No one will launch the most expensive flagship yet. Phone (3)
On Tuesday, none of them launched their latest flagship phones after a two-year gap. At an event in London, the company announced its mobile phone (3). This starts at $799 and aims to take on big wigs like Samsung and Apple.
Since Release phone (1) in 2022GV backed startups rely on transparent designs to make their phones stand out from others.
Phone (3) follows the same design language, but introduces an arrangement of strange cameras that refrain from the typical square or circular alignment found on other smartphone devices. (If you’re someone who’s triggered by elements that aren’t organized on your website or app, this camera placement might make you mad!)
Also, no one prefers to place the LED on the back. This is a feature called Glyph. This has always been a bit of a gimmick, but the company took advantage of it to display various alerts and notifications using LED lights.
Now, the company is replacing Glyph with a small circular Mini LED screen called the Glyph Matrix on the back of the device on the top right.
This addition displays a 16-bit style pattern. This allows you to provide more information than your previous Glyph arrangement.
The company has also released mini apps for this interface, including bottles and locks, paper and scissors.
It’s 2025, so your phone should also include AI-powered features. When launched, it contains two features called Essential Space and Essential Search.
The company first debuted Essential Space, an app for saving screenshots and taking notes. You can now upgrade this app to record meetings and view AI transcriptions and summaries.
To use this feature, you must press the required key to place your phone on the screen to start recording. This sounds potentially useful, but there is no web interface to access these transcriptions or summaries at this time.
It also debuted Essential Search, a feature similar to iPhone Spotlight search, and there’s nothing to inject AI.
This search feature allows you to enter keywords to search for your phone settings, files, or photos.
Additionally, you can press the button next to the search bar to enter natural language queries to retrieve web results. This is similar to the upgraded Siri interface of iPhones integrated with ChatGPT.
Specifications and availability
The new smartphone has specifications that rival other Android flagships.
This includes a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with 1.5K resolution, protected by the Gorilla Glass 7i. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor built on a 4 nanometer architecture.
The camera trio all have a resolution of 50 megapixels, but play different roles. The main camera has a 1.3-inch sensor, and with an AF/1.68 aperture it is 20% larger than the phone (2). Periscope telephoto lenses offer a 3x optical zoom and a 60x digital zoom with an AI Super Res zoom. The ultra-width lens also provides a 114-degree field of view.
Also, none upgrades your selfie camera from 32 megapixel to 50 megapixels.
The phone (3) has a 5,150 mAh battery (5,500 mAh for the Indian variant) with support for 65W wired and 15W wireless charging.
The company said it will feature OS 3.5 Nothing OS 3.5 based on Android 15 and will be updated to Nothing OS 4.0 based on Android 16 later this year. The flagship devices have noted that they will receive five years of software updates and seven years of security updates.
The company will sell the 256GB model (3) of the phone for $799 and the 512GB model for $899. At this price, the phone competes directly with the Samsung Galaxy S25. Released at a base price of $799.
Pre-orders for devices begin on July 4th and will be generally available on July 15th.
As TechCrunch reported last month, it’s not making anything Phone (3) is generally available in the US through its own website and Amazon. This is the second device and after the phone (2), the company is making it widely available. Other budget devices were only available through the restriction beta program.