Is the Nothing Phone (3) the right device for a US debut? I’m not sure

The Nothing Phone (3) isn’t the company’s first real foray into the US — that’d be 2023’s $600 Nothing Phone (2) — but it does feel like it’s the first time the brand is taking this market seriously. I’m not sure it’s the right device.

On paper, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this phone. Say what you will about the design, but the specs sheet isn’t an outright disaster. This is, for better or worse, a perfectly fine — if possibly overpriced — pseudo-flagship Android phone, with enough bells and whistles to catch your eye next to a sea of Samsung and Apple products. Unless there’s some terrible secret bubbling beneath the surface, it’s almost certainly a good smartphone.

The real problem with Nothing’s Phone (3) is the company’s overall strategy.

The US has always been a difficult market to crack, but over the past ten years, it’s grown increasingly impossible to break through. Dealing with carriers — the storefronts which remain where most general consumers buy and upgrade their smartphones — is an absolute nightmare, one Carl Pei knows all too well from his time at OnePlus. That company isn’t available in carrier stores anymore, leaving recent releases like the OnePlus 13 and 13R available exclusively online or through its sole retail partner, Best Buy.

Even if you can get your foot inside a carrier store, success isn’t guaranteed. Not only are sales reps often dealing with a consumer base trained to simply buy “the new iPhone” or “the new Galaxy,” but those workers are often pushed to point shoppers towards those devices through sales incentives. No matter how you get there, the result is the same: in 2020, 9 out of 10 smartphones sold in any given carrier store were either made by Samsung or Apple. You can probably assume those numbers haven’t exactly changed.

So, no carrier stores. That leaves you with a brand that has only flirted with general US availability diving headfirst into a stagnant market. The way I see it, Nothing isn’t entirely out of luck here. The enthusiast market remains a semi-viable strategy, though I think Google and OnePlus make up the bulk of that sector. Still, with Google deeply focused on AI and OnePlus potentially in trouble with the US government, there’s space there to grow. But in my eyes, Nothing left the real move on the table over the past few years, choosing to mostly ignore the US when launching its budget A-series that could’ve helped prime the pump for a true-blue flagship.

Nothing’s opportunity lies in its value-friendly budget offerings, not in this new flagship smartphone

Nothing obviously sees value in the budget and midrange space, considering its entire smartphone portfolio prior to this week’s launch event was built out of it. But aside from dipping its collective toes in the water with the Phone 2, Nothing has opted to effectively keep its phones out of the US entirely. While the Nothing Phone (2a) and 3a could technically be purchased from a US address, official support would only last a couple of weeks — long enough to determine if your unit’s a lemon, and that’s about it.

However, in a world where Nothing provided full support to its cheaper smartphones within the US, I think it’s easy to imagine the company developing a cult following. The budget space is ultra-competitive, don’t get me wrong. Samsung and Motorola both flood the market with offerings at practically every price point, in order to ensure that — no matter your budget — there’s something anyone can afford. Google’s kept things cleaner, releasing one (often excellent) A-series Pixel annually and blowing much of the competition out of the water, even as the price has risen to $500.

Compared to practically all of those phones — we’ll get back to Pixel in a minute — Nothing’s Phone (2a) and (3a) series stands out. I might not like every decision the company made in developing these devices, but compared to the combined efforts of Samsung and Motorola’s cheapest devices, Nothing delivered a pretty comprehensive package. Solid specs, decent software support, some smart OS features, and a design that really punched above its weight class, all priced between $350 and $460. And if Nothing is a fashion company first-and-foremost — as every element of its marketing implies — I could really see it making a splash with younger, budget-conscious shoppers.

Had Nothing’s cheaper midrange or budget devices arrived stateside, you could’ve convinced that same enthusiast market to drop a few hundred dollars on a flashy smartphone. You could’ve built brand recognition — “oh hey, it’s that transparent phone company with all the flashing lights” — and once it came time to launch a more powerful device, not only would you be recognizable, but you’d also have those cheaper products to fall back on. 

But that’s not the approach the company took. Instead, Nothing’s first real US push is centered around an $800 device attempting to go toe-to-toe with the Galaxy S25 and, later this summer, the Pixel 10 — devices that, let’s be clear, come with generations of name recognition and entire ecosystems of various other products. You’re asking US users to pony up nearly a grand for a device from a brand they probably haven’t heard of with a design so divisive, the last 24 hours have seen Nothing’s subreddit explode into a cavalcade of memes and frustrated rants. The same cult following that should be celebrating the long-awaited arrival of a top-tier smartphone are instead seemingly turning their backs on the Nothing Phone (3).

I’m not saying there’s some guarantee this plan would’ve worked. To reiterate one last time, the US mobile market is a frustratingly difficult nut to crack. But there is some evidence that offering really good Android phones at an attention-grabbing price can help you build your business, and that evidence is the Pixel. While Google’s mainline phones get all the attention from tech press like myself, it’s the A-series that has consistently sold pretty well. In fact, I think you could chalk up the success of devices like the Pixel 3a for keeping this push into smartphones moving, while similar initiatives for tablets and Chromebooks fell short.

While I’m sure Nothing examined all of its possible moves into a US-centric expansion before deciding that the premium market was the right road to take, I can’t shake this feeling that the company’s going about this all wrong. CEO Carl Pei seems confident, telling TechCrunch last month that a general appetite for change would allow the company to succeed where others — like OnePlus — have failed. But Nothing’s leadership is well aware that entering the unlocked market in the US is a challenge, and I’m not sure it’s one they’re likely to succeed in.