With microphone in the case

Review: Nothing Ear 3 - Great-sounding headset with charm and quality

Nothing Ear 3 is good at most things and also has an extra microphone in the case for when you need to be heard properly.

Published 9 December 2025 - 16:26

The first product from British Nothing was Nothing Ear, an affordable headset with excellent sound and cool design. Since then, they have expanded significantly and this year launched four phones, a watch, and a whole bunch of headsets. And now Nothing Ear 3, the second successor to their original headset.

It is no longer a pair of cheap headphones, Nothing has those too, but Ear 3 is the top model in their range with a price tag a bit over 2000 kronor. You notice the price difference from the cheaper headsets immediately, as the case has a solid aluminium base that feels robust under the transparent lid.

Transparent plastic is something of Nothing's signature, and once again you can see the earbud electronics through the plastic. The case also has transparent details besides the lid.

The design is also noticeable on the oval rubber tips that come in four sizes. They are really comfortable even over time and seal well. However, I have to press them a bit now and then to get the best possible noise cancellation.

Weaker noise cancellation

Even at best, the headset's noise cancellation is only decent. I might be a bit spoiled here, the last headset I tested before these was the Oneplus Buds 4 which has phenomenal noise cancellation. I can also turn on transparency mode so that ambient sounds are let through instead of being filtered out. Even this mode is a bit weak, and it can be difficult to have a conversation with someone even when transparency is on.

But the music sound is excellent, with a clear, distinct treble and natural bass (the very lowest bass is slightly boosted to give extra punch). If you prefer a bass-heavy atmosphere in your headset, you can of course use the equaliser in the Nothing X app, but there is also a button to increase the bass in several steps to completely unreasonable levels. The headset supports high-resolution audio via LDAC on Android phones, on iPhone it is, as usual, AAC that applies.

You control the headset by pinching the stems and it works excellently without me accidentally pressing by mistake when I adjust the fit in my ears. If you are not satisfied with how the control works, you can adjust it in the app. The app also has a hearing test function that creates a customised equaliser if you have partially impaired hearing.

Extra microphone for special occasions

Call sound is a special area for Nothing Ear 3. They have combined several microphones with bone conduction, and the result is sound above average during phone calls. The headset does a good job of filtering out ambient noise without losing too much in speech quality, but you can still hear that you are speaking in a headset as it sounds a bit tinny.

And then we have Super Mic, an extra set of microphones in the case. You press and hold a button on the case, or double press if you don't want to hold the button to instead speak with the case as a microphone. You hold it within a few decimetres from your mouth, and the result is significantly clearer sound that is difficult to distinguish from when you speak directly into the mobile, even when you are in a really noisy environment.

You can use the microphone even when you're not on the phone. If you have a Nothing mobile, it works as a dictaphone where your recording is stored in the Essential Space app. With the help of AI, the recording is also transcribed into text, but this obviously doesn't work in Swedish. If you have another mobile, the phone's voice assistant is activated instead if you press the button and start speaking.

Nothing has a fondness for gimmicks, and they often include a fun feature in their products that is memorable but perhaps not necessarily practical. I wonder if Super Mic is one of those. If you still have to take something out of your pocket to get better call sound, it might as well be the mobile. But then you also have to remove the headset to switch to the mobile's sound, so I accept that the mic in the case is a more convenient solution that adds something on the margin.

The battery life for the headset is 5.5 hours with noise cancellation turned on. It's better than Nothing's previous headset but not particularly impressive by today's standards, so it's considered a disadvantage for Nothing Ear 3. The microphone in the case has also taken up some space from the battery, so the case's battery life is below average.

There aren't many other disadvantages with Nothing Ear 3, and even though it's a headset with a price tag above average, I think it's worth its price.

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