Nothing Says Phone (3) Will Be A 'true Flagship' Powered By Snapdragon 8s Gen 4

The Nothing Phone (3) is said to be the brand’s first “true” flagship, but it’ll be missing at least one flagship spec, as the company has just announced that it will forgo the use of Snapdragon 8 Elite and instead use the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset.

In a post on Twitter/X as well as its “Nothing Community” forums – and a 40-minute video on YouTube – Nothing has confirmed that Phone (3) will be adopting the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset. The company says that this is the “most advanced processor in a Nothing smartphone to date.”

Carl Pei, after referring to Phone (3) as the company’s first “true flagship,” explains during the video:

We really have to outperform our previous flagship, so compared to Phone (2) it’s going to be 36% faster on CPU, 88% stronger on GPU, and 60% stronger on the NPU. But what it means in practice, it will feel a lot snappier.

The exact reason why Nothing Phone (3) will be using Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 instead of Snapdragon 8 Elite isn’t mentioned, but he notes that it’s the first time Nothing is using a current-generation chipset.

This time we’re going to use a very new chip from this year, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4. It’s the first time we’re using a current-year chipset.

He also mentions that the choice of chip comes down to “balance,” a reasoning point the company has used in the past, but that this time around that “balance” comes as “everything else has gotten a lot better.”

We wanted to create a balanced experience. This time everything else also got much better, so we needed an even stronger chip to drive it. People will use these products for many hours a day, so for us it’s about creating a holistic experience…

Pei further said that building a flagship in the first place is about delivering Nothing’s “latest and greatest ideas.”

Nothing Phone (3) will be announced on July 1.