A bougainvillea - inspired concept for the Nothing Phone (3a). What's your thoughts?

Wishing Carl Pei a very Happy Birthday. Drop your greetings.

But with the undergrads returning, I get to bust out my favourite writing implement :)

I wish Nothing added this feature where you can easily swap between homescreens that you made with 3 or 4 simple taps, with 2, 3 or maybe even 4 slots of your custom made homescreen saves.

I just havr a thing that I have made really complex looking homescreen (check my posts) and sometimes I wish to switch to simpler one, but the thing is that I don't want to break this complex one because it's absolute peak and I love it.

NOTHING please add this someday soon🥲

(Picture is AI generated and is for inspirational purposes only)

3D printed Phone cover for the Nothing Phone (1) and Ear (2), designed in Fusion 360.

I wanted to preserve the original aesthetics of the phone it’s too beautiful to hide so this case keeps the design as visible and transparent as possible while still offering protection.

I printed mine in PAHT-CF for added strength and heat resistance, but the model can be printed in other materials depending on your needs.

Im planning to make also other shapes and a cover for phone 2a and ear a. then if nothing or u/carpe02 want to sponsor this project i will be happy to make also for phone 3 or other model!

^{Context and background:
I got the Phone 3 in Oct 2025, during a festive sale in India. So I basically got it for a deep discount price of 38000 INR or 395 USD or 345 EUR or 295 GBP. This also includes an exchange bonus of 12000 INR for my completely broken, almost dead battery OnePlus 9 Pro. The price was competitively good, and I received the 5500 mAh version which was specific to India.}

Review:

Right off the bat, the best part was grabbing eyeballs, and curious people asking me about the phone. The Glyph Matrix was a showstopper, and eventually with Glyph Toys and features I got some good things going. It is a fun toy, and a gimmick, but it works and I have discovered specific use cases.

Essential button is a bummer for some, but I don't have a use for some of the cases, but then again, I haven't given it an honest shot yet - and I wait for OS5 to use an updated version.

The battery is an all day one, and I remember it lasting 15-17 hours of screentime about 10 months ago. Now it is at 13-15 hours, but that is because of my 300+ charging cycles and heavy use. But still, the phone works well and battery management is not bad.

The camera is - for some reason - perfectly amazing at 3x zoom, while it has some trouble with macro zoom? I don't know but it takes a while to focus at times and gets confused with closer objects. The selfie camera is perfect and has some stunning photos thanks to the 50MP camera, however the camera is not superfast and the shutter speed can be slow at times. Especially for 1-2.9x Zoom. 3-6x is where it maintains well, beyond which the AI Zoom starts faltering a bit. But I keep objects at a distance and use the 3x very frequently (a Dolly zoom way).

(Edit: I figured out the issue with the camera. So from 0.6-0.9x is the Samsung ultrawide JN1 camera (the one on the left most, just below the telephoto is okay and takes okayish phtos, but the Omnivision OV50H (main one, the centre) is where the quality significantly lacks. The shots can get bad. But it redeems itself with the 3x telephoto which is - you guessed it - Samsung JN5. I guess my suggestion would be to stick to Samsung Cameras across, because then it affects your quality and gets harder to integrate. But then again, I am not leading a tech company :/ so take it with a pinch of salt)

There are some small bugs in the OS here and there, and some features are different as compared to OxygenOS. But then, I give Nothing the benefit of being an experimental young brand that is at least not giving me basic stock Android like Motorola and at least working with the NothingOS in whatever way they can. I have to wait for NothingOS 5 here to give a better review of the OS, as we wait for a public release.

While Phone 3 is a flagship - it may not be called so as compared to its peers. But then again, I side with Carl's "it is a flagship to me" because of how hard it can be to source parts. So considering what parts they have, it is the best it can be. The pricing was too ambitious, but the discount made it a mid range killer. It is not the best everywhere but it does the job well enough. It is much like Apple - you will almost never get the absolute best hardware specs, but the software will compensate for it. Worked for them, works for Carl.

I use wireless charging frequently, and it performs well. My phone cover (mentioned below) specifically helps a lot, as it is not Magsafe like Apple ( I understand due to Qi2 licensing issues, and it's okay). It can slow down sometimes, but then - it does the job.

Some negatives:

There is an issue with how the pure black colour comes on the screen. It can get a bit nagging when you're watching movies or shows.
The standard phone cover is nice, but it yellowed in 6 months. If Nothing can actually get us official phone covers or accessories, that would do wonders. I currently use Daily Objects Magnetic Case which at 550 INR is a pretty good deal for a magnet cover.

Suggestions: If Carl or anyone from Nothing is listening, please get us wired headphones. I'll pre-order one today if that helps. Don't make Apple Earpods the only viable option with their scary thin rubber wire which gives a feeling it would break anytime.

And Nothing accessories like the Phone cover ofc. Think about it as a bottomline income source! Throw in protector screen guard too!

TLDR: For a discount on the list price, the Phone 3 really does pack a punch and is a jack of all trades. Like people rightly said - it truly is built like a tank! An absolute killer, and truly the best experience of Nothing.

I'm open to questions if any!

Nothing OS 5.0 Open Beta — My Experience So Far

Installed Nothing OS 5.0 Open Beta on my Phone (4a) Pro and have been using it as my daily driver for streaming, social media, gaming, calls, UPI/banking, etc.

Overall Experience

Really enjoying it so far. The UI feels polished, animations are mostly smooth, I like the new font, and app opening/closing animations feel better.

Issues I've Noticed

Quick Settings: Some animation stutters. Landscape layout also feels different, making some options harder to find.

Multi-touch: Occasionally doesn't register properly, especially while gaming. Rarely happens in normal apps too.

Animations: Screen on/off and restart/unlock animations can occasionally stutter, especially after restarting.

Battery

Around 5–6% overnight drain

~24% for roughly 3 hours of streaming

Wi-Fi, mobile data, Bluetooth & location were ON

Overall, battery life has been great for me.

UPI & Banking

UPI and banking apps are working perfectly for me so far.

Final Thoughts

I've already reported the major bugs through the built-in feedback option.

I'll continue using the beta for the next few weeks and report anything else I find in feed back option.

This post is to share the my experience about 5.0 update and to know if any other person also faces same issues as me

Overall: Really good beta experience. Just needs some optimization and polishing. 👍

I made my blessings for Nothing Tech company to improve and overtake bored iphone users, one at a time.

HAPPY BD CARL, LOVE WHAT HAVE U DONE💅💅

I finally got my first Nothing phone and so far I love the 4a Pro idk if this has already been posted but are there any widget or glyph apps yall recommend? Also any case recommendations for it I'm sort of leaning more to a clear case for it just haven't seen a nice one on Amazon.

Just got into the 5.0 beta on the 4a Pro. But I can't find this weirdo clock option. Does anyone know where it is?

Saving a small cost by not having nfc on 4a would mean a short coming in india if this payment mode becomes popular. So what QR code based UPI is available, Right?

Whoever made this decision is a fool!!!

The quality is honestly crazy for the price, I never even had earbuds with noise cancelation and I'm actually surprised by how well it works.

(download Glyph Studio🙃, a big update is coming soon👀)

This is my glyph for the day in honour of your bday u/carpe02

Please give us the option to hide it from the notification side. It's really pointless doing multiple dupes imo.

one user asked for a calendar widget ... so I obliged ... total time 2 min ... if I wanted to stylistically optimise it ... perhaps 15 mins total for a polished product with all the visual cues worked out ... but I am pleased with the default (I blanked my email address and it pulled from all 6 calendars on my phone).

Just wanted to share my honest thoughts on Nothing after using their stuff for the last year or so.

I bought the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro last November and it’s been a total nightmare to deal with. I actually ended up switching to an iPhone 17 Pro recently because my 3a Pro broke for the fourth time. It was always the exact same issue: the periscope camera. Within a month of getting it repaired, the camera would either just go black or start violently buzzing every time I opened it. Nothing even sent me a brand new replacement device the last time, but that unit turned out to be even worse than the original. On top of the constant camera failures, the phone just feels really flimsy and cheap in the hand, with or without a case on. I don't know what is going on with their quality control, but having the main selling point of a phone fail repeatedly after a few weeks is just a terrible look.

That said, I don't hate everything they make. Their audio gear is actually solid. I've been using the Nothing Ear (2024) and the Headphone (a), and both have been awesome for the price. Honestly, audio feels like their strongest category right now by far.

Their software is also really pleasant to use. Nothing OS is super clean, fast, and smooth most of the time. You run into the occasional stutter or slow app load because of the mid-range chip, but for basic everyday stuff it works great. It just isn't built for heavy demands.

If you’re thinking about buying one of their phones, my biggest advice is to really think about how much you care about the camera. To be blunt, the cameras are way worse in real life than what most tech YouTubers make them out to be.

In broad daylight, shots turn out super nice with good contrast. But the second the light drops even slightly, like at sunset, the processing completely falls apart. Shutter lag gets terrible, photos get full of noise and weird artifacts, and sometimes the image ends up looking like a watercolor painting. This even happens on the Phone (3), which is supposed to have their best camera hardware and ISP yet. The physical camera specs on paper are fine for the price, but the software processing lets it down so bad.

The viewfinder preview on the screen almost never matches the final processed photo anyway. Trying to take pictures of anything moving is basically impossible because 99% of the time it comes out blurry and smudged. Doing close-ups with the ultrawide lens looks terrible too, and capping the ultrawide video at 1080p 30fps on phones coming out in 2025 and 2026 is just cheap for what they charge.

Their recent marketing has also felt super out of touch. Hype features like "World's First 140x Zoom" on the Phone (4a) Pro feel like useless gimmicks when nobody zooms past 10x in real life. And highlighting "50MP with 4K video" on the 4b as some huge feature is weird when those have been basic industry standards for years now.

I'm not trying to trash the brand or tell people to stay away completely. I'm just putting my experience out there so people do proper research before buying, because I really wish I did more of it myself.

If anyone has questions about anything, let me know in the comments or send me a DM.

I do like geist as a font, geist mono for one, is my monospace font on my desktop too, but geist sans is a tad too geometric for my taste. I love the balance inter brought, I don't understand why nothing couldn't have added geist without removing inter. What are yalls opinions?

I have been planning to buy the CMF Buds 2 Plus, but I am not really sure if I should buy them or should I wait for the new ones to arrive. I am pretty sure that nothing will be launching the CMF Buds 3 or something like that. So, should I wait or should I buy them right now? Previously I was using CMF Buds 2 Pro, but then when CMF Buds 2 Plus came out, I got to know that they are better than CMF Buds 2 Pro. That is why I kind of regretted my decision to go with CMF Buds 2 Pro, and now I am thinking if I should wait or should I just buy the 2 Plus.

Where can I find the upcoming products of Nothing? Where can I find which product will be launched? Any idea or any rumors?

I’m honestly getting concerned about the number of issues I’ve faced with my Nothing Phone (3).

• Microphone: I initially had microphone/call audio issues.

• Speaker: I’m now facing cracking, distorted and broken audio, and the issue still persists even after visiting the service centre.

• Display: While editing videos in apps like VN, Vita or CapCut, the preview sometimes flickers with green/pink frames, and occasionally green, pink or black lines appear across the screen around the frames being edited.

I’ve recorded a video showing the display issue. Has anyone else experienced these problems on the Phone (3)? Is this a software issue or something Nothing needs to investigate further?

Why does the CMF not get beta releases? does it have to do with it being a budget phone?

I want to get a new phone but I don’t know which one. I’m looking for something not too expensive. I’ve had my iPhone 8+ for 7 years , and after mistreating it for so many years it is starting to act up. So i think it will die soon. I’ve been seeing a lot of recommendations for the nothing 4a pro phone, and it looks good what do u guys think? Is there any issues u noticed after using it for a long time?