Verdict
Nothing's CMF Watch Pro 2 is a major improvement over its predecessor, blending an attractive form factor with increased durability. The AMOLED screen is fantastic, returning with increased brightness capabilities and responsive haptic feedback to drive home the newly added crown. Improved applications make it a welcoming purchase for smartwatch newcomers, with more accurate fitness tracking than before at an affordable price point.
- Improved app designs
- Enhanced display clarity
- Crown eases use
- Build quality
- Frustrating yet rare reboot issues
- Lack of watch dial customization options
The sophomore effort is important across any medium, isn’t it? Whether it is Foo Fighters following up their self-titled album with The Colour and The Shape, or John Wick 2 eclipsing its predecessor, sticking the landing is crucial. The Nothing CMF Watch Pro 2 does just that, taking everything that made its first iteration excellent, and doubling down on Nothing’s fantastic approach to affordable wearables.
Last year I got hold of Nothing’s debut wearable and spent a couple of months with it before diving into my CMF Watch Pro review. For less than $60/£60 on Amazon, it’s a solid smartwatch but has plenty of room to improve. That’s where the CMF Watch Pro 2 steps up to the plate. There’s a jump to a traditional round form factor, rather than the more rectangular Apple Watch design. This is a sleek, modern accessory, merging minimalist aluminum alloy with comfortable liquid silicone straps. Opting for the silver colorway this time, the CMF Watch Pro 2’s design effortlessly ties into my outfit choices.
Nothing increases the color schemes available on this watch, giving you the option to choose between silver, dark grey, blue, and orange. To take it one step further, the CMF Watch Pro 2 features detachable bezels, allowing me to try out different styles and colors on the fly. All I needed to do was twist the bezel anti-clockwise, and it came off with ease. Nothing currently sells its own line of bezels and straps, but third-party accessory brands have already entered the market.
The bezel wraps around a 1.32-inch AMOLED display, retaining the same level of crisp display goodness from the CMF Watch Pro. It’s a sharp screen with a 60 FPS refresh rate and a higher PPI count of 353, making each interaction a velvety experience.
Brightness gets a boost too, reaching 620 nits, ensuring I can see the screen at all times of the day. Even in the harshest sunlight, I found the screen easily visible. However, if you tend to wear polarized sunglasses like myself, you will struggle to read your notifications. I’ve found this smartwatch to be far better on the scratch front too, even after knocking it on my desk or catching it by accident in public. It even survived the great BBQ sauce spill of last Saturday night while chowing down, just in case you were planning to get down and dirty. The ability to resist wear and tear was a major pain point for the CMF Watch Pro, and I’m glad to see it refined here, although it still doesn’t match some of the best smartwatches.
Nevertheless, this increased durability factor is a huge plus for a budget-friendly accessory that retails for $69.99/£69.99. Personalization isn’t drastically different from the CMF Watch Pro, and the customization options within the CMF Watch app are still quite weak. Creating your dial is disappointingly basic, with no toggles to add widgets like calorie counting, or steps taken. Instead, Nothing’s array of 100+ dials is there to fill the void. Most of them are decent, but it’d be nice to see more creative additions in the future. Using the watch is better than ever, though.
The CMF Watch Pro 2 introduces a functional crown, which can navigate onboard applications, notifications, and settings. There’s pleasing haptic feedback accompanying its every move, reinforcing this tactile implementation. Because of the redesigned form factor, apps within the watch have a new look, largely for the better. Measuring my heart rate and resting BPM has been a boon for me on my journey to get healthier, and has actually been crucial to providing timestamped information at GP visits.
After all, the core purpose of the CMF Watch Pro 2 is to aid fitness in a no-nonsense manner. Nothing excels at this tenfold. Nearly every app has a new, informative design, accompanied by new widgets that you can access by swiping right or left on the home screen. I’d still like to see applications for aspects such as blood pressure diaries, though. My preferred setup is to combine the music widget with steps taken, and an exercise type to track my exact GPS route.
What stands out immensely is how much more accurate this watch is compared to the CMF Watch Pro. I often found sleep tracking to be largely unhelpful, and step counting to be somewhat troublesome. This isn’t a problem, thankfully, with calories burned and walks taken displayed with closer precision than before. Paired with its exceptionally generous battery life, I’ve only charged the CMF Watch Pro 2 to 100% three times within the first month of use.
Depending on how you use the wearable, Nothing juices it enough to last up to 11 days. I’ve rarely faced any complications during my time with the CMF Watch Pro 2, but I have had to forcibly restart it or boot it up completely after it failed to register tracking data properly. Frustratingly, this would lose all my step data. While it is an infrequent issue, there’s always the hope that Nothing can patch it out in a software update.
Improving on almost everything that came before, the CMF Watch Pro 2 serves as another testament to Nothing’s vision of affordable technology, that packs premium features for a fraction of its rival’s cost. It’s gorgeous to look at aesthetically, streamlined functionally, and a superb choice for smartwatch newcomers, or seasoned collectors. If anything, I can’t wait to see what Nothing does with a potential successor.
There you have it, our CMF Watch Pro 2 review. For more great buying advice while you’re here, check out our picks for the best gaming phones and the best gaming tablets, with options to suit all needs and budgets. You can also check out our Nothing Phone 2 review and Nothing Phone 2(a) review, too. Or, if you’re feeling a little nostalgic, turn back the clock with our list of the best retro handhelds.