Nothing Phone 3 rumors: Everything we know so far

Nothing, the phone company created by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, could make a real splash among the best Android phones with the Nothing Phone 3.

While the Nothing Phone 1 felt like an underpowered but interesting statement of intent, last year’s Nothing Phone 2 felt like an improvement in every way. And the excellent bang-for-buck performance of the budget-focused Nothing Phone 3a Pro suggests the company is getting stronger with every release.

So what might the Nothing Phone 3 have in store? Here’s what we’ve heard so far — and a few things we’re hoping for.

Nothing Phone 3: Price and release date speculation 

A post on social media from the Nothing CEO, Carl Pei, has stated that the Nothing Phone 3 will be released in quarter three of 2025. That means that we can expect the release between July and September. Not only that, he also confirmed that the phone will be released in the U.S.

The trouble with covering a new brand like Nothing is that there are precious few previous products from which to draw a release pattern. Nonetheless, with both the previous flagship Nothing phones launching in July (2022 and 2023, respectively), it doesn’t feel too out there to predict a July 2024 release date for the Nothing Phone 3.

As for pricing, it seems like Nothing is going to target a higher price point in line with the expectation that the Nothing Phone 3 will be the company's first true flagship.

According to leaker Roland Quandt on Bluesky, the Nothing Phone 3 will launch at $799 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That increases to $899 for the 16GB/512GB configuration. This pricing was shared by a second report on X (via GSMArena) so it seems like a sensible bet.

We've already had U.K. pricing of £800 teased by Pei during Google I/O (below) and given currency fluctuations and tariff concerns, we thought the Nothing Phone 3 could touch down in the U.S. with a price tag around $1,000.

In the U.K., the Nothing Phone 2 launched at £579, with the U.S. pricing at $600 — so this is a considerable step up and puts the Nothing Phone 3 in line with the likes of the Google Pixel 9.

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Nothing Phone 3: Rumored specifications

So far, only one specification rumor has emerged about the Nothing Phone 3 (reportedly codenamed Tetris) — but it’s a pretty exciting one. According to 91mobiles, “industry sources who work closely with Nothing” have claimed that the phone will be powered by the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor.

That ‘s’ is important — this isn’t the processor in the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. It's the lower-cost version which looks set to prioritize generative AI features, high-end gaming and photographic capabilities.

It packs a Cortex-X4 core with a clock speed of 3GHz, backed up by three 2.8GHz performance cores and four 2GHz efficiency cores. It should be somewhere between the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Gen 3, making it a big step up from the 8+ Gen 1 chip that powers the Nothing Phone 2.

In addition to a speed boost, this should hopefully give the Nothing Phone 3 better battery life thanks to efficiency savings, too. However, much of that depends on whether we see any advances on the 4,700mAh cell in the Nothing Phone 2.

Nothing Phone 3: Design

Nothing has built a lot of its reputation on its excellent design aesthetic with the company's famous Glyph interface proving a hit with users. These rear-facing LEDs not only look cool, but they can be used for various functions; like counting down a timer or flashing as a form of notification.

However, it seems likely the Glyph lighting may not be present on the back of the Nothing Phone 3 this year.

Nothing posted a teaser of the phone on X, complete with the caption "We killed the Glyph interface." Pei also responded to the tweet with a simple "RIP," but no further elaboration on what this could potentially mean.

It seems strange that Nothing would kill of an iconic feature just as it tries to mount a challenge in the U.S. to established flagships. This could, or course, be nothing more than a marketing stunt with Nothing replacing the Glyph interface with something similar but with more features offered.

Nothing Phone 3: What we’d like to see

Given rumors are somewhat light on the ground at the moment, the Nothing Phone 3 is a largely blank canvas. We're none the wiser yet on things like camera performance, screen size and resolution or battery capacity.

Here are three things we’d like to see.

Improved cameras

This is the main one. Every Nothing phone released so far has had the same criticism in our ‘Cons’ section: camera performance. This is unsurprising, as the core specs for the rear cameras — two 50MP lenses for wide (f/1.9) and ultrawide (f/2.2) shots — haven’t changed across the three models (even if there was a move to the IMX890 sensor in the 2).

With the next Nothing Phone, we don’t necessarily need more megapixels — the Pixel 8 does just fine with 50MP. But we do want to see improved image quality, particularly in low-light conditions.

Better durability

Nothing’s transparent design is extremely distinctive, but so far durability hasn’t been its strong suit. The Nothing Phone 2 and 2a are both rated IP54 — an improvement on the IP53 of the debut model, but not by much.

What that means in practice is that it promises protection from limited dust or light water sprays. It’s a long way from the IP68 that many flagships offer — water resistant in 1.5 metres of water for up to half an hour and all-round protection from dust. Hopefully Nothing can put that right with the Phone 3.

More from Tom's Guide

• Nothing Ear (stick) review: Stylish half in-ear buds are hard to beat at $99
• Nothing Phone 2a is tougher than you might think
• I’ve been using the Nothing Phone (2) for three months — 3 things I love and 1 I hate