In late July, the Nothing Phone 3 sold on the street for around Rs 45,000, per 91mobiles. Today, Flipkart lists it at Rs 79,999, per Gadgets360, updated November 6, 2026. Nothing about the phone changed in between: no new colour, no storage bump, no hardware revision. The bargain of three months ago is a flagship-priced question mark again.
That is why this Nothing Phone 3 review is really a price review wearing a phone review’s clothes: at Rs 79,999, every strength has to justify itself against rivals that cost the same and do more.
The price is the whole review
The Phone 3 launched in India in July 2025 at Rs 79,999 for 12GB and 256GB, per Gadgets360, with the 16GB and 512GB model at Rs 89,999. Then the festive sales hit and the price collapsed: MySmartPrice recorded an Amazon listing at Rs 44,600, and 91mobiles reported street prices around Rs 45,000 in late July.
Then it climbed back. Smartprix’s price tracker, cited by TechTrendBytes, shows it rose by Rs 19,162 in the past month alone, with the last change on October 16, 2026. What you pay today is the launch price, for a phone that is fifteen months old.
A company whose whole brand is a see-through back panel has been remarkably opaque about why this phone costs Rs 35,000 more than it did in July. Memory prices are up industry-wide, and every brand is passing that on. At Rs 79,999 this phone competes with the OnePlus 15, the iQOO 15 and the Realme GT 8 Pro. That is a fight it was never built to win.
Nothing Phone 3 review: the design still turns heads
Strip the price away and this is still the most interesting-looking phone you can buy. The transparent back shows the screws and the engineering, the aluminium frame feels solid, and the back is Gorilla Glass Victus, per GSMArena. It is IP68 rated, per Gadgets360.
The Glyph Matrix is the party trick: a small circular dot display of 489 micro-LEDs, per Unplix, that shows the time, timers and alerts. Fun, and the kind of feature you show friends twice and then mostly forget about.
MySmartPrice scores the design 9.0 out of 10, but design is the only category where it leads its price class.
Cameras: the main sensor shines, the zoom wobbles
Three 50MP sensors, per Gadgets360 and 91mobiles: a main camera with a large 1/1.3-inch sensor and stabilisation, a periscope telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and a 50MP ultrawide. Gadgets360 calls the primary camera fantastic.
The trouble starts with the other two lenses: Gadgets360 lists inconsistent periscope and ultrawide performance among the cons. But results past 3x lean hard on processing, and the ultrawide is the weakest of the three. Beebom scores the phone 7 out of 10; MySmartPrice gives it 8.2, with value for money at just 6.0.
If you shoot mostly in daylight and like a real zoom lens, this camera system will please you. In low light, or when you crop into zoom shots, the Rs 79,999 rivals do it better. The Realme GT 8 Pro, which our iQOO 15 vs Realme GT 8 Pro comparison covers at Rs 72,999, carries a 200MP telephoto. The Phone 3 asks you to pay more for less zoom.
The chip is fine until you push it
The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is a good chip for normal use. The gap shows up against the top chip at this price. GSMArena’s tests put the Phone 3 at about 6,900 in Geekbench 6 multi-core, against roughly 9,300 to 9,700 for the leading phones, per TechTrendBytes.
Short bursts are fine; long loads are not. GSMArena found the phone throttles heavily under sustained stress, could not finish a 3DMark Wild Life Extreme stress test, and the frame got uncomfortably hot to hold. In real life that means one thing: play heavy games for an hour or more and this phone will slow down and warm up. Otherwise you will never notice.
A phone at Rs 79,999 should not wave a white flag under sustained load while rivals at the same price run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Our OnePlus 15 review shows what that chip does at Rs 84,999. The Phone 3 asks flagship money for a mid-tier chip. Only buyers who never push a phone hard should accept that trade.
Battery and charging: good enough, nothing more
The Indian model carries a 5,500mAh silicon-carbon battery, per Gadgets360 and MySmartPrice, larger than the 5,150mAh cell sold overseas. Charging is 65W wired and 15W wireless, per Gadgets360 and 91mobiles. GSMArena’s test reached 31 percent in 15 minutes and 63 percent in 30, with a full charge taking about an hour.
GSMArena’s Active Use Score was 12 hours and 56 minutes on the smaller international battery. No reviewer has measured the Indian model as a two-day phone.
Two annoyances: no charger in the box, per Gadgets360 and MySmartPrice, so after paying Rs 79,999 you still need to buy one; and the screen uses LTPS rather than LTPO, per GSMArena, so it cannot drop its refresh rate as low as the best panels.
Software is the reason this phone ages well
This is where the Phone 3 earns its keep. Nothing promised five years of Android updates and seven years of security patches, per Beebom. The phone launched on Android 15, and the stable Nothing OS 5.0 update based on Android 17 began rolling out on October 12, 2026, per 91mobiles, ahead of every other Nothing phone.
Two of the five big updates are used, which leaves three more to come, with security patches running to around mid-2032, per TechTrendBytes. For a phone you plan to keep for four or five years, that changes the maths.
There is no Phone 4 coming in 2026: Carl Pei said in January that Nothing would skip a flagship this year, per TechTrendBytes, so the Phone 3 is still the best phone Nothing sells.
Who should buy it, and who should wait
Buy the Nothing Phone 3 under Rs 50,000. At that price you get IP68, a real 3x zoom, a metal-and-glass build and updates into the 2030s. Watch for the next sale: the price has already fallen to around Rs 45,000 twice.
Wait if it is at Rs 79,999 when you look. At full price, the Phone (4a) Pro is the more sensible Nothing phone: Rs 49,999, per Flipkart, its own 50MP 3.5x telephoto, and 91mobiles rates it 8.3 out of 10 against the Phone 3’s 7.8. Our Nothing Phone 4a price story shows how often Nothing’s own cheaper phones undercut the flagship.
Skip it if you play heavy games for long sessions: the throttling GSMArena found is a real limit, not a lab quirk. Skip it too if battery life is your top priority, or if the Glyph Matrix does nothing for you.
The final word on this Nothing Phone 3 review is simple. At Rs 45,000 it is a bargain. At Rs 79,999 it is a design statement with a chip and battery that do not match the price tag. Buy the design on a deal, not at full price.