The tiny, interesting dot matrix screen in the company’s most expensive phone

With the third generation of its smartphone series, nothing makes the unusual move first to launch the cheaper “A” line. Now, it’s time for the latest flagship. The Nothing Phone 3 starts at $799 (with a $899 option with 16GB of RAM), which is a competitive slice of the smartphone world with Giants like Google. But there is nothing like that on the market as the company tries to balance unique designs with flagship (and some non-grocery) components.

The big change that happened this time is that there is nothing to replace the flash of its glyph interface with a tiny dot matrix display at the back of the device, but instead it is called the Glyph matrix.

This is the shiny design of Nothing’s Phone 3 Lynchpin. Matrix is ​​made of 489 LEDs and provides more utility than light show. There is nothing to say that this is the evolution of the flashing lights of the glyph interface that turn into something more practical. With this goal, there is a glyph button behind the glass. Another benefit of Adam Bates is the removal of the glyph lights that free up more space in the phone.

Instead of showing when the light is on the back flash when calling some contacts, the new small screen of the phone 3 can display monochrome images. First, these will be preset shapes, but ultimately, you can customize your own animation (or static point matrix image – not clear) for each contact. There was nothing to get people to take pictures and turn them into glyph patterns until they were released, but it was like a very, very small gaming boy camera (but worse). The one I did looks like my head? I guess? At least have contrast and a glimpse of what the user might be showing on the matrix screen

In addition to glyph-style notifications, the matrix can also display simple widgets such as weather and battery levels. It can be a stopwatch or even a low resolution mirror (more on that later). It can also be used as a visual countdown when using a timer with the camera. There will even be game-spinning bottles like rock paper cuts and emergency rooms. Thankfully, nothing hasn’t been tested on assembly media at a large global launch event. You can make your own glyphs with the SDK with nothing. It would be interesting to see how difficult it is to program your own glyph. Do you know what I want? a.

My first impression was that it was more restrictive than the lights on the glyph interface on previous phones. In addition, Dot-Matrix design does coincide with the era of design inspiration that draws nothing. You can gently interact with the matrix via the Glyph button, which builds an interesting build under the back cover of the Nothing Phone 3. It’s a button, so learning the quirks of long and short pressure, especially without a tactile response, takes some time.

On the other eager photographers, YouTubers and media side, I spent too much time getting the mirror working. Strangely, you can’t use it as a selfie guide for the main camera, or at least I didn’t figure out how to do it during the hands-on process.

Elsewhere, the design was inspired by the lines and shapes of the New York City subway map, while the transparent back of the phone 3 has a three-pillar design that divides component curves, camera modules, and glyph matrix.

Mobile Phone 3 has no thinnest phone, which is 18% thinner than Mobile Phone 2. The new Nothing flagship also lacks the Chonky camera unit on the Phone 3A Pro. That’s because, this time, there’s no budget to do this: the Phone 3 costs $350 more, so it can narrow down its footprint using smaller (or even custom) components.

Instead, the three-camera layout reminds me a lot of the latest Galaxy S24 Ultra, with only slightly prominent camera lenses. It’s not flush, but maybe I’m asking for too much – the only modern smartphone with a completely flat camera setup is the Pixel 9a.

Despite its smaller profile, the device still has a periscope zoom on a 50-megapixel sensor. It can reach 3x optical zoom, 6x digital zoom and 60x AI super res Zoom. (Yes, we all blame Google and Samsung for this nonsense.) This will also be used as a macro camera that can be more clear in close-ups.

The main camera is also 50MP, with an f/1.68 aperture (no one says it’s 70% faster than the phone 2), and even includes a lossless 1.5x zoom. There is also an Ultrawide camera with a 114-degree field of view, and you may have guessed a 50MP sensor. Even the front camera is 50MP. Expect the usual Android shooting features throughout the camera system, including automatic tone, portrait optimizer, night mode macro mode and action mode. There are also several shooting presets to browse your favorite shooting aesthetics, which I love playing on the demo unit.

I hope the Phone 3 will be a smart phone camera that can be capable. Shooting some early shots, during busy hands-on sessions at the press conference, the camera app seemed to be faster than devices in the past, while low-light processing seemed to be very close to Google’s pixels and the like.

Imaging is usually the weakest part of Nothing’s phone strategy, but it gets better with each iteration. I look forward to being tested. There is nothing to add an LED light to flash red to indicate video recording. This can still be disabled in the settings, but it’s a nice touch to trigger a splash of red that you’ll see in Nothing’s hardware and software.

The Phone 3 also packs the company’s brightest display to date, reaching up to 1,600 columns at its maximum brightness setting to 4,500 Nit, with a compatible HDR content, and a 6.67-inch screen with a higher resolution than the Phone 2’s 1.5K resolution. It also has IP68-rated dust protection.

On the spec sheet, the phone has a Snapdragon 8S Gen 4 processor, marking the biggest compromise of the year. Nothing tells me that the phone 3 doesn’t chase hundreds of dollars calls like a phone. However, the Galaxy S25 has the more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is also $800.

The good news is that the Phone 3 shouldn’t be noticeably slow or lazy – the company says it’s five times faster than the Phone 3A. Compared to Phone 2, the increase in AI performance should not be 60%. I was interested in seeing the fares for battery life, but not too worried. The OnePlus 13 Pro has the same processor and performed well in our battery drain tests.

The 5,150mAh silicon carbon battery can be charged to 50% in 20 minutes using a compatible 65W charger and up to 100% in one hour. This is one of the first phones to arrive in the west with silicon-carbon batteries, which further increases performance for battery life. There is also 15W wireless charging, and nothing seems to be retaining only its best quality phone.

Phone 3 works 15 Android 15 out of the box, but nothing can be rotated, with custom icons and native apps. This includes a basic space that can be used with the hardware button starter first introduced on 3A. Despite rumors that nothing can fold the feature into a subscription, it will be free for the foreseeable future. However, smart collections designed to organize screenshots and other files are still in use and will not work on startup.

The focus on the software side may be the new glyph matrix, but you can expect some typical AI accessibility features (such as natural language search) and there is nothing to call the necessary search. It will be able to take advantage of everything from the Nothing Phone 3. The question is: Is this flagship enough?

The Phone 3 costs $799 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The $899 model will also start with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Both Black and White versions are available for pre-order on July 4, and sales begin on July 15 in their own stores. The company plans to initiate its own fall in certain physical locations on July 10.

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