Nothing Phone 3 Fake Camera Samples: Co-Founder Issues Clarification, Says Investigation Underway

The Nothing Phone 3 was launched in India and other markets last month, with a 50-megapixel triple rear camera setup. The UK-based firm recently courted controversy after a screen recording from a retail demo unit in New Zealand of the smartphone was shared online, showing several camera samples claimed to have been taken with the phone's camera. However, this turned out to be a false claim, as these images were sourced from a stock photo website. The company's co-founder acknowledged the issue and offered a clarification on Wednesday.

Nothing Phone 3 Alleged Fake Camera Samples Were “An Unfortunate Oversight”

A photographer, whose licensable image was allegedly represented as Nothing Phone 3 camera samples, anonymously reached out to Android Authority, saying that the stock photo can be downloaded from a marketplace called Stills. The screen recording purportedly showed five photos as part of the on-device promo, which claims that they were clicked by Nothing community members using the Nothing Phone 3.

Another photographer, Roman Fox, reportedly claimed that a Fujifilm XH2S camera was used to click one of the images that the company portrayed as a Nothing Phone 3 camera sample. The image, Fox allegedly claimed, was captured in Paris in 2023, long before the smartphone was unveiled by the UK-based technology firm.

The report states that the Carl Pei-led company did pay the photographers to license their images for use. However, the same photos were misrepresented as camera samples from Nothing Phone 3.

Nothing Co-Founder and President of India Operations, Akis Evangelidis, posted an explanation on X (formerly Twitter), calling it “an unfortunate oversight”. Evangelidis said that the stock images used in Nothing Phone 3 live demo units in “some stores” were initially submitted as “placeholders” about four months before the official unveiling, as the phone was entering the mass production phase.

Once the handset enters this phase, he further explained, the stock pictures are replaced with the photo samples, along with the live renders and videos of the phone, which are then used for advertising.

However, in this case, this protocol was not adhered to for some live demo units of the Nothing Phone. The co-founder of the UK-based tech firm claimed that the company is “actively rectifying this” while working with its promoters to ensure that these stock images are replaced simultaneously. Nothing has also launched an internal investigation to ensure that such an oversight is not repeated in the future.

The Nothing Phone 3 was launched in India on July 1 and the handset is equipped with a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip and a triple rear camera setup. It has a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 50-megapixel periscope telephoto camera and 3x optical zoom, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera. On the front, it ships with another 50-megapixel camera for selfies and video calls.