Our Verdict
The CMF Phone 1 is the most exciting budget handset in years. It's super stylish, extremely unique, and gives you a lot for your money. If you're seeking a budget smartphone that feels premium and stands out from the crowd, this is the one for you.
- Stylish modular design
- Slick user interface
- Fun accessories
- Decent performance
- Great value
- Only IP52 rated
- Single speaker
- Lackluster cameras
The CMF Phone 1 is the first phone from Nothing’s budget-friendly sub-brand, CMF, and when it was first announced, I was a little puzzled. After all, Nothing only recently launched the Phone (2a), which is already a very affordable handset. How much cheaper could the CMF Phone 1 be? And with such aggressive pricing, would it lose the fun and unique aspects that make Nothing devices so appealing?
Thankfully, the CMF Phone 1 has plenty of that signature Nothing style, plus some unique features that separate it from the rest of the budget market. This phone has a unique modular chassis, with exposed screws that allow for quick replacement of the rear casing, and an Accessory Point for attaching functional add-on parts.
The specs are impressive, too. It’s powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300, has a large impressive OLED display, a 50MP Sony main sensor, a huge battery, speedy charging, and Nothing’s stylish and lightweight operating system. It could be one of the best budget gaming phones of the year. So, to find out exactly what it’s like to live with, I stuffed it in my pocket for the week, and here’s what I found out.
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Price and availability
The CMF Phone 1 is available to purchase now from Nothing’s website and Amazon, in both the UK and Europe. The base model comes with 128GB of storage and retails for £209 / €239, the 256GB model goes for £239/ €269.
The CMF Phone 1 is only available through Nothing’s Beta Program in the US, and there’s no word on whether the device will go on general sale. If you enroll in the Beta Program, you can get your hands on the base model for just $199.
Specs
Features and software
The most unique thing about the CMF Phone 1 is its modular design. The rear panel has exposed screws, and with the help of a flathead screwdriver, you can completely change the way your phone looks in a matter of minutes.
I have the black version in for testing, which has a plastic rear casing with a matte finish. There’s also a light green version with a similar finish, meanwhile, the signature CMF bright orange option has a vegan leather textured rear panel.
In India, there’s the option to get the phone in a dark blue colorway with the same vegan leather backing, but that’s not an option in Europe. However, if that color appeals, you can just buy the rear casing and fit it yourself. Back panels cost £29 / €35 when you purchase them from the Nothing store.
There’s a large plastic knurled knob on the lower right-hand corner, and when I first saw it, I assumed it was going to be for volume control. In reality, though, it’s nothing that complicated. It’s essentially just another screw that keeps the back panel in place, but this one doesn’t require a tool for removal.
Nothing calls it the Accessory Point, and it’s used for attaching additional accessories to the back of the phone. Currently, there are three options: a kickstand, a lanyard, and a card case. All are sold separately and go for £19 / €25 each.
Honestly, it’s nothing too revolutionary in terms of utility. You could always get a regular phone case that does the same job as these accessories, but they’re very nicely designed, and it’s a fun feature that makes this phone stand out from the crowd.
Despite being easy to take apart, Nothing hasn’t designed the CMF Phone 1 with DIY repairability in mind, and I feel like that’s a missed opportunity. The inside of the phone has anti-tamper stickers that void your warranty, as well as hidden screws and glued-in parts. It’s certainly easier to get into than other phones, but actually repairing it will still require a skillful touch.
The Phone 1 runs Nothing OS 2.6, a skinned version of Android 14. This is the same software you find on Nothing’s other devices. It’s my first time living with it for an extended period, and I think it’s one of the CMF Phone 1’s greatest strengths.
Budget handsets often come crammed with bloatware to maximize profit, but that’s not the case here. Aside from a couple of Nothing apps, it’s completely bloat-free. It’s the cleanest install I’ve come across outside of Google’s Pixel lineup, and that’s a huge win at this price point.
Then, there’s the styling. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but I think it looks stunning. Nothing incorporates its iconic low-fi minimalist flair throughout the system, complete with dot-matrix style icons and fonts. There’s even an icon pack applied by default, which gives your apps a monochrome makeover.
There are lots of options for customization, and it’s easy to apply the signature Nothing wallpaper distortion to your own photos for a cohesive look. You’ll find plenty of widgets in a matching style, and I also appreciated the sheer volume of apps it allowed me to fit on one page.
It’s not all perfect, though. Nothing OS is still in its infancy, and that means the feature set is a little basic compared to competing brands. The thing that irked me the most is that there’s no way to organize apps in bulk.
When I transferred my data from my other phone, the system dumped all my apps on the homepage. That’s nothing unusual, I normally just remove them all and start fresh with my most-used apps, leaving everything else in the app drawer. But with no bulk removal option on this OS, doing so would take far too long, so I was left stuck with pages of unorganized clutter to deal with. It’s not a great look.
Design
The CMF Phone 1 has an iPhone-like shape, with a flat front and rear, and squared-off edges with curved corners. The lock button is on the right side and the volume rocker is on the left, which is also like an iPhone, and as an Android guy, that took a while to adapt to.
Despite having a plastic shell, the CMF Phone 1 has a premium form factor in the hand. It’s dense, weighty, and feels solidly constructed. The matte plastic material is impressive, too. Some matte black plastics can be fingerprint and smudge-magnets but that’s not the case with this material. It’s a lot like the PBT keycaps you’d find on a high-end mechanical keyboard.
I’m not too sure about the long-term durability of this material, I can already see a couple of minor scuffs on my review unit, and I haven’t dropped or mistreated it. On the plus side, it’s easily replaceable, so if it starts looking worse for wear, you can always buy another back panel.
A downside to this modularity is that the phone has a lower IP-rating than some of its competition. It’s only IP52, which means it’s protected from limited dust ingress and light sprays of water. It’s better than no rating, of course, but you’ll need to be careful with this phone if the weather gets too wild.
Display
The CMF Phone 1 has a large fully-flat display that measures 6.67 inches diagonally. It’s an OLED with an FHD+ resolution and a speedy 120Hz refresh rate. The refresh rate is adaptive but can only switch between 60Hz and 120Hz, so you might not see the same battery-saving effects as an LTPO panel.
It’s a really impressive display for the price point, and it can get plenty bright, boosting to 2,000 nits at peak. The only thing that gives away the phone’s budget status is the presence of some pretty chunky bezels on all sides. The chin is slightly larger than the other bezels, but it’s a marginal difference, and you have to be looking for it to notice.
Big bezels tend to give phones a bit of an outdated look, but for some reason, it’s less offensive on the CMF Phone 1. I think it kind of fits with the wider industrial, retro-futuristic look.
The display looks great. Colors are vibrant, blacks are dark and inky, and swiping through the OS appears nice and smooth. There are no proper HDR certifications for this panel, as far as I can tell, but HDR content looks great in the YouTube app. The highlights render with dazzling brightness while retaining lots of detail in the darker areas.
One thing I don’t like about this display is the fact that there’s a slight lip on the edges. It’s minuscule, and you can barely see it with the naked eye, but you feel it on your thumbs every time you make the back gesture by swiping from the side of the display. It’s the kind of thing you adjust to quickly, but switching to this phone from a curved edge display made it all the more jarring.
There’s an optical under-display fingerprint reader positioned towards the bottom of the screen, and I found that it worked just as reliably as any other. It’s positioned quite low on the panel, but you don’t have to strain to reach it, and it left me with no real complaints.
There’s only a single speaker on the CMF Phone 1, and it’s not too impressive, either. There’s a real lack of bass, so music sounds tinny, but voices come through clearly and there’s plenty of detail. It can get very loud, too, but given how it sounds, you aren’t likely to want to crank this up very often.
Cameras
It may appear as though the CMF Phone 1 has two cameras on its rear, but there’s only one proper camera. The other lens is actually a 2MP depth sensor that’s supposed to help with edge detection when using portrait mode.
I think the depth sensor is mainly there to give the appearance of an additional lens, as single-lens phones look pretty old-fashioned in 2024. You won’t find a depth sensor on many modern flagships, and that’s because you don’t really need one. Indeed, the results weren’t overly impressive here, despite the presence of this additional sensor.
The singular camera on the rear is a 50MP 1/1.95-inch Sony sensor with a 26mm equivalent lens and an f/1.8 aperture. The frame is slightly tighter than you’ll find on most main cameras, and there’s less distortion, too. I quite like this focal length. It gives a slightly different look to your typical smartphone snap.
Despite quite modest specifications, the main camera delivers very sleek results in the daylight. Images look natural and realistic, without excess sharpening and overly exaggerated colors. You can select between Natural and Vivid profiles, and I used Natural for the majority of my testing, but if you like a more poppy vibrant image, then Vivid is the way to go.
The camera app has a 2x button which applies a digital crop to the main camera. I’ve seen great results with these digital zooms on other camera systems, but it’s not the best here. The drop in quality is immediately apparent, and you’re better off physically moving closer than using the 2x mode. Of course, if you zoom further, it only gets worse.
The camera lacks optical image stabilization, so low-light shots are very prone to blurring. However, with a steady hand, and the help of night mode, you can get decent results. It’s not the best low-light performer but it’s respectable for the price point.
Around the front, you get a 16MP punch-hole selfie camera with a 24mm equivalent lens and f/2.0 aperture. The software also gives you the option to punch into a 29mm equivalent FOV and there’s not too much of a drop in quality when you do.
The selfie camera is decent, but it won’t surprise you too much. The best results are in daylight, where it takes well-balanced snaps with plenty of detail. At night, the selfie camera gets quite noisy, but I was happy to find that it’s less prone to blurring than the rear camera.
The CMF Phone 1 can capture videos at up to 4K 30fps on the rear camera, and up to 60fps in 1080p. The selfie camera can only shoot at up to 1080p resolution but also supports 60fps capture. The stabilization is solid and handles exposure well across the board.
Performance
The CMF Phone 1 runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 7300, paired with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. In India, there’s a 6GB variant, but that’s not available in Europe or the States. The phone also supports microSD card storage, so if you need a bit of extra space, it’s easy to add it in.
This is no flagship chip, but it still performs quite decently. It’s essentially the same SoC that powers the Oppo Reno 12 Pro, and it’s impressive to see it here at less than half the price.
Daily activities like web browsing, streaming content, browsing social media and video calling were all smooth and stutter-free throughout my testing. It’s only really when you boot up a game that you can start to see the difference between this model and something higher-end.
My usual test platform, Genshin Impact, defaulted to the lowest graphical preset at 30fps. Pushing it to the next tier resulted in frame drops and slowdowns, however, it can just about manage 60fps on the lowest preset – and it doesn’t heat up much in the process. Of course, if you prefer less graphically demanding titles, you’re in for a better time.
Nothing OS has a built-in game overlay, but don’t get too excited, because it’s the most basic one I have ever seen. Still, it allows you to toggle on Performance Mode, start a screen recording, block calls and notifications, and lock your brightness level. It’s simple stuff, but it’s all useful and free from gimmicks.
Battery
The CMF Phone 1 boasts a 5,000 mAh battery pack, just like you’d find on an ultra-pricey flagship model. The difference here is that it’s paired with a very efficient chip, so it’s likely to last even longer on a charge.
I often found myself ending the day with 40% or more capacity remaining, and if you’re a light user, two days on a single charge is quite possible. For most people, about a day and a half is more likely, but in any case, it should easily see you through the day.
The CMF Phone 1 supports wired charging at up to 33W, but as with other Nothing phones, no wall adapter comes in the box. With my Ugreen Nexode desktop charger, a 15-minute charge from flat resulted in a 30% battery. It’s not the fastest around but it’s a very decent showing. About an hour on the charger should get you from zero to fully charged.
There’s no wireless charging on this model, but that’s still pretty much unheard of in the price bracket. The phone offers 5W reverse wired charging, though. So if your earbuds die when you’re out and about, you can use the phone to charge them up again.
Should you buy the CMF Phone 1?
Most brands design their budget devices to appeal to the mass market, and they end up being quite boring as a result. The CMF Phone 1 is the exact opposite, it’s innovative, unique, and most importantly, fun. The modular design may not be game-changing in its utility, but it’s a very clever way to inject some playfulness without bumping up the price.
The CMF Phone 1 has been a delight to live with, and that’s not something I often say about phones that are this cheap. A big part of that is the software, aside from a few missing features, it feels like a premium experience, with zero bloat and exceptional styling. You also get a lovely display, a massive battery, and relatively quick charging, it’s a lot of phone for the price.
However, it’s not perfect. The cameras are fine, but they’re unlikely to impress you too much, and the same goes for the gaming performance. It’ll get the job done if you prefer 2D games, but if you’re into graphically demanding titles, you can find better performance elsewhere.
If you’re seeking a stylish smartphone that feels premium and doesn’t break the bank, the CMF Phone 1 is very easy to recommend. It’s the most exciting budget phone I’ve seen in years, and I think it’s exactly what this market segment was missing.
Alternatives
If you’re not sure that the CMF Phone 1 is right for you, here are a couple of other excellent budget handsets to check out.
Poco X6
The Poco X6 has a higher MSRP than the CMF Phone 1, but it can often be found at similar prices and outclasses the CMF Phone in a few key areas. It has stereo speakers, an IP54 rating, optical image stabilization on the main camera, an 8MP ultrawide, and 67W fast charging with the charger included in the box. Elsewhere the specs are pretty comparable, but Xiaomi’s software isn’t to everyone’s taste.
Redmi Note 13
Another option from the Xiaomi camp is the Redmi Note 13 Pro. Again, it’s a little more expensive, but frequent reductions narrow the gap. This phone also has stereo speakers, Dolby Vision support, and a main camera with a whopping 200MP resolution. Like the Poco, you get the same speedy 67W charging with a wall adapter in the box. If you want to know more about what Xiaomi has to offer, check out our guide to the best Xiaomi phones.