Nothing Phone 3 launch date confirmed – and it’s goodbye to this one key feature of Phone 2
Phone 3 is on the way on 1 July for around $1000/£800 - what will Nothing have in store for us?
The Nothing Phone 2 was one of the best mid-range phones of 2023, so a new Nothing phone has been near the top of my personal wish list for a while now. The design-minded disruptor brand already has one of the slickest takes on Android, and stands out from the crowd with unique features like glyph lighting.
Now that Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro are available, all attention has turned to the Nothing Phone 3 due later in 2025 – but it’s going to be missing one key design feature from Phone 2.
My Phone 3a Pro review praised the zoom camera, but highlighted the lack of gains everywhere else compared to the vanilla Phone 3a – which is comfortably one of the best affordable phones around right now. That means the flagship Phone 3 has it all to prove, and will need to be a big step up on specs.
Here’s everything we know about it so far, plus a healthy dose of speculation – and a list of the features I’d like to see make the cut.
Updated 4 June with launch date info
Nothing Phone 3 expected price and confirmed launch date
Nothing CEO Carl Pei first officially confirmed a higher-end Phone 3 was in the works during the launch of Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro in March 2025.
The two mid-rangers were revealed in a live stream that coincided with Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress show. Pei said Phone 3 was “still cooking”, lining up with a leaked internal email from earlier in the year. It said Phone 3 would be the firm’s first flagship phone, and that there would be a big focus on AI, which would come with “breakthrough innovations in user interface”.
In a YouTube video showing off Android 16 ahead of the Google I/O conference, Pei then teased that Phone 3 is arriving this summer. The Nothing India account on X then specified the handset would arrive in July 2025, with the main account following up with its own confirmation.
On 3 June, Nothing itself confirmed that the firm would launch Phone 3 at 1800 BST on 1 July 2025.
A look back at previous Nothing launches shows the firm tends to favour July for its mainline reveals, with the more affordable A-badged devices landing earlier in March. The step-up Phone 2a Plus was an anomaly the firm hasn’t repeated for the successor.
- Nothing Phone 2 – to be revealed on 1 July 2025 at 1800 BST
- Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro – revealed March 2025
- Nothing Phone 2a Plus – revealed July 2024
- Nothing Phone 2a – revealed March 2024
- Nothing Phone 2 – revealed July 2023
- Nothing Phone – revealed July 2022
In the aforementioned YouTube video, Pei said that Phone 3 will retailer for somewhere around $1000/£800. That puts Nothing’s first flagship firmly in line with other base model devices, like the iPhone 16 or Galaxy S25. The phone will be sold in America through more channels than just Nothing’s beta programme, suggesting a much wider rollout than previous efforts.
For reference, the Nothing Phone 2 went on sale at $599/£579/€679. This year’s Phone 3a landed at $379/£329, and the Phone 3a Pro sits in the middle at $459/£449. The closer the firm gets to four figures, the tougher the competition, so I’m not surprised that the Phone will start at $1000/£800.
Hardware and design rumours: it’s goodbye to the quirky Glyph interface
Until recently, the biggest whispers on the tech grapevine were about Phone 3’s internals. According to Smartprix, we can expect a flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, although other leakers have suggested a step-down Snapdragon 8S Gen 3. There’s no word on memory or storage, but 12GB and 256GB seem like a safe bet for the baseline model.
Battery capacity is up in the air too, although we’ve heard whispers that Nothing will go bigger than the 5000mAh cell seen in the Phone 3a Pro. That could suggest it has tapped up the silicon-carbon battery tech used by lots of Chinese phone brands. Whether charging speeds will increase from Phone 3a Pro’s 50W – or if wireless refuelling will make the grade – remains a mystery.
Nothing will need to step up its photography game to make Phone 3 a meaningful upgrade over Phone 3a Pro, which was no slouch with its dedicated zoom lens. The expectation is a large pixel count main sensor, periscope telephoto, and ultrawide trio; larger sensors and more zoom magnification would make a big difference.
The biggest shock change could be on the design front. Nothing announced it had “killed the Glyph interface” on X, seemingly spelling the end for its signature LED notification lights. They were a fan favourite and made the firm’s earlier phones stand out from the crowd, so it’ll be interesting to see what replaces them.
Rumours are currently suggesting some sort of dot matrix display built into the back of the phone, to display icons representing incoming calls and messages, music playback, or alarms. We’ve seen this sort of thing before on Asus’ ROG Phone series, so if Nothing has gone down this route hopefully it has found a way to make the feature its own.
It’ll almost certainly arrive running Android 15 (Google is still beta testing the new version, and will surely save the full release for its own Pixel 10 phones in August), with a new version of the Nothing OS skin on top. Hopefully it’ll make more use of the new Essential Space app added with Phone 3, and bring even more minimal widgets to customise your homescreen with.
What we’d like to see from the Nothing Phone 3
I’m a big fan of Nothing’s phones, having given both the Phone 2 and Phone 3a full five star scores. But the former is now two years old, and the current crop of flagship phones have really moved the game on in terms of camera quality, battery capacity, charging speeds and performance. Here’s what I’d like Nothing to add to its latest offering in order to compete:
Killer camera hardware
Pixel count only has so much bearing on camera image quality; lens aperture, sensor size, and who supplies them, also make a big difference. If Phone 3 does get three rear snappers, I’d like to see them all come from the same source – preferably Sony or Samsung – and the bigger, the better. I’m not expecting a 1in sensor, as that would really bump prices into unfamiliar territory for the firm, but the Sony LYTIA LYT-818 seen on the Vivo X200 Pro would be a superb choice. Would a variable aperture lens be too much to ask, too?
Then Nothing should add a 50MP ultrawide that’s properly ultrawide, so there’s a clear distinction between it and the main lens, and includes autofocus for macro close-ups.
Finally, the telephoto should be a periscope zoom, with at least 50MP and 3x magnification. Cropping the main snapper should easily cover 2x zoom, so the dedicated telephoto should get usefully closer to your subject. It needs to have a larger sensor than the one used on Phone 3a Pro, too, so there’s a meaningful step up in image quality.
Style and substance
Nothing was arguably ahead of the game with Phone 1 and Phone 2, adopting flat frames and screens well ahead of rivals that were still all about curved-edge glass. That style was a lot more common when Phone 2a rolled around, and Phone 3a hasn’t mixed things up at all. The firm will seemingly change things up for its new flagship by ditching the Glyph lighting, so I feel it needs to have something equally eye-catching in order to draw attention away from more established flagship rivals.
Personally I’ll be very sad to see it go, as I loved how unique it looked; putting your phone face down on a table in public was guaranteed to get people talking. Semi-transparent styling alone won’t cut it. I like the rumoured idea of a dot matrix panel, but only if Nothing manages to do something different with it than what Asus has on its ROG phones.
Material gains
If Phone 3 is going to be a true flagship, I think it also needs to feel like one. Nothing’s previous phones were all made to a tighter budget, so used polycarbonate, glass and metal that didn’t hold up to a true flagship phone. That’s not to say any of them felt cheap – just that you could tell you were holding a cut-price device.
Phone 3 will need to feel luxurious in the hand, with a high quality metal frame (I’m betting polished aluminium rather than stainless steel or titanium) and a glass rear. An IP68 rating should be a given. The dream would be to get Gorilla Armor glass up front, for its astounding anti-reflective properties, but Samsung and Corning are seemingly keeping the world’s supply reserved for the S25 Ultra.
Beefy batteries and Qi2
The biggest difference between the Western smartphone establishment (ie Apple, Samsung and Google) and the current crop of flagships from Chinese brands is battery capacity and charging speeds. Oppo, Honor and others have adopted silicon-carbon cells that can hold way more juice than traditional lithium-ion batts can, and I’d love to see Nothing follow suit. It would potentially mean 20% capacity hike over the previous generation, with no weight or size penalty.
The icing on the cake would be Qi2 support, which the Android world has so far failed to get on board with. Magnetic charging to rival Apple’s MagSafe would instantly elevate Phone 3 above rivals in my eyes, and opens the door for all kinds of kooky accessories and cases – something I’m sure Nothing fans will love.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
