When Nothing presented the Nothing Phone (3), With their first high-end smartphone, the promise was clear: to bring something unique to the market. From the outside, the design is unmistakable, but the true magic of Nothing has always lay in the engineering behind it. A member of the community, zac_young, has performed a teardown complete device, revealing all their inner secrets.
This article is a summary of their work, which allows us to see the engineering behind Nothing's seamless experience. From NothingTec, I want to thank them for this impressive work.
A look inside the Nothing Phone (3)
Nothing's teardown of the Phone (3) begins with the screen, the midframe, and the back panel. While they may seem typical at first glance, the midframe and back panel hold some secrets that we'll explore below.
Screen 🔴
The iPhone 3 features a 6.67-inch FHD+ flexible AMOLED display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7. A screen-to-body ratio of 92.891 TP3T keeps the bezels smooth and slim. With an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz and a 1000Hz touch sampling rate, the iPhone 3 is as fast for gaming as it is for typing a message. With 4500 nits of peak brightness and HDR10+ certification, the iPhone 3 is bright enough to see everything clearly, rain or shine… but especially in sunlight.
The back of the screen has a full copper surface to help dissipate heat. The top shows the cutout for the front camera, while the diagonal cutout at the bottom is for the fingerprint sensor.
That long black cable on the left side is the flexible printed circuit (FPC), through which the signal reaches the display; it flows through a hole in the midframe and connects to the motherboard.
Marco 🔵
An aluminum frame and buttons, inherited from the Phone series (2), offer the most premium feel in their smartphone lineup, while also being the most sustainable option by using recycled 100% aluminum. This time, they added the Essential Key for a more natural approach to AI assistance, ensuring that AI remains part of their distinctive smartphone experience.
The top of the midframe includes a small cutout with a square black rubber gasket to the right of the camera; this is where the front-facing speaker is located. Being almost twice the size of the portion that's actually exposed, it ensures that phone calls are loud and clear and contributes to a great stereo effect when watching content.
You can see here that the midframe has cutouts on the left side near the top. This is a technique first used in a Nothing smartphone to push the camera through the midframe itself. This allowed for the use of larger camera sensors, as well as the periscope lens, to achieve the most compact camera module possible.
Rear casing 🟡
The glass back ensures a premium feel that completely envelops the device, while also allowing for a smooth experience when charging wirelessly or with reverse wireless charging. On the right side, you'll find the touch point for the button that controls the Glyph Matrix.
The 5150 mAh battery in this EU model is housed in the center of this midframe along with a wireless charging coil that supports both wireless charging and reverse wireless charging.
With each phone, they learn and evolve at every step. The Phone (3) is the culmination of years of experience, and in the image above, you can see a great example of some of the adaptations they made to ensure everything works in such a compact space. For example, the wireless charging coil was curved on the right side to make room for the button that operates the Glyph Matrix.
Behind the Glyph Matrix
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a heart worth? Glyph MatrixIn this macro shot you can see the individual pixels that deliver those notifications.
- 🔴 489 LEDs Individual models offer a low-resolution interface that replaces the Glyph lights of their predecessor. This makes notifications more accurate, alerts more customizable, and adds a bit more fun to our daily use.
- 🔵 The microcontroller (MCU) It powers the Glyph Matrix through Glyph Toys and icons, and also helps with generative notifications to ensure that animations run smoothly.
The Phone's camera system (3)
This time, the full array of camera modules on the Phone (3) boasts 50 MP. With video quality up to 4K at 60 fps on the main lens and 60x digital zoom on the periscope, the Phone (3) has a camera for any situation.
- 🔴 Frontal: 50MP Samsung, f/2.2, ½.76” sensor, 81.2° FOV, EIS
- 🔵 Periscope: 50MP Samsung, f/2.68, ½.75”, OIS and EIS
- 🟡 Ultra Wide Angle: 50MP Samsung, f/2.2, ½.76”, 114° FOV, EIS
- 🟢 Major: 50MP Omnivision, f/1.68, 1/1.3″, 85.5° FOV, OIS
The Phone's chipset (3)
When Nothing made the Phone (3), they knew that their first high-end smartphone would have to be their best-performing device to date, especially after the wait since the Phone (2), it had to be remarkable.
The Phone (3) comes equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 And, when combined with 12GB or 16GB of RAM, the Phone (3) quickly handles content creation, photo editing, or a long gaming session.
In this image, the processor is tucked directly beneath the RAM module to provide the power of a flagship and, at the same time, be as compact as possible.
- 🔵 UFS 4.0 ROM storage
- 🔴 Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 Chip (SM8735), up to 3.2 GHz, TSMC 4nm architecture + LPDDRX5 RAM
- Cores: 1 x Cortex-X4 + 7 x Cortex-A720
- GPU: Adreno 825, 1150 MHz
- NPU: Qualcomm Hexagon NPU
- 🟡 Qualcomm WiFi chip with WiFi 7
Bottom Breakdown
Finally, they show us a simple breakdown of the bottom of the Phone (3) to see a part of the phone that we interact with every day.
- 🔴 On the left, we have the haptic motor. Always excellent for grabbing your attention with essential notifications, this small motor certainly packs a punch throughout the phone.
- 🔵 The center shows the dual SIM tray housing along with the USB-C charging port which is assisted by the 5 amp charging cable, helping to deliver up to 65W of fast charging.
- 🟡 The final piece on the right side is the bottom speaker for speakerphone calls or for enjoying a quick episode of Nothing TV.
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