He Nothing Phone (3) It's here, and one of the most frequently asked questions is: How good are their cameras? To answer this, Sam from the Nothing content team has conducted a direct comparison against some of the year's most powerful flagship phones: the Pixel 9 XL, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and the Samsung S25 Ultra. Here are the highlights.
For the past six months, Sam has been directly involved in the camera tuning process for the Phone (3). The result is a main camera of 50 MP (Omnivision OV50H, f/1.68) which competes head-to-head with the most advanced options on the market. In its tests, it found that the iPhone (3) and the Galaxy S25 Ultra tend to offer a more contrasting aesthetic, with marked shadows, while the Pixel and the iPhone opt for a more natural and balanced image.
In night scenes, the Phone (3) achieved a More accurate white balance than the iPhone, though not as bright as the Pixel. Sharpness was also good, although HDR sometimes produced exaggerated effects: in a photo of the sky, the blue tone became too much purple, something that Sam has already reported to the development team.
Ultra wide angle, zoom and macro: lights and shadows
The iPhone (3)'s ultra-wide-angle lens, also from 50 MP, It offers a very wide perspective, so much so that fingers sometimes appeared in the frame. While not its strongest point, it performs well in good lighting conditions. In nighttime scenes, the Pixel overexposed the image, and the iPhone was the one that best balanced the scene.
Where the Phone (3) really shines is in the 50MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. It provides good background compression and a natural blur in portraits. Furthermore, in macro photography, the iPhone 3's 3x zoom was the only one that truly allowed for detailed close-ups, while the other models automatically switched to different lenses, resulting in a loss of quality.
However, the Pixel proved to be the most unstable, with an imprecise stabilizer and somewhat frustrating automatic lens changes.
Selfies and overall experience
With the front camera (also from 50 MP), the Phone (3) surprised with its sharpness. In tests carried out with different team members, the selfies were sharper on Android, While on the iPhone they were somewhat smoother. Nothing to worry about, but noticeable when compared directly.
Some minor bugs, such as faces appearing grayish or skies with an odd tint, were detected and are being corrected before launch. The interesting thing is that Nothing It does not hide these flaws, Instead, it exposes them openly to improve them. A philosophy that is unusual in the industry and much appreciated.
Conclusion: Nothing enters the league of the greats
The Phone (3) not only competes, but plant face in mobile photography. Although there are some details to polish, the overall package is solid and demonstrates that Nothing has taken a big step forward. It also includes a feature called Camera Presets, This feature allows users to pre-configure settings such as aperture, color balance, and focus, and share them via QR codes. It's a very useful tool that fosters creativity among advanced users. If Nothing continues in this direction, we may be witnessing the birth of a new benchmark for photography on Android.
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