Nothing's 'Flagship' Phone (3) Might Be a Major Letdown
Nothing Phone (3) has been leaked and teased, but some major details remain scarce. Now, a new report sheds light on the device's supposed chipset, which appears to be a non-flagship silicon, contrary to what the startup has been hyping.
Nothing made its name on affordable devices with unique designs like the Glyph lighting interface. But with the Phone (3), the company aims to shift from budget to premium, even teasing it as a pricier upgrade to the Phone (2). With that, you might expect the upcoming Phone to go toe-to-toe with the likes of the Galaxy S25 (review) and OnePlus 13 (review).
Apparently, that might not be the outcome, according to a new leak.
- Also read: Nothing Phone (2a) Plus review
Nothing Phone (3) to Settle for a Budget Chipset?
Posted on X, prolific Yogesh Brar has alleged that the Nothing Phone (3) would be equipped with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 SoC instead of the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite found in current standard flagships. This could be a disappointment for those with high hopes of getting the best chipset in their smartphone.
While the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is billed as silicon for budget flagship and gaming smartphones, it omits key features, such as utilizing Cortex cores on the primary CPU instead of the desktop-grade Oryon cores. It also misses 8K video and 4K slow-motion recording capabilities. Furthermore, there's a downgrade in connectivity, such as a lower peak download speed at 4.2 Gbps and a lack of mmWave 5G.
What Flagship Features May Arrive with Phone (3)?
However, the chipset would still offer some flagship experiences, with the chipset shipping with Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, Snapdragon Sound, and XPAN for streaming lossless audio with compatible headphones. It also comes with a notably faster Adreno 825 GPU and Hexagon NPU, a step up from the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.
At the same time, other exciting developments may offset the potential chipset choice, such as the device reportedly abandoning the Glyph interface in favor of a dot-matrix style similar to that of ROG Phones.
Regardless, whether this would be a deal-breaker still depends on how much the Nothing Phone (3) would cost. Based on other reports and as hinted by Carl Pei, the device could be priced around $800 to $1000, which would put it in flagship territory.
Nothing has scheduled the launch of Phone (3) for July 1, so we shouldn't have to wait much longer to confirm these details.
Are you looking to upgrade to the Nothing Phone (3) despite this chipset choice? We want to hear your plans.
Source: X/u/YogeshBrar
