London-based Nothing launched the CMF Phone 1, the company’s first smartphone under its CMF by Nothing sub-brand, earlier today. It is still a 5G support, AMOLED screen, 50MP camera and a large 5000mAh battery, which we had seen in other Nothing Phones, but this has a completely new design, interchangeable back covers, and accessories.
Is this worth the price? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- CMF Phone 1 8GB + 128GB in Black colour
- USB Type-C to C cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- User manual and warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the CMF Phone 1 has a 6.67-inch Full HD+ rigid OLED display with a pixel resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of about 395 PPI. The display is bright, thanks to 700 nits (typical), and 2000 nits peak brightness, which is enabled when you are watching HDR content.
The phone has a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate display can switch between 60Hz and 120Hz. It has 240Hz touch sampling rate. When enabled, it offers a buttery smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming. It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube.
Under the display options, there are different options to adjust colours based on your preference. There is also a night light option that lets you reduce the display’s blue light emission, so it doesn’t cause eye strain when you are reading at night. There is Dark mode, similar to other Android phones.
It has an always-on display option, but it doesn’t offer a lot of customization, and is similar to the Pixel. It doesn’t have MEMC or DC Dimming option, but the company says that it has 960Hz PWM Dimming. The company doesn’t reveal which glass it uses.
The phone has a tiny centre punch-hole that houses a 16-megapixel camera. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge, but it doesn’t act as a secondary speaker.
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner. There is a small bezel below the display, but it is not uniform to the sides and the top, unlike the Nothing phones.
Coming to the button placements, the power button is present on the right side and the volume rockers are on the left side. The hybrid dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are on the bottom. The secondary microphone is on the top. The sides have a plastic finish.
The phone has a removable plastic back which can be removed by removing four screws. It takes a few minutes to remove it. The back in the black and light green colours have a smooth matte finish.
This is how the back looks when you remove the back cover, since the back cover has the side buttons as well. Due to the removable back cover, it only has IP52 ratings.
Back in the Blue and Orange colours have a vegan leather finish, so it is thicker at 9mm, and weighs 202g compared to the 8mm thickness and 197g weight in the standard model.
If you don’t want to get the colour model, the back covers that include the accessory point in the matching colour, and the matching SIM tray is available separately for Rs. 1499. This is a good idea if you are ready to spend more.
The fold-out stand is another interesting accessory that supports the phone in either landscape or portrait. It costs Rs. 799.
The Lanyard is easy to use with the hook and the ring. The card case snaps onto the phone with an attachment and can be attached and detached magnetically. It can hold up to 3 cards and allows for contactless payment through the case.
The CMF Phone 1 Stand, Lanyard, and Card Case cost Rs. 799 each.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with f/1.8 aperture, 1/1.95″ Sony IMX882 sensor
- 2MP portrait camera with SmartSens SC202 sensor, f/2.4 aperture
- 16MP front camera with GalaxyCore GC16B3 sensor f/2.0 aperture
The camera UI is similar to phones running Nothing OS 2.5 or above. There are options for Slo-mo, Video, Photo, Portrait and more option that has time-lapse, pano, and expert mode. The expert mode is pro mode, which lets you adjust white balance, focus, shutter speed (1/8000s to 32 seconds), and ISO (100 to 6400). It doesn’t have RAW option.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots came out well with good dynamic range and the images are natural-looking. After pixel binning technology, you get 12.5MP output. HDR shots are better with improved dynamic range. There is no ultra-wide camera.
The 16MP front camera is decent in daylight, and you get full 16MP output. Edge detection in portrait is good, thanks to the secondary camera. Lowlight camera performance is average, and the auto night mode helps to keep the noise low, but you can’t expect much in the price range.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos at 4k resolution at 30 fps from the rear camera, and the front camera has 1080p 60 fps video recording. It doesn’t have OIS, and EIS is manageable, but it brings down the resolution to 1080p. The front camera video quality takes a hit with bright background since it is completely blown out.
Software, UI and Apps
The CMF Phone 1 runs Android 14 out of the box, with Nothing OS 2.6 on top. It has May 2024 Android security patch. The company has promised 2 Android OS updates and 3 years of security patches, which is less compared to Nothing Phone. Apart from the fonts and UI, it gives a stock Android experience without any bloatware.
Nothing OS 2.0 brought customize grid design, widget size, and color themes, and has new folder layouts and illustrated covers. The Nothing OS 2.6 refines them. There are 30 widgets, and the Community Headlines Widget and Date Widget are new.
Out of 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, you get 7.4GB of usable RAM, and about 3GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It has up to 8GB of virtual RAM. Out of 128GB, you get about 107GB of free storage. Some countries have a 256GB version, which might launch in India later. Since this has a hybrid SIM slot, you can use the secondary SIM slot as a microSD slot, and it accepts cards up to 2TB. It has UFS 2.2 storage, which is common in the phones in the price range. Apart from the Google apps, it doesn’t have any third-party apps.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an in-display optical fingerprint sensor which immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor. You don’t get any animation options. The phone also has face unlock that can unlock the phone in seconds, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music Player and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player. It doesn’t have Dolby Atmos or any other custom audio features. Audio through the mono speaker is decent, but not loud. Audio through the headphones is good as well. This has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. The is HDR playback on YouTube, but not on Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with support for n1, n3, n5, n8, n28, n38, n40, n41, n77, n78 bands, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax (2.4 + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.3, GPS + GLONASS, but lacks NFC support. The phone also has carrier aggregation. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good, even though it is present on the top edge.
The CMF Phone 1’s body SAR is 1.17W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.19/Kg which higher than some mid-range phones, however it well under the limit in India, which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the first phone to use a Dimensity 7300 SoC in India. The successor of the Dimensity 7050 SoC has 4X Arm Cortex-A78 cores at up to 2.5GHz paired with 4X Arm Cortex-A55 cores. Compared to 6nm process in the Dimensity 7050, this uses TSMC’s 4nm process, offering up to 25% lower power consumption compared to the predecessor. The phone has vapor chamber liquid cooling, but the company doesn’t reveal the size.
The new Arm Mali-G615 GPU is decent for normal games, but it can’t handle high-end games. For the price, this is fine, since most phones only have Dimensity 6000 series and Snapdragon 6 series. Similar to the Pixel phones, there is Game mode and Game Dashboard.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.5% which is good. The temperature increased from 30 to 38 degrees, which is not much since the chip is not powerful. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
The Nothing Phone 2a is clearly better than the CMF Phone 1 when it comes to AnTuTu, and Geekbench 6 Single-Core benchmark, but the CMF Phone 1 scores in Geekbench 6 Multi-Core benchmark.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) built-in battery, same as the Nothing Phone 2a. Thanks to the optimization, it lasts for a day even with heavy use on 5G. With minimal use on Wi-Fi, it should last for 2 days. I got 6 to 7 hours of screen on time with over a day of use, with mixed use of mostly Wi-Fi and occasional 5G use in 120Hz. This is similar to Nothing Phone 2a.
With 33W fast charging, it can charge from 0 to 50% in about 20 minutes and up to 100% in over an hour with the official 33W fast charger. It doesn’t have wireless charging
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 15,999, the CMF Phone 1 offers most essentials that you need such as an AMOLED display which is good, smooth performance, Nothing OS without any bloatware, and a decent main camera. If you like to swap the rear covers, this is an added advantage. Wish it had stereo speakers, and a better front camera.
Pricing and availability
The CMF Phone 1 is priced at Rs. 15,999 for the 6GB + 128GB model and the 8GB + 128GB model costs Rs. 17,999. With Rs. 1000 bank discount on the first day of sale on Flipkart, it will be available at an effective price of Rs. 14,999.
It will be available from Flipkart and retail partners, with open sales commencing on July 12 at 12 noon.
Alternatives
If you spend a bit more, the iQOO Z9 8GB + 128GB model is a good alternative that offers a better gaming performance, OIS, and stereo speakers.
Pros
- Unique design with replaceable back covers, accessories
- 120Hz AMOLED display is good
- Smooth performance
- Main camera performance is decent
- Good battery life
Cons
- No stereo speakers
- IP52 ratings
- Average front camera for videos
With inputs from Siva Bharani