The Nothing Phone 3 hype train has well and truly left the station; the London-based company had already confirmed we’re going to see its first true flagship phone in July, and even teased a few potential changes on offer – but today it went a step further by confirming the chipset on offer.
As confirmed by Nothing CEO Carl Pei in a recent Nothing TV video, the Nothing Phone 3 will sport Qualcomm’s premium Snapdragon 8s Gen 4.
Compared to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset in the Nothing Phone 2, Pei claims that it offers a 36% boost to CPU, 88% to GPU and 50% to NPU, which should make the phone “feel a lot snappier”.
That’s certainly a welcome upgrade that’ll translate to a speedier experience, but let’s remember that the Nothing Phone 2 was a distinctly mid-range phone, and one that came out two years ago – and the chipset is even older, having made its debut back in 2021.
With that in mind, the jump in performance doesn’t seem particularly revolutionary, especially given the leap from mid-ranger to premium smartphone.
In fact, with Nothing’s constant claims that the Nothing Phone 3 will be the company’s first ‘true’ flagship, I’m a little surprised about the use of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4.
Why not the Snapdragon 8 Elite?
The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is one of the newest chipsets in Qualcomm’s collection, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best.
There wasn’t much difference between the 2024 flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and last year’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, but the same doesn’t apply with the newer 2025 equivalents.
In fact, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 lags significantly behind the truly flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.
That’s mainly down to the 8 Elite using the same Orion CPU architecture as the desktop-class Snapdragon X Elite chipset, allowing for serious year-on-year gains that make the top-end Android phones from 2024 look sluggish in comparison.
It’s also the chipset of choice for practically every flagship phone on the market; it’s featured in pricey phones like the OnePlus 13, Honor Magic 7 Pro, Xiaomi 15 Ultra and the entire Samsung Galaxy S25 collection, among others.
With that in mind, the ‘flagship’ Nothing Phone 3 will already be slower than the flagship competition.
With Nothing phones, you need longevity
The fact that the Nothing Phone 3 won’t be the most powerful phone around, in itself, isn’t a bad thing; it’s okay for phones, even flagships, to have a specific focus beyond being the most powerful phone for the money.
The bigger issue I have is that, based on the gap between the Nothing Phone 2 and the Nothing Phone 3, there could be quite a wait before we see the follow-up, the Nothing Phone 4.
If we see the same two-year gap between the 2 and 3, we might not see the Nothing Phone 4 until 2027 – and if the chipset is already trailing behind the flagship competition in performance, that gap will widen considerably between now and then.
It might make the Nothing Phone 3 harder to justify
It’s also worth pointing out that, despite Qualcomm’s premium framing for the chipset, the Snapdragon 8s series has been used by much cheaper phones.
The upcoming Poco F7 features the same Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, and while UK pricing is yet to be confirmed, it’s going to be affordable. The upgraded Poco F7 Pro retails at £399, suggesting the F7 could retail for around £299.
Considering the Nothing Phone 3 is rumoured to cost around £799/$799, it could end up being one of the most expensive ways to access the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4.
Of course, there’s more to a phone than its spec sheet, and Nothing likely has a bunch of tricks up its sleeve to tempt users to the upcoming flagship – but from a core performance perspective, it could – and should – be better.
