Ahead of the launch of the Nothing Phone (3), the company has been inundating us with teaser after teaser to build hype around the phone. A recent post confirmed that the device will be running on a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset, and Nothing has now revealed that software support timelines were one of the reasons this SoC was chosen over other options.
Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis explained on X that the Phone (3) will get five years of major Android OS updates, as well as seven years of security updates. This was stated in response to a user asking why the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was not used for the phone. According to Evangelidis, if Nothing had chosen this chipset, the phone would have been limited to just four years of support.
It is worth noting that the Phone (3) will be getting the longest support timeline offered by the company thus far. For reference, the Phone (3a) and its Pro sibling get six years of security updates, but only three years of OS updates. Additionally, the company’s first ever smartphone, the Phone (1), is pretty much at the end of its promised four years of support.
Of course, software support is not the only reason the Phone (3) will be equipped with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4. Evangelidis sang praises of the chip, claiming that the company’s “first true flagship” shows an 88% increase in GPU performance compared to the Phone (2). Other upgrades mentioned include a 33% and 125% improvement in terms of CPU and NPU performance respectively.
That said, whether this will translate to a proper flagship experience remains to be seen, given that the chosen SoC does not exactly match people’s expectations. It is undeniable that the Phone (3) will be Nothing’s most premium offering, though. The phone is set to launch on 1 July alongside the Headphone (1), the company’s first over-ear headphones.
(Source: Akis Evangelidis via 9to5Google)
