Why Nothing Scrapped the CMF Phone 3 Pro This Year

It was supposed to be the budget hero — a follow-up that made Nothing’s quirky aesthetic affordable for more people. Instead, the CMF Phone 3 Pro will not ship in 2026.

Nothing rolled out the CMF Phone 2 Pro last April and whispers had the next model arriving in the third quarter, likely around August or September. That timeline has evaporated. Akis Evangelidis, Nothing’s co‑founder, confirmed there won’t be a CMF phone this year. The culprit isn’t ambition; it’s raw economics.

Memory chips have become the elephant in the room. When DRAM and NAND prices climb, flagship makers can absorb the hit with higher margins or premium pricing. Budget lines cannot. The CMF range was built on thin margins and tight price targets. Push the cost of RAM and onboard storage up a few dollars per unit and the whole equation breaks.

'We can't build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF.' That blunt assessment from Evangelidis explains the pause: Nothing would rather delay than ship a product that compromises the CMF promise — good design, low price, and tangible improvement over the previous model.

Don’t read this as a retreat from phones. Evangelidis also teased 'several new products,' including entries in categories Nothing hasn’t tackled before. And a new mainstream Nothing phone is apparently on the way — could that be the Phone (4)? Maybe. Maybe not. The company seems to be choosing selective bets over squeezing an underwhelming successor into a bad market.

For fans of affordable hardware, the real story is broader than one model. It’s a reminder that component markets shape product road maps as much as engineering ambition — and that sometimes the smart move is to wait until the pieces line up.