredibly low price for a phone this good."

Immediate availability in other regions like the US seems unlikely, as the Other Phone is in the pilot stage at the time of writing.

The current publicly available specs for the Other Phone include a 5,000mAh battery, 8GB of RAM, and a “four-camera system”, and given that the device is described as a CMF Phone 2 Pro on its official website, it likely sports the same MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G chipset and 6.77-inch AMOLED display as Nothing’s budget phone (though we’ve requested clarification on whether the Other Phone is in fact identical to the CMF Phone 2 Pro).

As mentioned, we do know that, by default, the Other Phone runs SafetyMode Plus rather than Nothing’s Nothing OS software, and the former is designed to mimic the minimalist (read: addiction-preventing) approach of a dumb phone.

However, it’s also worth noting that SafetyMode – which supposedly uses AI to identify and block harmful content like bad language and nudity – can be disabled at any time by the parent account, reverting the Other Phone to a Nothing OS-powered device (“it’s a phone that can grow up with your child,” Mumsnet notes).

The same caveats apply to that aforementioned app control, which allows parents to set schedules and time limits for specific apps, limit their access to the internet, or block access altogether. This control, too, can be lifted in its entirety when the time is right.

In other words, the Other Phone is a CMF Phone 2 Pro with a removable layer of protection on top, which (you’d think!) makes it a more attractive proposition for teenagers than a phone whose guardrails are fixed in place.

And make no mistake: both parents and today’s teens are aware of the dangers of excessive smartphone use. Research conducted by HMD earlier this year found that, of 12,000 teens surveyed, over half said they’re worried that they may be addicted to their phone, and 52% said they've been approached by a stranger online. 53% said they’ve seen something they wish they hadn’t – which for most respondents was sexual or violent content – and 56% said they’ve seen instances of bullying.

Mumsnet, meanwhile, found that, of 510 parents surveyed, 77% said keeping their child safe online feels like an impossible task. Like the HMD Fuse, the Other Phone arrives with the aim of reducing those bleak numbers – but getting kids to switch from the best iPhones and best Samsung phones is easier said than done.

• Nothing has rolled out a 'Lock Glimpse' feature on some of its phones
• This shows a rotating wallpaper selection on your lock screen, along with a link to a related article with adverts
• It's likely that more companies will start doing this sort of thing soon

When you pay for a product – especially something as expensive as a smartphone – you probably don’t want or expect to see adverts on it, but they're something we’re starting to see on some phones. What's more, it might only be a matter of time before more brands start including them.

Already we’ve seen Motorola phones ship with a ‘Glance’ lock screen, which will show you things like news stories and the local weather along with adverts, and now Nothing has started including lock screen adverts on its phones too with what it’s calling ‘Lock Glimpse’, a much stranger system.

It’s actually less intrusive than Glance, with the feature showing rotating wallpapers on your lock screen, with no actual adverts or other content included. What they do have is a link to some content that’s related to the wallpaper.

If you open this link, you’re then served up the article on a page that very much does include adverts, and the articles themselves are – according to 9to5Google – mostly “recipes, random DIY projects, or random information without any sourcing at all.”

So they’re not very useful, with 9to5Google speculating that they’re AI generated and “exist solely to get people to waste time and view ads.”

Nothing itself hasn’t meaningfully commented on these articles, saying in a community post that Lock Glimpse will “surface timely updates and useful content, designed to enhance your experience, not distract you.” Which sounds like the opposite of what it’s actually doing.

The good news is that Lock Glimpse isn’t so far coming to the company’s high-end devices, with it currently being limited to the Nothing Phone 3a series. You can also choose to disable it, and with the exception of the Nothing Phone 3a Lite it’s off by default.

The new normal

Still, it’s hard to imagine this is a feature that many people want, and it’s odd that Nothing hasn’t tailored the experience to at least offer more meaningful content. We’ve reached out to Nothing about why this content in particular is offered and we’ll update this article if we hear back.

But with both Nothing and Motorola now showing some form of lock screen adverts, and us also seeing adverts creeping into other tech products – with even the likes of Samsung smart fridges getting them – it feels like it might only be a matter of time before this becomes more common, or even the default.

So hopefully the responses to these recent advertising attempts will be negative enough to make companies think twice.

• The Nothing Phone 3a Lite has officially launched
• This is a cheaper alternative to the Nothing Phone 3a
• But it seems slightly worse than another phone the company currently sells at around the same price

Following leaks and teases, the Nothing Phone 3a Lite has now been officially unveiled, giving Nothing fans a cheaper alternative to both the Nothing Phone 3 and the Nothing Phone 3a.

Costing £249 / AU$439 (roughly $330) for a 128GB model and £279 / AU$489 (around $370) for a 256GB version, but with no current availability in the US, the Nothing Phone 3a Lite has a 6.77-inch 1080 x 2392 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a fairly low-end MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro chipset, and 8GB of RAM.

It also has a 50MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide one, a 2MP macro one, and a 16MP front-facing camera.

The battery capacity is 5,000mAh and charges at 33W, there’s an under-display fingerprint sensor, and it runs Android 15, with the promise of three years of Android version upgrades and six years of security patches. It also has a microSD card slot, which is increasingly a rarity in phones – and not something you’ll find in the non-Lite version of the Nothing Phone 3a.

As for the design, you’re getting a phone that largely fits the design language of other Nothing handsets, but with a far more limited Glyph lighting system than most, as there’s only one small light on the rear.

The Nothing Phone 3a Lite comes in at 164 x 78 x 8.3mm and 199g, it has a glass back and a plastic frame, and its IP54 rating protects it against splashes. As for colors, you can get it in black or white.

A lesser option

Now, in isolation this all sounds fine, but in both the UK and Australia, Nothing still sells the CMF Phone 2 Pro, and charges a near identical price for this, despite it having a 50MP telephoto camera in place of the 3a Lite’s 2MP macro, and otherwise having near identical specs. So it’s a very similar but probably slightly better phone, rendering the Nothing Phone 3a Lite a bit pointless.

However, Nothing has announced plans to spin off its CMF sub-brand, so it’s possible the CMF Phone 2 Pro won’t be sold directly by the company for much longer, and it’s also possible it could be discontinued at some point. In which case, the Nothing Phone 3a Lite might then start to make more sense, but for now, we can’t see much reason not to buy the CMF alternative instead.

As for how the Nothing Phone 3a Lite compares to the standard Nothing Phone 3a, you get a more powerful Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset in the 3a, along with a 50MP telephoto camera in place of the 3a Lite’s 2MP macro sensor.

The Nothing Phone 3a also has a 50MP front-facing camera, and faster 50W charging, with the remaining specs being similar – but unlike the CMF Phone 2 Pro this does cost substantially more than the Nothing Phone 3a Lite.

So for now, we’d suggest buying the standard 3a if you want the extras it offers, or the CMF Phone 2 Pro if you otherwise like the look of the 3a Lite. Though it might be worth waiting for our full Nothing Phone 3a Lite review, to see whether it’s more than the sum of its parts.

• The Nothing Phone 3a Lite is coming on October 29
• It looks set to be a cheaper version of the Nothing Phone 3a
• This will be the first 'Lite' phone Nothing has launched

It seems Nothing isn't done with its smartphone launches for 2025: the most recent handset we've seen from the gadget maker is the Nothing Phone 3 that launched in July, and now the Nothing Phone 3a Lite is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, October 29.

Nothing announced the launch of the phone on social media, and there's a brief tease of the rear of the handset. It looks like we're getting some kind of notification light on the back casing, following in the steps of the glyph lights we've seen on previous Nothing phones.

Going off the name, we can expect a more affordable, less powerful version of the Nothing Phone 3a, which launched alongside the Nothing Phone 3a Pro back in March. Both of those phones are powered by the mid-range Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset.

This is actually the first time Nothing has introduced a phone with the Lite branding, though of course it's also responsible for the cheaper CMF-branded handsets – including the CMF Phone 2 Pro that was unveiled in April, yours for $279 / £249 / AU$509 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

How 'Lite' will it be?

The Nothing Phone 3a Lite actually leaked earlier this month, with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage mentioned – though no processor was specified. That sounds about right for a handset that's likely to undercut the $379 / £329 / AU$599 starting price of the Nothing Phone 3a.

The Nothing Phone 3a is perhaps the best source of clues for the upcoming Nothing Phone 3a Lite. The existing handset has a triple-lens 50MP+50MP+8MP rear camera, offering 2x optical zoom, with a 32MP selfie camera on the front.

We may see a slightly inferior camera setup on the Nothing Phone 3a Lite, and potentially a screen downgrade too – the Nothing Phone 3a sports a 6.77-inch, 1080 x 2392 pixel AMOLED display with a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz.

All will be revealed in a couple of days, and will take the number of Nothing phones launched this year to four: the full announcement is due at 1pm GMT, which is 6am PT / 9am ET, and midnight on Thursday, October 30 in Australia.

• The Nothing Phone 3a Lite is apparently landing this year
• Leaked specs reveal possible colors, storage, and RAM
• It's hard to see how this phone can fit in Nothing's lineup

With the exception of the Nothing Phone 3, Nothing’s phones are all at least somewhat affordable, with most of them hovering around mid-range prices. But a new model could undercut many of these handsets, as the Nothing Phone 3a Lite is apparently on the way.

This would be the company’s first ‘Lite’ model, and as a lite version of the mid-range Nothing Phone 3a, we’d expect it to have a low-end price, undercutting the $379 / £329 / AU599 3a, though the exact pricing isn’t known yet.

Some specs have been leaked, though, with leaker and tech influencer Sudhanshu Ambhore telling XpertPick that the Nothing Phone 3a Lite will come in black and white shades, and just a single configuration: one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

That said, the site notes that it’s possible some regions will get other configurations or colors.

Additionally, the phone will apparently launch this year and be available globally, so there’s a good chance you’ll be able to buy it.

A less capable 3a

As for what else to expect from the Phone 3a Lite, it will presumably have some things in common with the Nothing Phone 3a, a device which has a 6.77-inch 120Hz screen, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset, a 5,000mAh battery with 50W charging, a 50MP wide camera, a 50MP telephoto (with 2x optical zoom), and an 8MP ultra-wide.

We’d guess that maybe there would be one less camera on the Nothing Phone 3a Lite, but given that even the budget-friendly Nothing CMF Phone 2 Pro has three rear cameras, we’re not at all sure of that.

Indeed, it might be hard for Nothing to truly differentiate this phone from the handsets it already sells, since the CMF Phone 2 Pro is in many ways already a Nothing Phone 3a Lite – with similar specs to the 3a, just a less powerful chipset, fewer megapixels for its selfie camera, and slower charging.

So, it will be interesting to see exactly what the Nothing Phone 3a Lite offers if and when it launches, as right now, it's hard to see the point of this phone.

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• The Nothing OS 4.0 open beta has landed – but its availability and features vary a lot depending on your phone
• ‘Hyper-personalized to each individual': Nothing unveils bold future software plans alongside Nothing OS 4.0
• The Nothing Phone 3 might be the most distinctive smartphone of 2025 – but is it enough to lure in Apple and Samsung fans?

• Nothing OS 4.0 has now entered open beta
• The Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro can't yet get it
• Features vary depending on your handset, but highlights include an AI usage dashboard and AI widgets

Following its announcement a couple of weeks ago, Nothing OS 4.0 – which is Nothing’s take on Android 16 – has now landed in open beta, so if you have one of four Nothing phones, you can download it at your leisure (it’s not yet available for every handset).

Right now, the Nothing OS 4.0 open beta is available for the Nothing Phone 3, the Nothing Phone 2, the Nothing Phone 2a, and the Nothing Phone 2a Plus. That leaves the Nothing Phone 3a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro out, which is odd since they’re newer than some of these handsets, but Nothing has said the beta will be coming to these phones sometime in October.

Assuming you can get the beta, the actual features you’ll get will also vary depending on your phone.

With the Nothing Phone 3, you’ll get access to an ‘AI usage dashboard’, which provides greater transparency over what AI is doing and how it’s using your data. You’ll also get various bug fixes and performance improvements, including enhanced camera stability.

If you’re using a Nothing Phone 2, a Nothing Phone 2a, or a Nothing Phone 2a Plus, then you’ll get the ‘Stretch’ camera preset, which adds rich shadows and extended highlights to photos. You’ll also get system-level app optimizations to improve startup speeds.

Updates for everyone

Then there are some features that are seemingly coming to all phones in the beta, including pop-up view for two floating icons (so you can switch between apps faster), two new lock screen clock faces, 2x2 Quick Settings tile support, and an Extra Dark Mode.

Intriguingly, you can also now create widgets using AI, with the Nothing Phone 3 supporting up to six of these widgets, while the other models can have up to two running at once.

To grab the beta, download the Beta Updates Hub .apk onto your phone, then install it from your Downloads folder. Once done, you can head to Settings > System > Nothing Beta Hub, and tap ‘Join Beta’. Once you’ve signed up, just tap ‘Go to Update’.

Of course, the same caveats apply here as to all betas – this software is unfinished and may not be stable, so if you’re not in a hurry to try out the new additions, you can always wait for the finished release.

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• ‘Hyper-personalized to each individual': Nothing unveils bold future software plans alongside Nothing OS 4.0
• The Nothing Phone 3 might be the most distinctive smartphone of 2025 – but is it enough to lure in Apple and Samsung fans?
• I went hands-on with the Nothing Phone 3, and it might just be the most interesting phone of the year – here's why

• Nothing OS 4.0 has been unveiled and will be entering open beta soon
• This update includes Android 16, along with many changes and new features
• Looking ahead, Nothing has detailed its vision for hyper-personalized operating systems

Nothing has just unveiled its next operating system update, dubbed Nothing OS 4.0, which the company will be rolling out alongside Android 16.

It’s not quite ready to go yet, but an open beta will launch soon, and Nothing has detailed what you can expect from this update.

Highlights include a refreshed design that the Nothing Phone 3 maker claims is more fluid and intuitive, plus a new Extra Dark Mode, support for two floating app icons to speed up multitasking, app optimizations to make them run faster and smoother, and an upgraded photography experience, with new camera controls and creative presets.

Nothing OS 4.0 also features a new dashboard that aims to make AI behavior more transparent, so you can stay in better control of your data when using AI, and there are general improvements to the operating system’s responsiveness and stability.

A hyper-personalized future

So, there’s quite a lot here, but Nothing has even more exciting things planned for future operating system updates. In a blog post, the company has detailed its vision for an operating system that’s “hyper-personalized to each individual”, with interfaces that will adapt to your context and needs, suggestions that will surface naturally, and AI agents that will carry out most tasks for you.

But as everyone needs different things, Nothing says “a billion different operating systems will be rendered for a billion different people,” and these personalized operating systems will follow you across devices – so as well as your phone, the same operating system could be used on wearables, audio products, and more future-looking things like smart glasses and humanoid robots.

Nothing believes that it’s uniquely positioned to create this operating system of the future because it owns its last-mile distribution point – that being the hub from which goods are dispatched to reach the customer. This, the company says, provides them with essential contextual and user knowledge.

That said, it sounds like this hyper-personalized operating system might still be a long way off, so for now, just keep an eye out for Nothing OS 4.0.

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• The Nothing Phone 3 might be the most distinctive smartphone of 2025 – but is it enough to lure in Apple and Samsung fans?
• I went hands-on with the Nothing Phone 3, and it might just be the most interesting phone of the year – here's why
• I reviewed the Nothing Phone 3a Pro and it's not the lights and beeps that make it the best bargain smartphone

• Demo units of the Nothing Phone 3 were found to be passing off stock photos as camera sample images
• Nothing has explained that this was an "unfortunate oversight"
• Actual camera samples from the Nothing Phone 3 are impressive anyway

Nothing has found itself in a surprising situation, as demo units of the Nothing Phone 3 have been displaying stock photos – taken with professional cameras – and listing them as shot by the Phone 3 itself.

A photographer behind one of these images confirmed this to The Verge, but while you could easily jump to the conclusion that this was intentional deceit from Nothing, it seems more likely that it was an accident.

Speaking about the incident on X, Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis has said that this situation was an “unfortunate oversight” and that there was “no ill intent”.

They explained that an initial version of the Nothing Phone 3 demo units needed to be submitted with placeholder images around four months before launch, so that the demo units could be implemented and tested in time.

The intention was then to replace the placeholder images with photo samples once the Nothing Phone 3 entered mass production, but for whatever reason that step didn’t happen with some demo units.

Evangelidis additionally said that the company is “investigating internally to make sure such an issue doesn’t happen again.”

A capable camera

We’re inclined to believe this explanation, not least because the Nothing Phone 3 seems perfectly capable of taking impressive photos.

While we haven’t put it through a full review yet, some samples posted on X certainly look eye-catching. So there should have been no real need to attempt deception, especially with the risk of getting caught.

So hopefully this situation won’t hamper impressions of what looks to be a very interesting phone, with a design unlike any other.

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• I went hands-on with the Nothing Phone 3, and it might just be the most interesting phone of the year – here's why
• I like the Nothing Phone 3, but I love the company's Headphone 1 – they're my top tech of 2025 (so far)

If there’s one thing about Nothing’s entire philosophy as a company that rings completely true, it’s that modern tech looks boring. With focus applied to manufacturing efficiency and broad appeal, the most impressive aesthetics we can get from mainstream phones these days come down to a handful of colour options or an interesting camera bump, with clean-looking backsides to match equally sparse glass screens. The Nothing Phone 3 tries something quite different, mixing practical minimalism and an eye-catching design language into a solid flagship.

I’ve seen folks praise these phones for their focus on reserved user interfaces, while others applaud the unique aesthetics – looking more cassette-futurism than simply sci-fi – but both descriptions apply well across the company's family of products. With the Phone 3, Nothing wants to draw people in with a far-reaching design that is paradoxically both simple and extra with its most powerful device yet.

The exterior, adorned with plenty of plastic to invoke a faux see-through look, along with a pixelated ‘Glyph Matrix’ on the back that can run several animations with varying levels of practicality (and fun), feed into an extremely deliberate style completely unique to Nothing’s tech.

Conversely, the company’s Android version ‘Nothing OS’ goes for a bold monochrome look, completely foreign to any other consumer-oriented user interface. It shifts between New Roman-like fonts and dotted lettering, while the system is ultimately built around a focus on disconnecting from your tech. The ‘Essential Key’ below the standby button on the right side of the handset allows you to take quick voice memos and jot notes down to then access later in one unified ‘Nothing Space’ app, incentivising minimalism by treating the phone as more of a reminder box.

This approach is growing on me, but I’m not sure the Nothing Phone 3’s point of difference is compelling enough to pull me away from phones like the Google Pixel 9, the Samsung Galaxy S25, or even Nothing’s own Phone 3a Pro, which was released in March 2025.

To be clear, I don’t think the Phone 3 is a bad phone, but I do think it’s risky for a niche brand like Nothing to get in direct competition with the market-leading flagships, which outmaneuver it on spec and wider support. Nothing will surely have its fans with the Phone 3, but it also lacks the broad appeal of the phones it’s trying to compete with.

Nothing to see here

The Nothing Phone 3 has such a divisive exterior aesthetic to it. The layout of the camera array seems kind of ridiculous. The lenses are positioned seemingly nonsensically, with the microphone and telephoto lenses positioned off-centre in the top left corner, and the wide and ultrawide lenses below it.

It’s only when taking in the rest of the exterior that it makes a little bit more sense, but even then you’d have to really want the Nothing Phone 3 to like this aesthetic. I adore it – it evokes an 80s-90s cassette futurism vibe that makes me think of the chunky computers from Starfield, Alien or 2001: A Space Odyssey. A red square on the back flashes as a video recording icon, while the lines and shapes are meant to evoke the imagery of the handset’s circuitry and internal parts. This approach to aesthetic maximalism is best exemplified by the Glyph Matrix, though.

This is a really weird feature for a smartphone. This small circle of large pixels can run through several features (interactive with the back button below the panel), such as displaying battery life, acting as a level, offering advice as an eight ball and functioning as a stopwatch. The most useful feature I’ve found is using the panel to view a pixelated depiction of yourself, allowing you to take selfies using your rear cameras. It’s a neat feature!

Is any of this necessary? Nope, but that’s not the point. Nothing’s pretty explicit about wanting to make a ‘fun’ phone that’s as exciting as it is useful, and this third generation of the glyph matrix idea, evolving from simple flashing lights on previous handsets, hits the nail on the head. That said, I find the near-minimalist operating system to not gel as well with this design, and the user interface doesn’t have much of the flair it needs to truly be iconic.

I’ve tried really hard to commit to the operating system offered here. I’ve migrated my standard smartphone use over almost entirely to the Phone 3, applied the brand’s iconic ‘glass’ wallpaper filter, switched the icons to Nothing’s monochrome (as opposed to Android’s standard Material You coloring, which is also available) and have even taken advantage of the brand’s exceptional widgets.

Nothing’s approach to widgets is second to none. Having quick action buttons such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode and Hotspot accessible from the Home Screen without having to swipe the quick settings menu down is really cool. The same goes for all of the other widgets offered by Nothing – the company’s weather widgets look great, and the inbuilt media player widget is exactly what I’ve wanted from Google and Samsung for years.

But then the phone rubs up against the rest of Android – the stuff it has limited ability to change – and you start to see the cracks forming, with Android’s neutral design visible in some menus. But while this breaks the immersion, the thing limiting Nothing’s success more is its ambitious position in the market.

Nothing to it

The Phone 3 is properly separate from the rest of the Nothing range, as it’s the only smartphone designed and priced to directly compete with flagship handsets offered by Apple, Samsung and Google – but it feels like we’re veering off course from what Nothing is actually trying to do in the smartphone market.

Make no mistake, the powerful camera set, Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor and gorgeous display put the Phone 3 well above Nothing’s previously released handsets in terms of quality and capability, but compared to other leading brands, the phone underperforms.

I’d argue the more premium price point and specs kind of diminish the whole point of a Nothing phone. Take the Essential Key, a multi-button for writing notes, recording voice memos, taking screenshots and launching the Nothing Space, where you can view all of these things. This tool doesn’t actually require much processing power to work smoothly, and indeed it fits quite well into the ecosystem of the considerably cheaper 3a and 3a Pro. It’s a good feature, but it doesn’t feel like the higher price point is doing much to improve it (though, as I wrote in my 3a Pro article, I would like the choice to remap the button).

Conversely, the cameras absolutely need improvement, and I would have happily traded the more powerful processor for better photography. I’ve included reference images below of a car I’ll be reviewing soon, the Porsche Macan 4 electric, but know that there’s detail missing from the shots that I don’t believe would have been an issue had I captured the same images with the Google Pixel 9 or the iPhone 16.

Perhaps the Nothing Phone 3 is holding court until the arrival of an even better equipped Phone 3 Pro to take on the iPhone 16 Pro and Galaxy S25 Ultra. For now, these cameras don’t really keep up.

I’m taking a hard stance on the Nothing Phone 3 because, while I love what the London-based company is trying to do and am indeed swayed by the aesthetics, I believe this phone could have benefited from a slightly more competitive, or conservative, arrangement of features.

The cameras are fairly unimpressive and the processor, for its added performance, still doesn’t keep up as well as with more established rivals (and even cheaper handsets from mentioned rivals). It kind of feels like Nothing’s tied up – when your goals are minimalism and maximalism, how do you find the right fit?

A premium price makes the device more of an eyebrow-raiser to casual customers, but looking at Nothing’s focus on a healthier relationship with technology, the extra additions don’t feel substantiated, particularly for an inherently niche userbase that Nothing is restricted to by virtue of its divisive aesthetics.

Should you buy Nothing?

Nothing has created an awesome handset with the Phone 3. One that truly challenges the Galaxy S25 and Pixel 9 families. However, its strong commitment to niche aesthetics makes it exactly that – niche.

I’m among the folks that love this design approach – one that does accomplish the goal of make tech fun-looking – but as someone who needs broader utility from a flagship handset, I don’t think the Phone 3 is for me.

The Nothing Phone 3 will be a capable handset for those craving fast recharging speeds, great on-device processing performance, high framerate gameplay and even some casual photography. And, if you like the aesthetic, then you’ll be pleased to know that the Phone 3 is cheaper than all of its major competitors.

That being said, the underwhelming array of cameras certainly leaves something to be desired and, although it’s a fairly cost-effective handset, I would highly recommend waiting for it to go on sale.

Major phonemakers are likely not too worried about Nothing at the moment, but it's getting close to a perfectly balanced device here.

If you like the Nothing approach to handsets and want to save some money, I recommend reading our Nothing Phone 3a Pro review.

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We’ve all heard the phrase 'maybe it’ll grow on you', often in response to a sudden case of buyer’s remorse around something you’ve just acquired. It’s meant as a term to uplift your spirits, but while it rarely does, sometimes it can take you by surprise.

This is the case with the Nothing Phone 3. The leaks before the launch suggested we’d see a design that looked somewhat perturbing, and when I first saw it in London, my initial impression was mostly reaffirmed.

Yet, two weeks later, the design of the Phone 3 has grown on me. It’s one of the most polarizing designs on any smartphone, but it has a enough left-field charm to be a fun phone to use. From the transparent design, which fits the Nothing design language, to the capacitive rear button and Glyph Matrix, here’s why I still like the design... to my surprise.

The Nothing Phone 3 has the most polarizing design

The Nothing Phone 3 features one of the boldest designs on any smartphone. While most phone makers go for symmetry in camera alignments, the Phone 3 features a misaligned telephoto camera that's immediately obvious.

Nothing is mentioned about dividing the design into three distinct columns. While there is symmetry to it when viewed through that prism, the camera's alignment immediately deflects your attention away from recognizing this.

The surprising thing about this is that two weeks later, the alignment bothers me far less than it did initially. Considering my prior vehement feelings towards the design, to feel less passionate about the same topic just two weeks later proves that the design may divide opinion, but it will grow on you.

The Glyph Matrix is a key part of the Nothing DNA

The Glyph Matrix is equal parts an excellent idea and a gimmick. It’s a fantastic idea because it evolves the iconic glyph LEDs into a micro-LED dot-matrix display that can be used to alert you to new notifications, set timers, spin the bottle, or seek the oracle that's the Magic 8-Ball.

The concept is genius: more LEDs with precision control can be used to create a display that can show tidbits of information. The execution is both better and worse than expected: the former because I can see the small display being genuinely useful once there is a broader suite of Glyph Toys, and the latter precisely because there aren’t many useful Glyph Toys right now.

I think there’s room for Nothing to build a bigger version of the Glyph Matrix. Imagine an LED billboard — the type you may see outside a building or restaurant — controlled by your phone. The current iteration of the Glyph Matrix is likely to garner significant community support, especially considering that Nothing has previous form for this.

Nothing also has a track record of thinking outside the box, and a bigger Glyph Matrix display would give it a larger canvas to dream up incredible features that help its phones stand out. Considering the Phone 3 is the first flagship Nothing phone in two years, I can’t help but wonder if the company should have attempted this with the Phone 3, especially as it would help it stand out against intense competition.

More phones should have buttons on the back

I’m also surprised at how much I like the button on the back of the Phone 3, located in line with the Glyph Matrix display. Specifically, I don’t like the implementation as much as the idea itself and the possibilities it could entail.

Imagine if every phone had a programmable button or two that could be used to launch different shortcuts, quickly take a selfie, start/stop a voice recording, or even cycle through different sound profiles. It’s an odd concept at first, but after using it on the Phone 3, the idea and its possibilities have begun to grow on me.

One area where it doesn’t quite live up to it, however, is in the type of button used. Unlike most phone buttons used for core functionality — such as volume and power — that physically move, the Phone 3 uses a capacitive button reliant on electrical capacitance changes when touched. In short, it’s the same technology used in the touchscreen on all phones, and it has the same pitfalls.

The biggest of these is the lag in time. Rather than a physical switch, which can initiate a command or state change immediately, the capacitive key has input lag and is more frustrating than exciting. There are also skipped presses, and while it's likely unfeasible to use a key with full travel considering the space constraints inside the phone, the current approach needs improvement.

There’s one thing I wish that Nothing would change immediately

Having become accustomed to the design of the Phone 3, there’s only one design feature that makes it challenging to use the Phone 3 as my daily phone: the position of the four keys.

On the right side are the Power and Essential Keys, while on the opposite side, and perfectly aligned, are the two volume keys. There’s just one problem: the positioning.

Nothing has a habit of moving its keys to a lower position along the side frame, but the Phone 3 feels challenging to use when relying on muscle memory. I can normally adapt to any idiosyncrasies within a couple of days when changing phones. Two weeks later, something as simple as taking a screenshot quickly feels alien and often fails to work.

The Phone 3 already sports a polarizing design, so that it won’t appeal to everyone, but beyond Nothing’s core community is a much broader set of potential customers who want something a little different. Those customers may be seeking change, but having worked in retail for over a decade, I know that phones still need to feel familiar in hand.

Perhaps the Phone 3 will continue to grow on me, and I’ll eventually get used to the layout of the keys. More likely is that I’ll use an alternative phone, which is a shame as I’ve begun to like just how unique the Nothing Phone 3 design is. There’s nothing like it on our list of the best Android phones.

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Two weeks ahead of the Nothing Phone 3’s launch on July 1, Nothing announced that its “first true flagship” would be using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, not the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is by all accounts the fastest Android chipset in 2025.

Negative headlines abounded (“the Nothing Phone 3 chipset has been confirmed and I’m concerned,” wrote Trusted Reviews), but in hindsight, Nothing was smart to clear the decks for a slew of much more positive Phone 3 coverage on launch day.

Does the lack of a Snapdragon 8 Elite in the Phone 3 really matter? Personally, I don’t think so, since we’ve arguably reached a saturation point when it comes to the speed of flagship phones. But now, Nothing itself has shed more light on the decision to opt for the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 over the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

“From a product perspective, I think we can give the experiences that we want to give with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 and [more generally] the spec sheet of the Phone 3,” Nothing’s AI lead, Sélim Benayat, explained to me in an exclusive interview.

“Obviously, it's also helpful from a price perspective [the Phone 3 costs $799 / £799 / AU$1,509]. But generally, we were more focused on what [kind of] experience we wanted to create, and therefore on what specs we needed [to facilitate that experience].”

With the Phone 3, the type of flagship “experience” Nothing wants to create is one that encourages human-centric interaction through both hardware and software. For a separate article, Sélim told me how the new Glyph Matrix display helps users “be more in the present moment,” and Nothing’s approach to AI revolves around the same goal.

“At Nothing, the way we look at AI internally is – we rarely call it AI, but rather a software tool that allows us to make more personal, adaptive features that put you, the human, into the center of the experience,” Sélim explained.

“Every time there’s a debate over what should be prioritized, we go back to that principle. We're not just chasing whatever competitors are doing – we have this philosophy of, ‘What should the interface between tech and humans look like?’ And that's where we’re ultimately going, because we believe that, at the end of the day, [this approach will result in] features that people actually want to use.”

I asked Sélim to elaborate on what makes Nothing’s approach to AI different from its competitors’: “AI was always a big theme at Nothing, specifically from a fundamental perspective. I think that’s the big advantage that we as a company have [over our competitors] – it’s a young team, it's a young function, and so are our OS ambitions, right?

“And so the way we think about the OS today is to have an underlying framework that is driven completely by AI, which will then start to allow us to build the experiences that put you at the centre of it again. AI has always been a consideration architecturally as well as philosophically.”

As ambitious as this AI-led approach to smartphone software sounds, it’s one that has – in a strange twist of fate – allowed Nothing to operate at a fraction of the scale of competitors like Apple and Google.

“I think we’re experiencing a sort of platform shift right now – a shift away from, let's say, a static environment to a more probabilistic environment. You don't need as many hands or fingers to create experiences that truly matter, which is obviously helpful if you're a smaller team,” Sélim told me.

“Some competitors really believe in controlling everything from the smallest pixel to the touch of your thumb – but they’re finite experiences. Now, for AI, what needs to be done [instead] – because AI is a probabilistic technology – is that you need to guide the experience, meaning a truly finite UI or UX is not that important anymore. You literally need fewer designers; you need fewer engineers to create that experience.”

It’s clear, then, that Nothing is turning the industry-wide pivot towards AI to its advantage. The company is using smaller teams and cheaper chipsets to bring a new type of smartphone experience to users, and it’s confident that the Phone 3 will live up to its flagship billing.

The Nothing Phone 3 is available to pre-order now from Nothing directly, starting at $799 / £799 / AU$1,509. We’re currently putting the new device through its paces, so stay tuned for our full review in the coming weeks.

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The recent hype around low-key AI companions like the Rabbit R1, screen time apps like One Sec, and pop culture warning signs like Netflix’s Adolescence prove that we, as a society, fully recognize the dangers of excessive smartphone use. But are we really ready to leave our pocket computers at the door?

The answer, for most of us, is still ‘no’, yet this tension between person and product is something that big-name smartphone brands are beginning to recognize and respond to.

Nothing, for its part, knows that you want to spend less time on your phone, so how can it convince you to buy its “first true flagship,” the Nothing Phone 3? After getting hands-on with the new device at its London-based launch event, I spoke with Nothing’s AI lead, Sélim Benayat, who explained how the Phone 3 will help you “regain focus” and “be more human.”

“As for why we’re calling Phone 3 a ‘flagship’, I think it has a lot to do with it being a representation of everything we believe in as a company: clarity, calmness – this more human experience,” Sélim says. “And the feature that speaks most to [those values] is the new Glyph Matrix on the back.”

“This is a feature that, quite literally, [forces you] to put the phone face down onto a table to experience it. That helps you, as a human, gain more control again, right? You're not constantly looking at your screen. You're not constantly getting the notifications. It puts you more in the present moment.”

A reimagining of the Glyph Interface from previous Nothing phones, Glyph Matrix is a small dot-matrix display that sits in the top-right corner of the Phone 3’s rear panel. It’s capable of displaying several different types of content – from person-specific notifications to monochromatic ‘Glyph Toys’ (read: party games) like Spin the Bottle.

“Then, when you look at the more software-driven innovation,” Sélim continues, “the Phone 3 has Essential Search, which helps you get to whatever’s important to you quicker, with more intention, which obviously helps you regain focus.

“And there’s also Essential Space [introduced on the Phone 3a Pro], which for us is a big one, because it helps you remember what matters to you – again, so you can be present in a conversation with your friends, or get back into the flow [of whatever you were doing].”

In other words, Nothing is actively focusing on delivering features that limit the amount of time its users spend on its phones. Is this a strange situation to be in as a developer? I put the question to Sélim.

“I think it's really [about] reimagining what the interface [of a smartphone] should look like,” he explains. “At Nothing, our philosophy is to, yes, on the one side, make tech fun again and inspire that innate creativity that we all have. But on the other side, I think we're also keenly aware that our relationship with phones has grown unhealthy.

“Your phone doesn't help you be more human. It's not a ‘bicycle for the mind’ anymore, right? There's almost a slight resentment [towards our phones]. And so we believe that if you create an experience where people feel more themselves, it's actually healthy, and people like it. Hopefully, that will drive higher retention as well.”

It remains to be seen whether the Phone 3’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, triple-lens 50MP camera setup, and 5,150mAh silicon-carbon battery will tempt buyers to fork out for its $799 / £799 / AU$1,509 price tag. But it’s certainly refreshing to hear a brand talk about smartphones in such wellbeing-conscious terms.

The Nothing Phone 3 is available to pre-order now from Nothing directly, with open sales set to begin globally on July 15. We’re currently putting the new device through its paces, so stay tuned for our full review in the coming weeks.

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Are modern smartphone designs boring? We polled 1,500 readers for their thoughts on that very question earlier this year, and a whopping 78% of respondents answered in the affirmative.

The smartphone industry was once awash with weird and wonderful devices (remember the LG Wing?), but these days, manufacturers are – quite literally – much more straight-edged in their approach to design.

The exception to the rule is Nothing, which has stuck by its mission to “make tech fun again” since being founded by former OnePlus chief Carl Pei in 2021. Nothing phones are designed to stand out from the crowd, and the company’s latest handset, the long-awaited Nothing Phone 3, fulfils that brief and then some.

Nothing’s “first true flagship” is a truly weird-looking thing. Imagine if a kindergartner took an old-school sliding block puzzle game, dipped it in PVA glue, and accessorized it with three black shirt buttons. That’s the Nothing Phone 3. It’s an outlandish creation with specs to rival some of the best phones – and I think it could be the most interesting flagship launch of the year.

So, what’s new versus the well-received (but decidedly un-flagship) Nothing Phone 2? For starters, linear Glyph lights are out, and a new Glyph Matrix interface is in.

This interactive screen sits in the top-right corner of the Phone 3’s 6.67-inch rear panel and is capable of displaying several different types of content – from person-specific notifications to ‘Glyph Toys’ (read: party games) like Spin the Bottle and Rock, Paper, Scissors. Heck, Glyph Matrix can even double as a pixelated viewfinder for selfies, which is a nice retro touch for those who miss the Game Boy Camera.

As for other big design changes, the Phone 3 still has that classic modular Nothing look. But its camera lenses sit independently of a physical module, rather than being positioned in a circular or pill-shaped casing, as on the Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro, respectively.

I can see this new lens arrangement being the most controversial aspect of the Phone 3’s design, but I’m personally a big fan of the abstract, asymmetrical vibe it brings to the device as a whole. Previous Nothing phones looked unique, sure, but not to this extent.

Speaking of cameras, there’s a brand new one. The Phone 3 gets a 50-megapixel main lens, a 50MP ultra-wide lens, and an all-new 50MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. Of course, we can’t yet say how good these cameras are without having tested them properly (stay tuned for our full review), but on paper, at least, they’re flagship-level snappers.

You’ll also get a 50MP selfie camera on the front, which marks a step up from the 32MP equivalent on the Nothing Phone 2. Oh, and the little red dot on the back of the Phone 3? That’ll light up when you’re recording with any one of its three rear cameras.

Under the hood, the Phone 3 is powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset. I’ve already written about why I don’t think the lack of a Snapdragon 8 Elite is a big deal in a separate piece, but we won’t know for sure until we’ve benchmarked the Phone 3 against similarly priced rivals.

Nothing, for its part, is confident in the performance credentials of its “first true flagship,” and having had a quick play with the Phone 3 at its London launch event, I’m convinced that the 8s Gen 4 will be speedy enough to support the software demands of Nothing OS 3.5 (and, eventually, Nothing OS 4.0).

The Phone 3’s chipset is paired with a 5,150mAh silicon-carbon battery, which is a technology you still won’t find in many of the best Android phones. You’ll get 65W fast charging, too – another notable upgrade over the Phone 2’s 45W charging speed cap.

Other features of Nothing’s newest flagship include an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, Corning Gorilla Glass protection, and a new Essential Search function to go alongside the physical Essential Key, which was introduced on the Phone 3a Pro.

Again, I only handled the phone for a few minutes at Nothing’s launch event, so I haven’t yet taken these new tools for a proper spin. But the bottom line is this: the Phone 3 is unlike any other device on the market right now, and I sincerely hope that its performance lives up to Nothing’s “flagship” billing. If the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 can compete with Google’s Tensor G5, at the very least, then the Phone 3 could well be the most interesting phone of the year.

The device starts at $799 / £799 / AU$1,509 for the model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, with that price rising to $899 / £899 / AU$1,689 for 16GB and 512GB, respectively. Those figures put the Phone 3 in league with the iPhone 16, Samsung Galaxy S25, and Google Pixel 9, so stay tuned for our verdict on whether Nothing’s latest phone can compete with such big-name rivals.

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• More Nothing Headphone 1 details emerge
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We know that a new Nothing Headphone 1 audio product is on the way, because Nothing has told us so, but as yet we don't have too much official information about these over-ear headphones – though a fresh leak may have just plugged that particular knowledge gap.

According to tipster Yogesh Brar and Android Headlines, the Nothing Headphone 1 (yes, headphone in the singular) is going to weigh in at 329 grams. That compares to 254 grams for the Sony WH-1000XM6, and 385 grams for the Apple AirPods Max.

The headphones are tipped to come with 40 mm dynamic drivers, manufactured in partnership with high-end British audio company KEF (a detail previously teased by Nothing itself). Adaptive bass enhancement and spatial audio are apparently included.

These leaked details suggest the Nothing Headphone 1 will come with adaptive noise cancelling (ANC) technology, challenging our best noise cancelling headphones list with up to 42 dB in volume and with a 2000 Hz frequency range.

Battery boost

There are also a lot of battery details here. The headphones are said to pack a battery with a 1,040 mAh capacity – that's difficult to compare with other products, because most devices in this category list battery life rather than battery capacity.

Using the AAC codec, the Nothing Headphone 1 will apparently be good for 80 hours of playback with ANC off, and 35 hours with ANC on, both of which are impressive figures compared to the competition. We'll have to see if they hold up in testing.

A 5-minute charge is going to be enough for 5 hours of playback with ANC off and 2.4 hours of playback with ANC on, according to the leak – so even if you can only charge them for a little while before you head out, they should last.

All of which makes us more excited to actually see and try out these headphones. They're set to launch alongside the Nothing Phone 3, and Nothing has already told us that the big unveiling is going to be happening on July 1.

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The Nothing Phone 3 is booked in for its grand unveiling sometime next month, and if you're interested in spoilers for what it's going to look like, a bunch of new, unofficial renders have now made their way online.

These pictures come from Android Headlines and tipster @MysteryLupin, and the design is certainly... unconventional. The back casing is covered with squares, and looks like a classic sliding block puzzle game, or like a phone made in partnership with Lego.

It's also reminding me of the Project Ara prototype that Google developed during the 2010s, a modular phone that sadly never made it to production. The look here is all aesthetic though – you can't actually move parts in or out.

There's a little Glyph Matrix window up in the top-right corner on the back, as teased by Nothing itself. It looks like this could be used for some custom stylings, or perhaps to display unread notification counts or something along those lines.

Splitting opinion

The reactions I've seen on social media range from very positive to very negative, so however you feel about this design, you're not alone. Personally, I like it – though admittedly it takes some getting used to.

It's rare these days for a smartphone design to be in any way surprising or interesting, so whatever your opinion, you have to give Nothing some credit for that. It also looks as though some of those stylings on the back might be functional buttons.

Aside from the outside appearance, we're also expecting some changes in terms of Nothing's software too, which will once again be based on Android. Earlier leaks suggest the phone is going to go big on AI this year.

Nothing has said the phone is launching in July, and unconfirmed leaks suggest Tuesday, July 1 as the big day – so there's not long to wait at all. No doubt we can expect a few more official teases and unofficial rumors between now and Tuesday.

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The extended wait for the Nothing Phone 3 will be over sometime in July, when the handset gets its official unveiling, but ahead of time we've got a batch of leaked specs telling us what to expect from the upcoming device.

According to tipster @gadget_bits (via Notebookcheck), the Nothing Phone 3 is going to come with a 6.7-inch, 1.5k resolution OLED display, matching the Nothing Phone 2, and a 5,150 mAh capacity battery – up from 4,700 mAh.

Wired charging speeds are said to be getting a bump from 45W to 100W. A launch date of July 1 is also listed, which matches what Nothing has previously said about a July launch window. That would be a week on Tuesday from today, so if that is accurate, Nothing should make the date official soon.

The phone is apparently going to have a 50MP front-facing camera, and a triple-lens 50MP + 50MP + 50MP camera around the back, with 3x optical zoom via a periscope lens, and an ultrawide lens included in the mix. The Nothing Phone 2, by comparison, has a 32MP selfie camera and a dual-lens 50MP + 50MP camera on the back.

Price and software

We get a few more bits from the same leak, which are all pretty much as you would expect, including support for NFC and eSIMs. The phone is tipped to come with Nothing OS 3.5 based on Android 15 out of the box.

Nothing has already confirmed that the upcoming Phone 3 is going to be powered by a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, so it's no surprise that this is mentioned in the leak too. It's not the best mobile Snapdragon CPU around right now, but it's well up there.

The rest of the specs match the processor in being very good, if not best in class. It's going to be interesting to see how the Nothing Phone 3 is priced: the rumors are that it could start at $799 in the US, which would make it pricier than its predecessor, which launched in 2023 for $599 / £579 / AU$1,049.

We know that Nothing skipped a year between launches because it wanted to make sure the on-board software and AI was exactly right, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens in this department too. We've previously heard that there are going to be some "breakthrough innovations" in terms of the user interface.

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It’s official: the Nothing Phone 3 will use the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset.

Nothing CEO Carl Pei revealed the spec detail in an interview uploaded to the company’s YouTube channel, confirming that Nothing’s “first true flagship” phone will be “36% faster on CPU, 88% stronger on GPU, and 60% stronger on the NPU” than the Nothing Phone 2.

Big numbers! Except the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1-equipped Nothing Phone 2 is almost two years old, and by Nothing’s own admission, it’s not a true flagship, so you’d expect the Phone 3 to deliver a serious jump in performance. The even bigger elephant in the room is that Nothing’s “first true flagship” won’t be using the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which by all accounts is currently the fastest gun in the West. Is this a terrible revelation? I’m not so sure.

Look, it’s true that many of the best Android phones use Qualcomm’s latest top-end chipest, and it’s also true that, in not using the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the Nothing Phone 3 will likely lag behind the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and OnePlus 13 in benchmark tests and push-your-phone-to-the-limits use cases.

If you’re someone who likes to max out every setting in Call of Duty: Mobile or record lengthy videos in 8K, the Nothing Phone 3 won’t be for you. But Nothing is not, and never will be, a brand for these types of power users.

Carl Pei founded Nothing in 2020 with a mission to “make tech cool again,” and that ethos has been evident in every Nothing phone released thus far (we described the company’s most recent effort, the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, as “the most interesting phone you can buy for less than $500 / £500 / AU$850” in our review).

Nothing’s next challenge is to make a “cool” phone that isn’t noticeably slower or buggier than the best phones on the market. And any device that fits that remit can, I think, accurately be described as “a true flagship”.

By using the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, the Nothing Phone 3 will feel like a flagship in comparison to Nothing phones of old, but I’m 99% sure it’ll feel like a flagship in relation to the best iPhones, Samsung phones, and Pixel phones, too.

As I wrote in a similarly minded piece last year, in my opinion, we’ve reached a saturation point when it comes to the speed of flagship phones. Not necessarily in their capacity to complete complex tasks, mind, but in the way these phones feel when you’re swiping through them on a daily basis.

If the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset can deliver a smooth experience while you’re scrolling, streaming, swiping, gaming, taking photos, or doing any of the other things one does with their phone in 2025, I think it’s a perfectly acceptable chipset choice for a flagship handset aimed at those who value aesthetics over raw, unmitigated power.

Consider Google’s latest flagship phone, the Pixel 9 Pro.

By all accounts, its Tensor G4 chipset is weaker than the competition, yet the Pixel 9 Pro sits pretty as the ‘best Android’ option in our list of the best phones and also scooped our Phone of the Year award in 2024. Sure, those titles were awarded subjectively, but no one bats an eyelid when Google’s bona fide flagship ships without the latest and greatest in mobile silicon.

The price argument is a little harder to rebuff. Rumors put the Nothing Phone 3’s price tag at around $799 / £799 / AU$1,300, which would bring the phone in line with the Snapdragon 8 Elite-equipped Samsung Galaxy S25.

Naturally, Nothing’s upcoming handset won’t be able to compete with Samsung’s latest base model for raw power, but with Carl Pei promising "premium materials and software that really levels things up,” I’m confident that the Phone 3 will deliver on the CEO’s “true flagship” promise.

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• The Nothing Phone 3 will apparently start at $799
• It's said to come with a choice of 12GB or 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage
• Colors might be limited to black and white

We already had a good idea of what the Nothing Phone 3 would cost, as the company had previously revealed that it would be priced at roughly £800, but now we might know the exact price – at least in the US.

According to leaker @MysteryLupin, the Nothing Phone 3 will start at $799, for which you’ll get a model with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM.

That could mean the UK price of around £800 will end up being exactly £799, or it could be something like £779, following on from the Nothing Phone 2, which launched at $599 / $579. The Australian price is harder to predict, but for what it’s worth, $799 converts to AU$1,237.

A premium price for the top model

In any case, the price apparently rises to $899 for a model with 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM. In the UK, that would probably mean adding between £80 and £100 to the price, while in Australia the price rise might be more in the region of AU$150, but we’re just guessing there.

These prices would put the Nothing Phone 3 in line with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S25 and iPhone 16, and would make it far more expensive than previous models.

As well as all that, the same source also claims that the Nothing Phone 3 will come in a choice of white and black shades, which coupled with the recent revelation that the Glyph interface the company’s phones are known for seemingly won’t be present, suggests this could have a quite smart and understated design.

Of course, this being a leak we’d take it with a pinch of salt. We’ll know the official price, colors, and specs soon though, as the Nothing Phone 3 is landing in July.

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• Nothing has teased its Phone 3 flagship
• The traditional glyphs are apparently going away
• A July launch is expected

We've been told that the Nothing Phone 3 is landing in July, but we don't know much more about it than that – except for a couple of intriguing new teasers that have just been posted to the Nothing social media feed on X (formerly Twitter).

First up, we have the declaration that "it's all in the details", accompanied by a close-up of what seems to be a detail on the back of the handset. It doesn't reveal much, but it fits in with the quirky Nothing approach to smartphone aesthetics.

Speaking of aesthetics, the second teaser says the Nothing Phone 3 is going to do away with the light-up glyphs that have traditionally been on the rear of Nothing phones. If you're unsure what we're talking about, check out our Nothing Phone 2 review.

Those glyphs have been a signature part of Nothing phones since the beginning, right up to this year's Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro – but it seems Nothing is going for a more subdued and minimal look with its next flagship phone.

Next in line

The Nothing Phone 2 launched all the way back in 2023, and Nothing CEO Carl Pei told us that there was no 2024 launch for the Nothing Phone 3 because the company wanted to get the on-board software and AI integrations right.

We're assuming that's now been achieved, because Nothing itself has said the handset will launch in July. No doubt, there are more official teasers and unofficial rumors about the phone to come between now and then.

At the start of the year, a leaked memo suggested the Nothing Phone 3 would go all in on AI – just like every other phone this year, seemingly – and it sounds like it's going to be a well-specced flagship phone ready to claim a spot on our best phones list.

We were largely impressed with the mid-range Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro handsets that launched in March, but it's been a while since we had a fully fledged flagship from Nothing – so expectations are high.

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• Nothing has confirmed that the Nothing Phone 3 will land in July
• The company's teaser doesn't reveal much else
• Previous teasers and leaks point to this being a true flagship

We knew the Nothing Phone 3 was coming sometime this ‘summer’, but now the makers have got a bit more specific, saying that the phone will land in July.

This was revealed in a teaser on Nothing’s X account, which… doesn’t tell us much else. Below text with the July launch window the number ‘3’ simply flashes on the screen several times, followed by text saying “it’s a magic number”.

That ‘3’ is created from a series of white blocks that are reminiscent of the glyph lighting system on the back of Nothing’s phones, so that will probably be making a return here, but that was always expected.

A top-end chipset and a reworked camera

Still, while this teaser doesn’t tell us much else, previous teasers and leaks do give us some idea of what to expect.

Nothing itself has previously said that the Nothing Phone 3 will be the company’s “first true flagship”, and that it will have a price to match, coming in at around £800 (roughly $1,060 / AU$1,640). That price will apparently be justified through “premium materials, major performance upgrades, and software that really levels things up.”

Beyond that, a recent rumor pointed to the Nothing Phone 3 having a “flagship Snapdragon chipset”, which might mean the Snapdragon 8 Elite, also found in the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.

The same tip also pointed to a significantly reworked triple-lens camera, complete with a larger primary sensor than the Nothing Phone 2 and a periscope telephoto lens, suggesting this phone could offer long-distance optical zoom.

The battery could be in for a boost too, with this said to possibly exceed 5,000mAh – up from 4,700mAh in the Nothing Phone 2.

So, the Nothing Phone 3 could be quite an exciting handset, and if you’ve liked the look of Nothing’s phones but wanted something higher end, this could finally be the device for you. We’ll find out in July.

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• A new Nothing Phone 3 leak has emerged
• It points to a well-specced flagship phone
• The handset could launch in July

We're expecting the Nothing Phone 3 to break cover sometime in the next couple of months, and now some major specs have just leaked, giving us a better idea of what to expect from the handset's chipset, camera setup, and battery.

According to Smartprix, the phone is going to come with a "flagship Snapdragon chipset" from Qualcomm, though it doesn't say which specific chipset. It could be the Snapdragon 8 Elite, or the more recently announced Snapdragon 8s Gen 4.

As for the camera system, it sounds like we're getting a "significantly reworked camera system" with a triple-lens module around the back of the phone. It'll have a "large primary sensor" and a periscope telephoto lens that's potentially even bigger.

Lastly, the battery capacity will "possibly" exceed the 5,000 mAh mark according to Smartprix's sources. The Nothing Phone 2, which made its debut back in July 2023, came with a 4,700 mAh-capacity battery packed inside.

A "premium" handset

Only a few days ago, we got an official video from Nothing CEO Carl Pei, telling us that the upcoming flagship phone would have "premium materials, major performance upgrades, and software that really levels things up".

Remember that the phone was delayed from 2024 so that Nothing could get the software right. We're expecting a lot of AI assistance to be involved, and it looks set to rival offerings such as Galaxy AI and Apple Intelligence from its competitors.

We haven't heard too much in the way of leaks, rumors, or official announcements around the Nothing Phone 3 yet, other than it's on the way. Given the specs mentioned in this leak, it looks likely to be one of the best Android phones of the year.

Nothing has already launched two phones this year of course, the Nothing Phone 3a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro mid-rangers. As soon as the next handset from the company is made official, we'll let you know.

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• The Nothing Phone 3 will have "premium materials" and "major performance upgrades"
• It's said to be the company's first true flagship phone
• However, it will also cost a lot more than previous models

Nothing has so far found smartphone success with eye-catching but affordable handsets that target the low-end and mid-range markets, but with the Nothing Phone 3, the company is taking a gamble on something more premium.

In a video shown during the latest Android Show, Nothing’s CEO Carl Pei revealed that the Nothing Phone 3 is coming this summer (likely meaning sometime between June and August), and that it will have “premium materials, major performance upgrades, and software that really levels things up.”

These will apparently combine to make this Nothing’s “first true flagship smartphone”. That all sounds promising, but unsurprisingly it'll come at a cost, with Pei adding that the Nothing Phone 3 will cost around £800.

A flagship phone with flagship competition

Converted, that’s roughly $1,060 / AU$1,640, but price conversions are rarely accurate. Given that the Nothing Phone 2 launched for $599 / £579 / AU$1,049, we’d think the US price of the Nothing Phone 3 would be similar to the UK price – so probably $800 or just over. In Australia, it’s harder to predict, but maybe around AU$1,350.

That would put the Nothing Phone 3 in a similar price bracket to the Samsung Galaxy S25, the iPhone 16, and the Google Pixel 9, so it would have far more high-profile competition than previous Nothing handsets.

It'll be interesting, then, to see whether the Nothing Phone 3 will offer enough to justify that price, and whether buyers will give it a chance over bigger names. We should find out soon, but in the meantime – or if you’re not in the market for a premium phone – there’s always the more mid-range Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro.

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CMF Phone 2 Pro: Two-minute review

With the CMF Phone 2 Pro, Nothing has delivered a truly remarkable bargain phone, treating you, the user with endearing respect, rather than sticking you with a watered-down version of the device you really want.

This phone has one of the most distinct and recognizable designs I’ve seen, but that design is also practical and extensible. I can’t imagine buying a CMF Phone 2 Pro without thinking of all the accessories I might make for it.

For less than $300 / £300 / AU$525 you can have a phone that isn’t just good, but special. The modular design, though a bit less adaptable than the first-generation CMF Phone, means you can make this phone your own in ways that Samsung Galaxy and iPhone owners can only dream of doing.

Even if you don’t want to create your own cases or accessories, the CMF Phone 2 Pro is still one of the best smartphones you can buy at this price. Its performance is solid – better than other bargain competitors, at least – and battery life is excellent.

It may not be quite as durable as a Samsung Galaxy A26 or Motorola Moto G Power 2025, but it’s more resilient than I expected. It has an IP54 rating against rain and splashing water, and Nothing also says the phone will survive in 25cm of water for 20 minutes, so you don't have to panic if it gets wet.

The CMF Phone 2 Pro certainly gives you one of the most distinctive versions of Android that you’ll find on a phone today, using the NothingOS interface as found on the Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro. NothingOS is all about a minimalist, almost monochromatic aesthetic, so you get black-and-white icons on the home screen with no labels, and a set of matching widgets to complete the look.

Of course there are some AI features as well, and I honestly ignored them because they revolve around taking screenshots. I’m just not a screenshot type of user, but Nothing isn’t alone in this – the latest Google Pixel 9 also relies on screenshot-based AI tools. You can also use Google Gemini, but don’t expect the robust set of AI features that you might find on more expensive Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones.

With such a low price tag there are bound to be compromises. The cameras are not good, even compared to those on the cheapest Pixel, the Pixel 9a, although that phone costs almost twice as much as the CMF Phone 2 Pro. Performance also lags, and I experienced stuttering in the interface, and occasional delays as the system worked to catch up with whatever task I wanted to perform.

I used the CMF Phone 2 Pro as my primary phone for work, and I really enjoyed it. I like the style of NothingOS; it’s refreshing, with fewer distractions than my Galaxy phone. I committed to using the bright orange lanyard screwed into the back of the phone for my entire review period, and I now understand the appeal of being able to sling the phone over my shoulder and having it readily at hand.

The worst thing about the CMF Phone 2 Pro is how hard it might be to buy one – and then to buy all the accessories you want. In the US, you can only get the model with 256GB of storage as part of Nothing’s so-called 'Beta' program. I used the Phone 2 Pro on AT&T near New York City, and after an initial warning message from AT&T that my phone wouldn’t work properly, it worked just fine.

The phone is easier to buy in the UK, Australia, and the rest of the world, with an even cheaper 128GB version available. Still, comparable phones from Samsung and Motorola are available at your local carrier store, and you can surely get one for free if you sign a contract. The CMF Phone 2 Pro may be cheap, but you probably won’t find one for free.

Only a few accessories will be available for US buyers, and those won’t include the back cover that lets you use attachable macro and fisheye camera lenses, or the magnetic wallet stand. I’m not a fan of snap-on lenses for smartphones, so that’s no big loss, but I wish more of the unique accessories were available here. Since they’re not, I’ll just have to head to my library’s 3D printer and make my own.

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Price and availability

• $279 / £249 / AU$509 for 256GB and 8GB of RAM
• £219 / AU$449 for a 128GB model, not available in the US

The CMF Phone 2 Pro by Nothing is available directly from Nothing in two storage options: 128GB and 256GB. The smaller-capacity model is not being sold in the US, however, and neither is the light green color – the color of my review sample – but you can still get the phone in white, black, or a very bright orange.

The Light Green is available in the UK, but not Australia, and all the other colors are available globally. That’s too bad, I like this light green very much, and it looks cool with the bright orange lanyard attached.

Don’t get too attached to the lanyard if you're in the US, though, because the accessories are only available in the UK and Europe, and Nothing says quantities may be limited.

The 128GB model has an incredibly low price for a phone this good, and if you use cloud storage services there isn’t a pressing need to buy the larger capacity.

Even so, the 256GB model is also an incredible bargain. For around the same price – $300 / £299 / AU$499 – you'll get a Samsung Galaxy A26 or Motorola Moto G Power with 128GB of storage. Both of those phones are a bit more durable, though, with true IP67 and IP68 ratings for water resistance, respectively. Otherwise, there are no significant benefits in terms of specs and hardware, and the CMF Phone 2 Pro has a slight edge in performance.

• Value score: 5/5

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Specs

The CMF Phone 2 Pro has a MediaTek 7300 Pro 5G chipset inside, which is a bit faster than the Exynos 1380 you’ll find in a Galaxy A26 or the MediaTek 6300 in the Moto G Power 2025. The phone ships with 8GB of RAM, which is adequate for a bargain phone, and there's a microSD card slot behind the SIM tray if you need more storage space.

The camera specs are impressive for a phone in this price range, even if, as mentioned, the images aren’t noteworthy. The main camera uses a 0.63-inch sensor, which is much larger than the sensors you’ll find in competing Samsung and Motorola phones. There's a real 2x optical zoom, in addition to a third lens for ultra-wide shots and macro photos.

As with most phones at this price there’s no wireless charging, but you do get slightly faster charging speeds if you buy a 33W charger.

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Design

• Exposed screws and removable bits
• More durable than before, even water resistant

The CMF Phone 2 Pro design is a whole choice. Like its big-sibling Nothing Phones, the CMF Phone stands out; it looks, er, nothing like other phones you’ve seen. The back of the phone is punctuated by exposed screws, a removable circular plate, and cameras that look like internal components laid bare.

I like it. It doesn’t feel haphazard – it’s clear that there's thought and design behind the asymmetry. You can't remove the whole back cover of the CMF Phone 2 Pro, as you could with the original CMF Phone, but there is still the small circular screw that you can remove to screw in accessories like the lanyard (or just the lanyard holder, which can also be a loop for dangling charms).

The CMF Phone 2 Pro only comes with an IP54 rating, which means it's protected against dust, but when it comes to water it can only handle rain or splashing, not a full dunk.

However, Nothing has tested the phone itself, and claims it can be submerged in 25cm of water for 20 minutes – so I wouldn’t wash this phone in the sink, but I also wouldn’t worry if you drop it into the toilet by accident.

That’s a huge improvement over last year’s CMF Phone, likely thanks to that new back panel that doesn’t come off as easily. Still, the Samsung Galaxy A26 is IP67 rated for longer dips underwater, and the Moto G Power 2025 is fully military MIL-STD 810H rated, so it can take a serious beating.

My phone came in a lovely light green color that is becoming popular this year – the Galaxy S25 Ultra is available in the same hue as a Samsung online-exclusive color. Unfortunately, you can’t buy this color in the US; you can only get the black, white, or orange versions. I haven’t seen the orange in person, but if it’s as bright as the matching lanyard I got, be aware that it could stop traffic.

• Design score: 4/5

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Display

• Brighter than competitors at this price
• Colorful and durable with Panda Glass

The CMF Phone 2 Pro has a very nice display for a phone at this price. It was brighter and more colorful in our labs tests than the Samsung Galaxy A26, a solid win for Nothing since Samsung is usually known for its superlative displays.

Does it get to 3,000 nits at peak brightness? Not that we could see, but it was bright enough in my review time for me to take photos in outdoor light, and to use the phone in a variety of lighting conditions. My content always looked great on the display, whether I was watching movies or perusing my photo albums.

This is one area where spending more will get you better technology, however. The Pixel 9a costs a bit more, but it has a much brighter display that's easier to see in bright, outdoor light. Even paying just a bit more for the Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro will get you brighter displays than what you'll see on the CMF Phone.

If I were going to pay to upgrade any feature, it would be this, because more expensive phones have displays that are brighter and easier to use in bright sunlight. I’d also like a stronger glass panel, though the CMF Phone 2 Pro is no slouch here.

The CMF Phone 2 Pro has a screen that's durable and should stand up to mild abuse. The phone uses Panda Glass from Chinese glass maker Tengshu, and it offers many of the same physical qualities as Corning’s Gorilla Glass. I didn’t see any scuffs or scratches after an intense week using the phone as my primary device.

• Display score: 3/5

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Software

• NothingOS on top of Android 15 for a signature style
• For folks who want fewer distractions, not more features

If you want a smartphone with helpful display-edge software panels, tons of features, and customizations galore, buy a Samsung with One UI. If you want to minimize distractions with a signature look and feel that's different from any other smartphone, you should check out NothingOS on the CMF Phone 2 Pro (and other Nothing phones).

That doesn’t mean Nothing gives you nothing on top of Android 15. In fact, Nothing offers a plethora of cool widgets to enhance your home screen, all in Nothing’s signature monochromatic style.

At startup, you can choose between a Nothing interface and a standard Android home screen. Go with Nothing and you’ll see fewer colors, fewer labels on app icons and settings, and presumably fewer distractions. I actually like the NothingOS design, especially with its home screen widgets and monochromatic wallpapers, so I stuck with it for my review period.

There is some AI on board, but frankly I never used it. Just like with the latest Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro, you get a so-called Essentials key, which is a glorified screenshot button. Press the button to take a screenshot that saves to Nothing’s Essential Space. Hold the button to take a screenshot and add a voice memo.

Essential Space is an AI tool that scans whatever you save so it can offer answers later. Unfortunately, I don’t screenshot very much. I don’t save every bit of useful information as a screenshot. I don’t screenshot my emails, text messages, or calendar invitations, since those already live in their own app.

So I didn’t get much value out of Essential Space. If you screenshot everything, or if you’re willing to change your behavior, you may find this more useful. I, on the other hand, did not feel the CMF Phone 2 Pro was missing anything when I skipped these AI features.

• Software score: 3/5

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Cameras

• Lots of megapixels and big sensors don’t equal great photos
• If photos matter, you’ll need to spend more (or get a camera)

The CMF Phone 2 Pro's cameras offer plentiful examples of pretty much every way smartphone cameras can go wrong. There’s a lack of detail in most shots, and evidence of strong digital sharpening that makes photos look more like still frames from a low-quality video camera. Backgrounds are frequently over-sharpened, leaving dark edges around objects. In even my most simple shots it can be so hard to tell what I was photographing.

Don’t take photos of anything red, because the cheap sensors on this phone can’t handle the hue, and flowers become a garbled mess, even in bright, outdoor light that should have made for the best results. I was equally unimpressed with the zoom lens, which took photos of birds that were so muddy I couldn’t tell if the water fowl were covered in feathers or plastic.

The wide-angle lens produces a lot of barrel distortion, so buildings will look rounded and weird. I saw plenty of chromatic aberration along high-contrast edges, and the camera falls apart when asked to shoot in low-light near darkness.

It’s hard to find a good camera on a phone this cheap, but the Samsung Galaxy A26 will certainly produce better results in most situations. If photos truly matter, though, you’ll need to step up at least to a Pixel 9a, or perhaps look for a cheap digital camera to carry alongside your phone. I carried an older point-and-shoot camera during my review time, and I barely thought about the CMF Phone 2 Pro for my photography needs.

• Camera score: 2/5

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Camera samples

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Performance

• Budget-level performance means delays
• Still very usable, and lags weren't noticeable in lighter usage

The CMF Phone 2 Pro uses a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G chipset, which is a slight step up from the Dimensity 7300 5G in last year’s CMF Phone. In Future Labs tests, the CMF Phone 2 Pro edged out the competition, including Samsung Exynos 1380-equipped Galaxy A26 and Motorola’s Dimensity 6300-driven Moto G Power 2025. In pure benchmark terms, this phone performs about as well as the Galaxy A36, a more expensive phone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 inside.

In the real world, performance could be very laggy as I navigated the interface and performed advanced tasks. If I tried to select more than a dozen or so apps to download all at once, the phone came to a halt and stopped registering my taps. When I tried to add six-dozen photos to a single photo album, the phone flatly refused to move so many images at once. I got an error message that I could never defeat.

For most of my daily tasks, however, I didn’t notice any slowdown. Network speeds were fine on AT&T’s network near New York City, and web pages loaded slowly but steadily. All of my messages came through, and I was able to hold video chat meetings.

This isn’t a powerhouse phone, but it gets the job done, even for professional work. The phone handled TechRadar's AirTable content management system with no trouble, and it loaded up the over-complicated AirTable app to show me behind-the-scenes planning.

Any step up in price will get you a phone with more power, but I would pay more for better cameras and a better display before I worried about much faster CPU performance. As long as you’re not a hardcore gamer you might just need a little more patience, so maybe just stare at the cool design while you wait for your phone to catch up.

• Performance score: 2/5

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Battery

• Excellent battery life, among top performers overall
• Charging could be faster; no charger included

The CMF Phone 2 Pro delivered excellent battery life, both in the real world and in our Future Labs testing. During my review time the phone always lasted through a full day of use, although it probably helped that I didn’t play many games and didn’t use the cameras very much. In any case, I could forget to charge this phone overnight and still have enough juice to get me through to lunchtime the next day.

In our Future Labs battery rundown test the CMF Phone 2 Pro was a top performer, managing to last just over 16 hours. In the same test, the Samsung Galaxy A26 lated around 10 hours, and the Pixel 9a and iPhone 16e (the cheapest iPhone right now) both lasted just over 12 hours.

Much of this longevity is down to how you’ll use the phone. With a slower processor on board, you’ll use less battery power; the Moto G Power 2025 is even slower, and that phone lasted slightly longer in our lab tests. You also won’t use the cameras on the CMF Phone 2 Pro as often as you might with one of the best camera phones.

That said, bargain phones offer great battery life, just like cheaper cars usually get better gas mileage. It’s a benefit of saving money, and I’m happy to take it.

For juicing up, the CMF Phone 2 Pro can charge up to 33W, but there’s no charger in the box (except in India). There's also no wireless charging, but that feature is a rarity at this price point.

• Battery score: 3/5

Should you buy the CMF Phone 2 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

CMF Phone 2 Pro review: Also consider

How I tested the CMF Phone 2 Pro

I used the CMF Phone 2 Pro for almost two weeks. I tested the phone on AT&T’s network in the greater New York area, throughout the city and suburbs. I used the CMF Phone 2 Pro as my primary work phone with all of my work accounts and apps, and as my personal phone for photos and gaming.

I tested the CMF Phone 2 Pro with a Pixel Watch 3 and CMF Buds Plus. I connected the phone to my car and tested Android Auto. I connected an Xbox wireless controller for gaming, and connected to a Bluetooth speaker for audio.

I tested the CMF Phone 2 Pro camera against the Nothing Phone 3a, among numerous other phones, in Future Labs.

Future Labs tests phones using a mix of third-party benchmark software and proprietary, real-world tests. We use Geekbench, CrossMark, JetStream, WebXPRT and Mobile XPRT, and 3DMark for performance testing. We test a phone's performance on tasks using Adobe Premiere Rush. We also measure display color output and brightness.

For battery testing, we have proprietary rundown tests that are the same for every phone, and which measure how long it takes for the battery to run down.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed April 2025

• Nothing has announced its new CMF Phone Pro 2
• It launches May 6 and starts at $279 / £219 (around AU$460)
• Nothing also gave us new CMF Buds 2, Buds 2 Plus, and Buds 2a

Following its teaser earlier this month, Nothing has revealed its CMF Phone 2 Pro and new CMF Buds 2 (alongside Buds 2 Plus and Buds 2a), and this new smartphone has the potential to land instantly on our best cheap phones guide.

Why? Well, the Phone 2 Pro's base model (8GB RAM / 128GB storage) costs just £219 (it’s not available in the US beta program), and the upgraded option comes in at just $279 / £249 (around AU$520) for 8GB RAM / 256GB storage, so it certainly ticks the ‘affordable’ box.

At the same time, it boasts some surprisingly impressive-sounding specs. We’re talking a four-camera setup including a 50MP main sensor on the back and 16MP selfie camera, and improved processor over the CMF Phone 1, which is 10% faster and offers a 5% graphics improvement. There's also a battery that Nothing says can deliver close to two full days of use on a single charge.

More specifically, that battery will apparently last for “47 hours of voice calls, 22 hours of YouTube or 10 hours of Battlegrounds Mobile India gaming.”

Admittedly, the Phone 2 Pro has a few weaknesses, which explain the lower price tag. Its ultra-wide camera is a mere 8MP, and the processor’s max clock speeds are slower than you’d find on an iPhone 16 or Samsung Galaxy S25 (though they are on par with other budget options).

It also only has an IP54 durability rating rather than the IP68 rating most other phones offer, meaning it isn't as dust or water resistant as its rivals (likely owing to its customizable design).

Obviously, we’ll need to test it out fully before passing final judgement, but with such a low price of entry it won’t take much for the CMF Phone Pro 2 to win us round. If you’re keen to pick it up ASAP, preorders are live already – with the new phone officially launching on May 6.

Affordable audio incoming too

If you’re not in the market for a budget phone, Nothing also just announced three pairs of CMF buds for those who need some affordable audio options.

The standard model is the new CMF Buds 2. They’ll cost $59 / £39 (about AU$80) and boast spatial audio, 48dB hybrid active noise cancellation, and enhanced audio tuning from Dirac which Nothing says should help them deliver a “clearer, more dynamic sound”.

Want to spend a little less? The CMF Buds 2a cost just $49 / £29 (around AU$60) and come with an entry-level performance – with less powerful ANC. Meanwhile, if you have a slightly bigger budget you can splash out on the $69 / £49 (about AU$100) CMF Buds 2 Plus which are outfitted with “Hi-Res LDAC, hearing compensation and full EQ customization” for what Nothing declares a “next-level audio experience.”

We’ll need to test these earbuds out for ourselves to understand what they're capable of, but our three-and-a-half-star CMF By Nothing Buds review was generally positive – calling the earbuds “stylish” and “temptingly inexpensive.”

That said, we did find their “middling” audio performance and ANC left something to be desired.

Hopefully, these new models come with some necessary upgrades, but you might want to hold off until reviews are published to know if these buds are worth your time, rather than getting in on the already open pre-orders ahead of their May 6 release.

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I’ve come around on Nothing. Since its first device in 2022, the smartphone startup has provided an interesting but limited range of phones, mimicking the Google Pixel catalog in its small but mighty lineup. Nothing’s handsets are led by a strong commitment to aesthetics, both inside and out – and for a long time I thought it was extra and a bit cringe. That’s all changed with the brand’s latest release. I’ve come to love the Nothing Phone 3a Pro – and consider it a proper Pixel A rival.

Let me set the scene for why the 3a Pro impresses me so much. For the past four years, Google has dominated the affordable-premium segment of the phone market. The company’s Pixel A range of devices, released typically around five to six months after its Pixel flagships, have long been considered so good that they've been worth placing alongside the top end Pixel Pro device. In 2024, with the Pixel 8a, the phone entered the premium segment after a price rise in some territories, though in others it’s still considered a mid-ranger.

This price increase diminished the Pixel A series’ value, and helped the Samsung Galaxy A55 (and this year's Galaxy A56) take the crown for best mid-ranger. Today in the affordable-premium segment, where handsets like the iPhone 16e and Samsung Galaxy S24 FE reside, the Google Pixel 9a is one of the less expensive picks – though it’s now seeing serious competition from smaller phone makers, with Nothing a great example.

Compared to the Google Pixel 9a, Nothing has two aces up its sleeve. The first is its focus on customization, and even though its phones lean more on blacks, whites and dot-based designs in widgets and menus, you’re able to unleash a fair amount of creativity when it comes to the lock and home screens.

Nothing’s cooked up the first phone to successfully pull me away from the Google Pixel A – and for the exact same reasons that I loved Google’s affordable-premium phones to begin with. Both manufacturers provide a comfortable off-ramp for Apple users looking to try something familiar (but ultimately not an iPhone) without an eye-watering price tag. Nothing’s real edge is its unique aesthetic and, despite offering lower performance than other affordable-premium phones when put through raw benchmarks, adequate day-to-day power that never left me wanting.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro feels like a pleasantly deviated interpretation of the ‘Apple but on an Android’ aspiration. The operating system is sleek, with a monotone-focused aesthetic that’s both recognizable and pleasant, while cutting down on bloatware.

On top of this, Nothing has an ace up its sleeve – the 3a Pro isn’t your only option, and if you don’t mind trimming down on some camera capabilities and processing power, the standard 3a is also a worthwhile pick. We’ve previously compared the Nothing Phone 3a Pro to the standard Phone 3a, and found them far more similar than different.

The Google Pixel 9a remains a great phone and I’ve enjoyed using it so far (and I’ll be writing an article on my experiences soon), but I’m left just so impressed with what Nothing has done here.

Beating Google at its own game

Customization has been a bit of a focus for phone companies as of late. Samsung and Apple both introduced sweeping aesthetic overhauls with their recent operating system versions, which I reflected on in my iPhone 16e and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra articles, and there’s more to it than just throwing on a fresh coat of paint – it’s about empowering the user to put their own spin on their device. Google understood this well when it introduced Material You back in 2021 as part of the Android 12 platform, and for this focus the Pixel range became the aesthetic heartthrob of the industry.

Nothing has obviously built upon Material You as it offers Android phones, but it’s done so with an uncompromising aesthetic. Apple and Google offer fairly neutral colours that could be appreciated by a wide audience, but Nothing wants you to commit to the monotone bit. You don’t have to – you can color the OS anyway you want – but this phone looks so damn gorgeous when you’re sticking to the blacks and whites.

The startup also offers some decent levels of customization that put it well ahead of many contemporaries, including a focus on icon packs (or Material You coloring), lock screen editing (with tons of room for widgets) and even the ability to toggle Google’s search bar on or off.

Nothing’s widgets are the most impressive part of this; they’re broadly interactive and there are many shipped with the base OS, including a compass, a step tracker and a ‘News Reporter’ that uses a choppy, AI-generated voice of Nothing’s CFO Tim Holbrow to read the latest news stories to you. (I personally think this is a crass implementation of AI that degrades the value of narrators and reporters alike, but maybe that’s just me.) My personal favorite is the in-built media player widget, which feels leaps ahead of any similar widget offered on a Samsung or Google device.

Moreover, similar to Google’s own handsets, there’s a pleasant lack of bloatware, with only Google apps and a small slew of Nothing’s own apps preinstalled.

Adding to this, Nothing’s assuming you’ll start to treat your phone a little differently than usual: there’s an extra button on the side of the phone that’s used for taking voice memos.

Hold the button and you’ll start recording – good for putting down reminders on the fly, which you can then access by double pressing the button, which launches the dedicated Essential Space app. To make navigation to your reminder easier, a screenshot is taken at the moment you begin recording, which is then used as the icon for your memo.

It’s a handy feature that I love the idea of, but I’d honestly prefer the ability to change that button to trigger another app – similar to the Action Button found on newer iPhones. Technically you can do this with a third party app like Key Mapper, but it’s such an obvious feature that it’s perplexing it’s not officially supported.

Nevertheless, it’s here, and whether or not you use it is down to your personal preferences.

Hardware where it matters (and some where it doesn’t)

The Nothing 3a Pro has a great hardware offering that puts it in decent competition with other phones in its segment. Though its screen is lower resolution than many rivals, and it scores lower on benchmark tests, its display is noticeably bigger than most rivals and it has a brilliant camera array that I’ve come to love.

Originally I went into this article expecting the Phone 3a Pro to blow the Pixel 9a out of the water in terms of processing power, but no, the Pixel 9a remains competitively robust at the lower-end of the affordable-premium price range. Google’s been improving its Tensor chip year-on-year, though it’s still a long way before it stands shoulder to shoulder with Samsung and Apple.

The Phone 3a Pro really isn’t a phone for any intensive use – such as gaming, as indicated by the GPU-intensive 3D Mark test results. Despite this, Nothing has made meaningful strides in physical areas. The large screen speaks for itself – I barely notice the resolution difference, but I sure appreciate having more screen space. The UI is, as already discussed, very flexible, and despite lower benchmark scores and less impressive specs, this never translated to hangups in day-to-day use or unimpressive battery life.

I also appreciate the photos the Nothing Phone 3a Pro is able to capture. Close-up shots lack much of the macro detail that Google has gotten extremely good at snapping, but apart from that, these photos look brilliant, though with a bit more color injected into them than with a Pixel phone.

Here are some comparison photos from the Google Pixel 9a:

I’m very impressed that Nothing has offered such a powerful array of cameras at this price point. This is normally Google’s bread and butter and while the Pixel range continues to lead on close-up detail, it’s cool to see Nothing pull off some great results.

It’s not all rosey, though. Those impressive cameras are in large part thanks to a gigantic camera housing, which protrudes far and wide out of the back of the phone. I recommend purchasing a case to help minimize the bulge.

Additionally, and how could I forget, the Phone 3a Pro comes with Nothing’s signature Glyph system – a set of lights across the back that flash to note a text coming through, an alarm going off, or flash when music plays. It’s a cool but limited feature, and although it’s one of Nothing’s drawcards (and the lights can be useful when holding the phone up to dimly lit spaces, like when I’m looking at the insides of my computer), I just can’t get too excited about it. I honestly find it a little pointless. Sorry!

So should I buy the Nothing Phone 3a Pro?

Nothing’s cooking here – the Phone 3a Pro is now my preferred affordable-premium smartphone, a category I denote as a cut below flagship handsets and sporting the same name with an affordability indicator (e, a, FE, etc). I recommend it to anybody considering the Pixel 9a, the iPhone 16e or the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE.

That being said, these are all really good phones and each device has advantages in areas where others are lacking. I personally think that the unique styling of the Nothing 3a Pro should be enough to draw you in, but it lacks the comfortable neutrality of Apple’s iOS or Google’s own version of Android.

It’s certainly worth considering if you want to detox from the big three, and if you can nab it on sale, it’s all the better. (I’ve already spotted it on sale in Australia but I can’t speak for other markets).

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• We can expect the Nothing Phone 3 in Q3
• July seems a good bet based on previous launches
• We already have the Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro

We've been waiting a while for the Nothing Phone 3 – you may remember its launch was pushed back last year because Nothing wanted more time to work on its software and AI – but we now know it will definitely be arriving this year.

After opening up an 'ask me anything' session on X, Nothing CEO Carl Pei said that the Nothing Phone 3 would be launching in "Q3", the third quarter of this year. That puts the launch window as July, August, or September.

We didn't get any more details than that, unfortunately, so it remains to be seen exactly when the next flagship phone from Nothing will make an appearance. The Nothing Phone 2 was launched in July of 2023, which may give us a clue.

Back in November of last year we heard a tip that Nothing would launch three phones by the middle of this year, which means around June and July time – and the Nothing Phone 3a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro were both unveiled in March 2025.

The story so far

If Nothing had stuck to a regular schedule, we would've seen the Nothing Phone 3 in July 2024. However, in June 2024, Pei announced that the handset's launched would be pushed back to this year, stressing the need to "get the product right".

Pei went on to say that "integrating hardware and AI in a way that is both useful and brings a smile to people's faces" was the aim with the next Nothing flagship phone, so we can expect to see a bundle of artificial intelligence features included.

As our Nothing Phone 3a Pro review will tell you, there's already plenty of AI on board the current Nothing handsets – but these features, including the Essential Space 'second memory', could still use some work. Improvements may arrive with the Nothing Phone 3.

From the leaks we've come across so far, it sounds as though the Nothing Phone 3 is going to be a significant upgrade on its predecessor, and quite possibly one of the phones of the year. In a few months time, we should know for sure.

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• Nothing just teased gadgets in its CMF sub-brand
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Nothing announced it will soon reveal the CMF Phone 2 Pro alongside the new CMF Buds 2, Buds 2a, and Buds 2 Plus. However, it leaves us more confused than ever about its other release plans and with one big question: where's the new watch?

In an email we received and in a post on social media, Nothing revealed that on April 28, 2025, at 9 am ET / 2 pm BST / 11 pm AEST, it’ll showcase the four devices under its CMF brand.

CMF gadgets – which stands for Color, Material, and Finish – are usually more budget-friendly by skimping on some high-end specs without compromising Nothing’s design standards.

What makes this reveal kinda weird is Nothing yet again has skipped the base model – just like it recently did by releasing the Phone 3a and 3a Pro before even announcing the regular Phone 3. In this instance, the CMF Phone 2 Pro is coming out before the CMF Phone 2 got a regular model, and before the CMF Phone 1 could get a Pro.

It also didn’t tease a new CMF Watch. The CMF Watch Pro 2 was showcased alongside its phone and earbuds last year, and while it wasn’t the perfect smart watch, it was an excellent budget pick. We’re disappointed it doesn't look to be getting a follow-up for now.

CMF Phone 2 Pro camera upgrade incoming?

Enough focusing on the tech we didn’t see, however. Let’s focus on the announcements we did get.

Beyond the names, there’s not a lot to go on, but we think Nothing has at least teased a camera upgrade for its upcoming CMF Phone 2 Pro.

That’s based on a section of the short video clip it shared with the announcement. In it, four circles appear – two identical gray ones stacked above each other – and to the left of them, a smaller gray one above an even smaller orange dot.

This looks a lot like the classic three-camera array you’ll find on the back of any self-respecting Pro-tier smartphone – usually a main, ultra-wide, and Telephoto lens setup.

The rest of the clip just simply spells out ‘Phone’ in dots before flashing ‘Phone 2 Pro’ onscreen, followed by the April 27, 2025, reveal date, and finally showing 'CMF by Nothing'. So we don’t get any more tech teases, but we expect Nothing will provide a few more teases in the run-up to the announcement.

An announcement that isn’t too far away. So we won’t be left in the dark about the latest Nothing release for much longer – and as soon as it showcases the new tech, you can be sure we’ll be ready to tell you all about it.

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The Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro are both eye-catching mid-range phones that boast unique LED lights and surprisingly similar specs.

Generally, ‘Pro’ models of phones have numerous upgrades compared to their standard siblings, but in the case of the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, there’s really only one aspect – other than the price – that’s substantially different.

Below, we compare the Nothing Phone 3a against the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, looking at key features like their screens, battery life, performance, and more. You'll find our full verdict on the latter phone in our Nothing 3a Pro review, but we haven't yet reviewed the former, which is worth bearing in mind as you read.

Nothing Phone 3a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: specs comparison

We’ll look closer at the specs and features of each phone below, but first, here’s how their key specifications compare at a glance.

Nothing Phone 3a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: price and availability

The Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro were both announced on March 4, 2025, and they’re both out now.

The Nothing Phone 3a starts at £329 / AU$599, for which you get a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (though this model doesn’t appear to be available in the US at the time of writing). There’s also a version with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $379 / £379 / AU$689.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro, meanwhile, is available in a single 12GB / 256GB configuration, and this costs $459 / £449 / AU$849.

So, the starting price of the Nothing Phone 3a is $80 / £120 / AU$250 less, and the price for the 3a in the same configuration as the Pro is $80 / £70 / AU$160 less – with the same US difference in both cases, as there’s currently only one configuration of each phone in the US.

Nothing Phone 3a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: design and display

There’s not much difference between the design of these two phones. They both have dimensions of 163.5 x 77.5 x 8.4mm, they both have LED light strips on the back, and they have a similarly patterned rear. They also both have an IP64 rating, meaning they’re dust-tight and can survive splashes.

But they differ in a few ways. The most immediately obvious difference is how the cameras look, with a horizontal camera bar on the Nothing Phone 3a and a more unusual arrangement in circular housing on the 3a Pro, as you can see in the above images.

Their colors also differ a bit, with the Nothing Phone 3a being available in Black, White, and Blue shades, while the Nothing Phone 3a Pro can be purchased in Black or Gray.

Finally, the Nothing Phone 3a is slightly lighter, at 201g, compared to the 211g Nothing Phone 3a Pro.

There’s even less difference when it comes to their screens – in fact, there’s none at all, with both phones using a 6.77-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a resolution of 1080 x 2392, and a peak brightness of 3,000 nits.

At the time of writing, we haven’t yet reviewed the Nothing Phone 3a, but in our Nothing Phone 3a Pro review, we described the screen as “a very nice display with a smooth refresh rate and a bright peak.”

Nothing Phone 3a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: cameras

Here’s where we come to the main difference between these two phones, because while they both have a 50MP f/1.9 main camera with optical image stabilization (OIS) and an 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera with a 120-degree field of view, their telephoto cameras differ.

The Nothing Phone 3a has a 50MP f/2.0 one with 2x optical zoom, and Nothing claims it’s also capable of 4x lossless zoom by cropping into the image, and up to 30x digital zoom.

That’s not bad for a mid-range phone, but the Nothing Phone 3a Pro has it beat with a 50MP f/2.55 periscope camera offering 3x optical zoom, 6x lossless zoom, and up to 60x digital zoom.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro also has a higher-spec 50MP f/2.2 selfie camera, compared to the Nothing Phone 3a’s 32MP f/2.2 one. And while both phones can record 4K video with their main cameras, the Nothing Phone 3a Pro can also manage 4K video with the front-facing camera, while the standard 3a tops out at 1080p.

We haven’t put the Nothing Phone 3a’s cameras to the test yet, but of the 3a Pro, we said in our review: "it has much better camera capabilities than you’d expect from a phone this cheap.”

Nothing Phone 3a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: performance and software

The Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro both use the same chipset, namely a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 5G. This is a mid-range chipset with clock speeds of up to 2.5GHz.

They both also top out at 12GB of RAM, but there’s also an 8GB model of the standard Nothing Phone 3a.

Sadly, performance – at least from the Nothing Phone 3a Pro – leaves a lot to be desired in our tests, with our review finding that “performance was very laggy, with stuttering and stalling in the interface and as I used apps.”

We haven’t fully tested the base model yet, but we’d be surprised if it’s any better here, since the specs are the same (or even worse if you pick the 8GB model).

For software, both phones run Android 15 and come with the promise of three years of Android version updates. They run a heavily customized version of Android, though, called Nothing OS 3.1, and its mostly monochrome appearance is certainly distinctive. Whether it’s to your taste will be subjective, but you’re getting the same software experience on both phones.

Nothing Phone 3a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: battery

There’s no on-paper difference in battery life between these two phones, either, with both the Nothing Phone 3a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro having 5,000mAh batteries, which in both cases support 50W wired charging, and don’t have any wireless charging capabilities.

While the absence of wireless charging might be disappointing, that’s not unusual in mid-range phones, and in our Nothing Phone 3a Pro review, we were very impressed with the real-world endurance and charging speeds of the phone, describing its battery life as “excellent.”

Given how similar the specs are, we’d think the standard Nothing Phone 3a will offer comparable performance, but keep an eye out for our full review to find out for sure.

Nothing Phone 3a vs Nothing Phone 3a Pro: verdict

Really, if you’re choosing between the Nothing Phone 3a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, then it comes down to the cameras. If you want longer distance telephoto capabilities and a slightly improved selfie camera experience, then the Nothing Phone 3a Pro could be worth considering. Otherwise, you’ll likely be just as happy with the standard Nothing Phone 3a – at least going by the specs.

There are other small differences – the 3a weighs less and comes in a different selection of colors. It also looks slightly different from the back. But these factors are unlikely to sway many people.

What might be more consequential for some people is the fact that the Nothing Phone 3a can be bought for a fair bit less than the 3a Pro, so you should really consider how much the 3a Pro’s higher-end snapper system matters to you.

And if you’re still unsure which to buy, be sure to give our full Nothing Phone 3a Pro review a read – and look out for our upcoming review of the Nothing Phone 3a.

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Nothing Phone 3a Pro: Two-minute review

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro (officially Nothing Phone (3a) Pro but I’m not typing that many parentheses) is the most interesting phone you can buy for less than $500 / £500 / AU$850, and if you’ve been craving something different than the cheerful bubblegum styling of cheap Android phones, you should consider the Nothing Phone 3a Pro no matter your price range.

For a full $140 / £150 / AU$150 less than the cheapest iPhone, the iPhone 16e, you can get the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, which has a larger screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a bigger battery and faster charging, plus more storage and more RAM.

You also get a camera with 3x optical zoom, a feature unheard of at this price range. Most cheap phones give you wide, ultra-wide, and macro cameras, not a real zoom lens.

And all of that comes before I get to the Nothing Phone 3a Pro’s unique design (unique except for the nearly-identical Nothing Phone 3a), which takes a stripped-down approach so far that you can literally see into the back of the phone as if you have x-ray vision.

This see-through look a signature of Nothing Phone devices, along with the cool Glyph LED lights, though the Nothing Phone 3a Pro looks a bit more restrained and polished than previous models. It looks more like a circuitry subway map than an accidental phone autopsy.

The Nothing Phone LED lights are here, in a simple ring rather than an enigmatic ‘Glyph’ arrangement like I saw on the first two Nothing Phone devices. The Glyph system is more than just decorative, it’s actually quite functional and a bit nostalgic.

I remember when the LED lights were a key selling point for cell phones and I’d spend time customizing my friends’ light cues along with their designated ringtone. Nothing Phone 3a Pro let me do that again, assigning light patterns to my friends and family. I even had fun banging out my own patterns on the glyph-maker software.

I give Nothing a lot of credit – there are few phones with a feature like the glyph that is this fun. Most phones are just a slab of glass with cameras on the back. Samsung might give you a pen, but you pay a lot for it. With the Nothing Phone 3a Pro (and Nothing Phone 3a), you get the unique glyph feature that's entertaining on its own and adds unique flair to your calls and alerts.

That said, this is still a decidedly bargain phone, with a less-powerful chipset inside and limited support for US networks. I saw plenty of lag and stuttering performance on this phone, more than I’ve see on slightly more expensive and powerful phones like the OnePlus 12R or even the Google Pixel 8a.

I had no problem using my Nothing Phone 3a Pro on AT&T’s network in the New York area. Nothing says some users might have to call AT&T or Verizon to have their phone’s IMEI (a network identifier) whitelisted, or approved, by the carrier. T-Mobile fans should have no problem at all.

Performance issues aside, it’s almost sad that Nothing hasn’t created an even more premium device above the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, because it’s clear that plenty of work went into the interface and design, and phone fans who normally shun cheap phones might enjoy the minimalist and unique NothingOS. Don't knock it until you've seen it.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro feels special. This isn’t a pared back phone like the Galaxy A56, which is like a Diet Galaxy S25. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro improves on previous Nothing Phones with a more durable design, a better display, versatile cameras, and faster performance all around. This is the best Nothing Phone ever, and this is one bargain phone you shouldn’t ignore.

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: price and availability

• $459 / £449 / AU$849 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage
• Available in the US through Nothing Beta program

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro will be available worldwide in one configuration for $459 / £449 / AU$849. You can choose a white or shiny grey exterior and get 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage inside. That’s a respectable amount of storage and RAM for the price – much more than the 8GB/128GB you'll get on the Samsung Galaxy A56.

While not quite this cheap, for a bit more you can buy the Google Pixel 8a or OnePlus 12R. Both of those phones get discounted frequently to match the Nothing Phone 3a Pro’s price, but those phones were both new in 2024. Samsung’s new Galaxy A56 will cost about the same as the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, but that phone won’t hit the US until much later this year.

Most of the world can simply order the Nothing Phone 3a Pro through Nothing.tech or a retail partner, but in the US there are a couple of hoops to jump through. Nothing saves money by cheaping out on radio bands, so the Nothing Phone 3a Pro doesn’t support every single band on the three major US carriers.

If you use T-Mobile in the US, you’re in luck with the most supported bands, but AT&T support lags a bit, and Verizon users will be missing enough bands that it might make sense to look elsewhere if you need the best cell service possible.

For this reason, Nothing sells the Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro in the US under a ‘Beta’ program so that users will be aware of what they are missing. I used the Nothing Phone 3a Pro in the New York area on AT&T. I got a text message from AT&T right away that my phone wasn’t supported. I ignored the message and used the phone normally for the rest of the week and I had no noticeable issues. Network speeds were good.

• Value score: 5/5

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: specs

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, which is a fairly new platform from Qualcomm, so it can support all of the latest software as well as upcoming AI features, should Nothing decide to add more machine learning.

The most outstanding spec is the 3x optical zoom camera, which is unique in this price range. Nothing uses periscopic lens technology, like you’ll find on the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 5X zoom lens, to add reach.

Otherwise, the large display is noteworthy for its high refresh rate and brightness, both of which top Apple’s latest supposed-bargain iPhone 16e. Across the board, you won’t find much better specs on a smartphone without spending hundreds more, and Nothing also gives you the unique Glyph lights around back.

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: design

• Totally unique transparent design with LED Glyph lights
• A bit thick and heavy, but not too much

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro stands out, even in the muted grey and white color options available. At first glance, friends who saw the transparent back, with its roadmap of flat ribbon cables and antenna lines, asked what was going on with my phone.

Folks who caught a glimpse when the Glyph lights flared always wanted to know what phone I was using.

The design is decidedly tech-forward, and the Glyph light patterns, with their matching sound cues, and the minimalist NothingOS interface only reinforce this feeling. Most phones try to disappear behind the display and the content, but the Nothing Phone 3a Pro begs to be seen from every angle. I was looking for opportunities to place this phone face down so I could watch it ring.

The design is so unusual that you won’t notice it feels a bit cheap. The seams are not as perfectly aligned as the edges on a Galaxy S25 or iPhone 16. The phone is thick – at 8.4mm, it’s thicker than an iPhone 16e or Galaxy A56.

The transparent back is glass: a Chinese knock-off of Gorilla Glass called ‘Panda Glass’ instead of plastic like previous Nothing Phone devices. The camera bump is huge and unapologetic, with textured lines that draw a circle around the frame. The Glyph lights ring the cameras, and can also act like a ring light when you’re shooting.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro features a new Essential Key, which is a button that will take a screenshot or record a voice memo. It won’t just store these entries, it feeds them into an Essential Space app that analyzes your notes with AI to give you summaries and answers. In practice… it needs work. I hope the Essential Key gets repurposed in a future NothingOS update so that it can do a bit more.

• Design score: 3/5

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: display

• Big, bright display with a fast refresh rate
• Not as bright in our tests as Nothing claims

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro features a huge, 6.77-inch AMOLED display that can refresh at a variable rate up to 120Hz. It looked bright, colorful, and smooth in my time reviewing the Phone 3a Pro. There was some stuttering, but I suspect the slower chipset was to blame, as the display could handle whatever video content or fast-scrolling lists I threw its way.

I wonder if this display is overkill for Nothing Phone 3a Pro. NothingOS is nearly monochromatic, and in fact there is a monochrome mode if you want to eliminate all colorful distraction from your phone. Maybe Nothing should have developed a unique display to play into those strengths, instead of competing on color and brightness with Samsung and Google.

Nothing claims the Nothing Phone 3a Pro can hit 3,000 nits at peak brightness, but in our Future Labs tests we couldn’t manage half that brightness level. We still saw peak brightness well over 1,000 nits, which is great, but not what Nothing claims.

• Display score: 3/5

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: software

• NothingOS offers a unique look and plenty of widgets
• Nothing Phone 3a Pro gets 3 years more Android, 6 years more security

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro uses NothingOS on top of Android 15, and NothingOS could really be considered a Theme and Widget combo pack. It doesn’t add a whole lot of useful features to Android, but instead it succeeds by taking away distractions.

By distractions, I mean color and shapes. The look of NothingOS can best be described as a monochrome, low-resolution, dot matrix theme. There's an actual monochrome mode you can enable, but the basic NothingOS theme is mostly black and white, with graphics that reduce iconography, like clouds and the sun in the weather app, to a series of large dots.

It kind of works, if you like this style. Nothing even includes an AI wallpaper generator, a feature very en vogue with the smartphone elite, though in this case the choices are much more limited than you’ll find on a Galaxy or Pixel phone.

On my Galaxy I might create a ‘lamp of flowers in pink and purple,’ with thousands of possible combinations of nouns and colors. On my Nothing Phone 3a Pro I can choose ‘flora’ and ‘iridescent’, and up to 30 total combos. What you get ends up looking like a wallpaper that Nothing might have included with its phone anyway.

If you press the new Essential Key twice, you open a new Essential Space app, where you can find the screenshots that you took and the voice memos you saved. Only the screenshots that you capture using the Essential Key end up here. If you press the power button and volume down, you get a screenshot in your Gallery, but not in the Essential Space. Weird.

Honestly, I didn’t have any use for the Essential Key or Essential Space during my time with the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, and I didn’t feel I was missing anything except a better use for the new button. I rarely take screenshots or record voice memos, and I’m not going to change my behavior for this phone, so if you’re like me, you won’t see the benefit. Hopefully Nothing will add more to make this useful for more people.

• Software score: 3/5

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: cameras

• Good cameras (but not as good as Nothing's bragging)
• A 3x optical zoom lens is unique at this price

The people have spoken, and people say they want three cameras, so most cheap Android phones come with three cameras, but none of them give you optical zoom like the Nothing Phone 3a Pro. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro has a clever, versatile array of cameras, making it a solid pick if you need a real zoom lens.

Most phones at this price give you a fine wide-angle camera, a mediocre ultra-wide, and a terrible, low resolution macro camera. The Galaxy A55 and the Motorola Edge 2024 offer that camera setup, for instance. Nothing gives you a lot more camera bang for your buck.

You get a real 3x optical zoom with a periscope lens, which just means it’s more compact than a normal zoom lens. You also get a big 50MP sensor on that zoom lens, in addition to the 50MP main sensor. The ultra-wide sensor is only 8MP, but who cares when you have all that zoom.

The selfie camera is a 50MP sensor as well, which is too much for selfies. I ended up with a file that is six times as large as an iPhone 16 Pro selfie, even though it doesn’t have as much detail or clarity.

The image quality from the Nothing Phone 3a Pro is fine, but not incredible. The Pixel 8a will give you better images in this price range, at least with its main camera, though it only shoots up to 12MP. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro can shoot 50MP images, but you have to dig through settings to make that happen, otherwise you get a standard 12MP file.

It’s clear from the image samples that there is a lot of AI processing going on with the Nothing photos. On the zoom photos, I could get a pretty good shot overall, but if I look closely the image takes on an oil paint quality that makes it clear a computer filled in a lot of gaps and erased all the noise.

Before this phone launched, Nothing teased us by claiming that its new cameras would be as good as an iPhone. It’s not even close, but the Nothing Phone 3a Pro is not a bad camera. It takes much better photos than any Motorola phone I’ve used, and it has more versatility than comparable Samsung Galaxy A-series phones. It’s a solid camera setup for the price.

• Camera score: 4/5

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: camera samples

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: performance

• Performance is good enough to get by
• There are more powerful phones with less style

Nothing took a step up with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip inside both the Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro, but the platform still isn’t quite fast enough to keep up with the demands of Android 15 and NothingOS. I encountered plenty of lag in my time with the phone, often bad enough that the screen would stop responding to taps and then would catch up all at once. It was frustrating, but it didn’t happen too often, not every day.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro isn’t going to be the best phone for hardcore games like Call of Duty Mobile or PUBG, but it will do fine with casual games like Balatro and Marvel Snap. Vampire Survivors choked the phone when the screen filled with enemies, but it recovered quickly enough that I didn’t lose the round.

Frankly, the competition at this price doesn’t offer much better performance – the Pixel 8a isn’t winning any benchmark crowns. If you want a fast phone for less, the OnePlus 12R is your best bet, otherwise you’ll just need to spend more if you want a serious mobile gaming machine.

• Performance score: 2/5

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: battery

• Great battery life and excellent charging speeds
• No wireless charging

Battery life on the Nothing Phone 3a Pro was excellent, and the phone had no trouble lasting me a full day on a single charge with battery to spare. The phone also charges very quickly, though Nothing skimps by not offering any charger in the box, fast or otherwise.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro can charge up to 50 watts, and I tested it with my own variable charger that can charge up to 50W or more. The Phone 3a Pro charged very quickly, and I got to 100% in just over 50 minutes, which is even faster than Nothing claims. That’s faster than the Galaxy S25 and the iPhone 16.

With a 5,000mAh battery inside (and a very dark, black interface), the Nothing Phone 3a Pro conserves power nicely. In our Future Labs tests, the Phone 3a Pro lasted just under 15 and a half hours, almost the same amount of time as the Samsung Galaxy S25. In my real world tests, I had no trouble taking photos and working through a full day on a single charge.

• Battery score: 5/5

Should you buy the Nothing Phone 3a Pro ?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: also consider

How I tested the Nothing Phone 3a Pro

I used the Nothing Phone 3a Pro for a week before this review was published. In that time, I tested the phone extensively, alongside the Nothing Phone 3a, using the same work and personal apps and accounts on each.

I used the Nothing Phone 3a Pro for taking photos, communicating with work colleagues using messages and Slack, and conducting video conference calls. I played games, and edited photos from my Google Photos library.

I connected the Nothing Phone 3a Pro to a Pixel Watch 3 and Nothing Buds. I also connected an Xbox wireless controller to play games. I connected the Phone 3a Pro to my car for multimedia and to other Bluetooth speakers for audio.

I tested the Nothing Phone 3a Pro on my personal AT&T Wireless account in the New York City area, including Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, and New Jersey, with no trouble.

First reviewed March 2025

• A new Nothing phone leak appears in video form
• Both the Nothing Phone 3a and the Phone 3a Pro are shown
• An official unveiling is set for March 4

Nothing has already confirmed that its next smartphones will be unveiled on Tuesday, March 4, but if you can't wait that long, new promo videos showing off the Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro have leaked online.

These videos come from well-known leaker @MysteryLupin, and reveal the standard and the pro models coming our way. As well as a good look at the aesthetics of each handset, there's also some information about the software features on board.

The Nothing Phone 3a video mentions an "advanced new camera system" – comprising a 50MP + 50MP + 8MP triple-lens setup on the back, with 2x optical zoom – and it seems there's going to be plenty here that appeals to serious mobile photographers.

As for the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, the same 50MP + 50MP + 8MP megapixel rating is mentioned for the triple-lens rear camera, but this time there's a periscope zoom lens so the optical zoom capabilities go up to 3x.

Spaces and screens

Away from the camera setup, both phones feature what's called a "second memory", apparently accessed via a new button on the side. It looks like this involves a variety of AI-powered searching, collating, and note taking.

There's a new Essential Space feature showcased in Nothing OS 3, which looks like a notes app and "organizes content and generates action points". Voice notes, to do lists, and more can all be combined in the same interface, it seems like.

The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is mentioned as the processor powering both the Nothing Phone 3a and the Phone 3a Pro, and we know from previous leaks that there's not going to be a huge difference between these handsets when it comes to key specs.

Both phones feature what Nothing calls "our biggest and brightest screen", as per the videos, with a 6.77-inch size, 3000-nit peak brightness, and 120Hz refresh rate. In just a week and a bit, all of these details should be made official.

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• Seemingly leaked renders of the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro show both phones with three cameras
• The addition of a third camera could increase competition with Samsung
• The Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro are expected on March 4

The long-rumored Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro are due to launch on March 4, but thanks to a new leak we may already have a clear idea of what the new phones are going to look like.

Leaked renders shared by Android Headlines have seemingly given us a full view of both models from a variety of angles, with their respective frames and camera systems clearly visible.

The Nothing 3a and 3a Pro were heavily rumored to feature a third camera (in both cases an optically zoomed telephoto lens), and these renders corroborate that prediction, which should have expectant Nothing fans excited.

While the leaked 3a Pro render features a lens cutout in the recognizable elongated shape common to many telephoto lenses, the 3a features three circular lenses. According to Android Headlines, these differing shapes allude to a higher-powered 3x zoom on the 3a Pro (with up to 60x digital zoom), and a lower-powered 2x optical zoom on the 3a (with up to 30x digital zoom).

The report adds that the camera systems are otherwise similar, with a 50MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, and a 50MP telephoto camera across both models.

The phones also apparently differ in their selfie camera resolution, with the Phone 3a sporting a 32MP selfie snapper and the 3a Pro bumping that figure up to 50MP.

These renders give us a good look at some other design elements of the upcoming Nothing phones, too. Specifically, the glyph design returns with three segments (similar to the glyph design on the Phone 2a), while both phones also feature a flat screen with a punch-hole selfie camera, a round camera island on the rear panel, and a ringer switch alongside the standard power and volume buttons.

In any case, the addition of a third camera on Nothing’s mid-range handsets puts the company in direct competition with Samsung, which is the only major phone maker to routinely fit three cameras to its mid-range handsets.

Granted, the third camera fitted to a mid-range Samsung Galaxy smartphone is rarely a telephoto camera – in fact, the only mid-range Galaxy that currently features one is the Galaxy S24 FE, which costs a not-insubstantial $649.99 / £649 / AU$1,099.

The current mid-range offerings from Nothing include the Nothing Phone 2a and 2a Plus. At launch, the Nothing Phone 2a cost $349 / £319 / AU$675, and the Nothing Phone 2a Plus cost $399 / £399 / AU$639.

So, unless the Nothing Phone 3a and Nothing Phone 3a Pro are substantially more expensive than their predecessors, there’s a solid chance they’ll become the cheapest globally available phones with an optical telephoto camera. That’ll give them a decent chance of making it onto our list of the best cheap phones.

What do you think of these leaked renders? Which features do you want to see come to the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro? Let us know in the comments below.

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• The Nothing Phone 3a may come with a camera button
• If implemented, it could become the cheapest shutter button-equipped phone on the market
• Nothing has reiterated an announcement date of March 4

Just last month, I wrote that I wanted to see shutter buttons become standard-issue on smartphones in 2025. Now, it seems that we could be getting the first-ever capture button-equipped budget phone.

Nothing has released a new teaser for its next budget handset, the upcoming Nothing Phone 3a, which strongly hints at the phone getting a new shutter button in the style of the iPhone 16’s Camera Control.

The teaser was shared to X (formerly Twitter) and contains a clear outline of the side of the phone, featuring a new button mounted underneath the power button.

Though Nothing hasn’t confirmed whether this is a shutter button, the post’s caption certainly suggests so; the post reads: “Your second memory, one click away. Power in perspective.” The post then reiterates the phone's previously announced reveal date of March 4.

Second memory? One click? Sounds like photography talk to me. If this does turn out to be a shutter button, the Nothing Phone 3a may launch as the cheapest phone of its kind on the market, as the feature has previously been reserved for specialist or flagship devices.

Currently-available phones that come with a shutter button include the iPhone 16 series, which starts at $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, and regionally available models like the Sony Xperia 1 VI and Oppo Find X8 Pro.

In comparison, the current-generation Nothing Phone 2a starts at $349 / £319 / AU$675. Even the higher-end Nothing Phone 2 costs less than the iPhone 16, at a starting price of $599 / £579 / AU$1,049.

Though pricing has yet to be announced, we expect that the Nothing Phone 3a will be considerably cheaper than the iPhone 16 at launch. As such, it’s unlikely that the shutter button found on the Phone 3a will be as powerful as the iPhone’s Camera Control, which offers control via pressure and touch sensitivity.

We’d realistically expect a shutter button on a $350 phone to do little more than take pictures and video, but that's nothing to complain about at such a cheap price point.

Still, a shutter button on the Nothing Phone 3a would be a welcome reflection of high-end smartphone trends, and if the phone does launch with a camera button, it’ll be getting my vote for a spot on our list of the best cheap phones.

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• Nothing has confirmed that the Phone 3a series will land on March 4
• A specs leak suggests the series will include the 3a and 3a Pro
• We've also seen a hands-on photo of what's reportedly the 3a

After several teasers, Nothing has confirmed that the Nothing Phone 3a series will land on March 4.

Posting on X, the company shared a short video teaser, seemingly showing a phone's camera block. We have a good idea of why that's being shown too, since a previous Nothing teaser hinted that the brand would soon be launching its first-ever phone with a telephoto camera.

This post also mentions that a 'series' of phones is coming, so you can expect at least two – but since this is the 3a series, don't expect the mainline Nothing Phone 3 to make an appearance.

We do, however, have a good idea of what devices to expect in March; according to Android Headlines, we’ll get the Nothing Phone 3a and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro.

Sadly, the Nothing Phone 3a doesn’t sound especially high-end, with leaker @gadget_bits adding that it will apparently have a mid-range Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset, a 6.8-inch Full HD+ AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 5,000mAh battery with 45W charging, a 50MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, a 50MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom, and a 32MP front-facing camera.

Android Headlines additionally states that this phone will come in two configurations – one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and the other with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

We haven’t heard as much about the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, but Android Headlines states that it will only be available in a 12GB / 256GB configuration, and that it will be sold in a choice of black or gray shades, while the standard Nothing Phone 3a will be sold in a choice of black or white.

A hands-on photo of a hidden phone

We’ve also seen a hands-on photo of what’s reportedly the Nothing Phone 3a, courtesy of @saaaanjjjuuu (via GSMArena). It’s hidden away in a case so that leaks like this won’t reveal too much, but you can see that there are three rear cameras, matching the report above.

Possible telephoto camera aside, the specs we’ve heard so far seem reasonable but nothing special. Still, we’re intrigued by how the Nothing Phone 3a Pro might improve on the specs above.

Plus, if anything, this leaves us even more excited for the Nothing Phone 3. After all, if even the Nothing Phone 3a is getting a telephoto camera and generally solid specs, and the 3a Pro is presumably better than that device, the Nothing Phone 3 will likely be better still. So, while it’s a shame that we might be waiting a little longer for mainline Phone 3, it will hopefully be worth the wait.

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• Nothing has released a video pointing to a March 4 launch for the Nothing Phone 3
• The video also hints that this phone might have a telephoto camera
• That's the mark of a high-end handset, and could see it compete with the Galaxy S25

The Nothing Phone line has featured mid-range devices so far, but that could all change this year, with a recent leaked memo suggesting that Nothing was working on a more high-end phone. That memo pointed to a lot of AI skills, but didn’t tell us much else – but now Nothing has teased a major hardware upgrade that we might see in the Phone 3.

In a post on X, Nothing has shared a brief video that simply zooms in on the face of Nothing CEO Carl Pei. He’s working at a computer in the video while wearing sunglasses, and you can clearly see the words “Launch 4 March” reflected in the lens.

This basically confirms that the company’s next phone is being announced on March 4, but based on a previous Nothing Phone 3 teaser we were already fairly confident of that.

A zoom with a view

The more intriguing aspect of this video is the way the camera zooms in, as it looks as though the camera is switching from a wide lens to a telephoto one to achieve the zoom. That’s interesting, because no current Nothing Phone has a telephoto lens.

This isn’t the only hint we’ve had that such a lens could be added, as a previous teaser suggested that the Nothing Phone 3 (or whatever this handset is called) could have a triple-lens camera – and the obvious addition to the wide and ultra-wide lens setup found on the Nothing Phone 2 would be a telephoto camera.

This is very much a flagship feature too, and it’s something that could see the Nothing Phone 3 compete with the Samsung Galaxy S25, which itself has a triple-lens camera with a telephoto lens in the mix. It’s a feature that even the likes of the Google Pixel 9 and the iPhone 16 lack, so in that sense at least, the Nothing Phone 3 could have an edge over those phones.

We say the Nothing Phone 3, but the company hasn’t confirmed which handset it’s hinting at in all these teasers, so it could be something else – including possibly a Nothing Phone 3 Pro, which one source has claimed might be coming.

Not much else is known about this handset yet, but with a March 4 launch planned we should find out everything there is to know soon – and knowing Nothing, the company will probably hint at or reveal some additional specs and features ahead of the launch.

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