Nothing CMF Phone 1 review: Budget-friendly but high on customization
Summary
Nothing's CMF Phone 1 stands out in a tough segment thanks to its design, clean software, performance and ability to grow the ecosystem of compatible accessories
Cheap equals boring. Budget equals dull. One has come to accept this of the truly budget phone segment, where design flourishes, attention to detail and character are sacrificed at the altar of phones with cookie-cutter hardware and uninspiring software. Budget phones do one thing alone above all else - hit that price point.
With the Phone 1 (starting from ₹15,999), Nothing’s sub-brand CMF has taken the road less travelled and delivered a rather unique style and design identity, not unlike previous products in the CMF portfolio. You’re not going to confuse this phone with anything you’ve seen before. It all starts with a little twist in the tale.
Build and design
That twist in the tale comes via an innocuous circular dial on the bottom right of the rear panel which, along with the four exposed stainless-steel screws, not only give the Phone 1 a seriously industrial look (a tinkerer’s aesthetic, if you will) but also hint at the phone’s modular nature.
Take a regular flathead screwdriver to each of the four screws, rotate the circular dial till it comes off and then, with the slightest of effort, the removable back panel completely comes off, ready to be replaced by one of the other blue, orange or light green color options (black is the default for units selling in India). Each case ( ₹1,499) comes with its own color coordinated circular dial, SIM card slot, screws and a tiny screwdriver-cum-SIM eject tool. There are the slightest textural differences between them, with the Blue and Orange offering a vegan leather finish to the panel.
Also read: Nothing Ear and Ear (a) review: Enjoyable listening experience
Removable back panels on phones used to be quite the rage a long time ago, but it’s been so long that CMF’s approach feels fresh all over again. Plus, it’s handy if you end up dropping and damaging one of the covers. Just don’t expect to do this every day to match your fit – it’s a fiddly process, particularly if you use the tiny, bundled screwdriver to get a proper grip on the rather shallow grooves.
Betting on accessories
Then again, CMF could have just called it a day with swappable back covers, but if you unscrew the circular dial (the "Accessory Point" as the brand calls it), you can attach from among one of three first-party accessories, all of which can be picked up for ₹799 each – a seriously hiking-grade lanyard to sling your Phone 1, a fold-out stand to prop up your phone for content consumption and video calls, and a card case that fits in a number of credit cards or a bit of cash and magnetically attaches itself onto a magnetic plate. They’re all quality accessories in that signature CMF Orange – like I said, you’re not going to mistake this phone for anything else on the market.
That said, one might just feel a removable first-party case that’s approximately ten percent the price of a phone is a bit much, but I fully expect this market to be quickly served by a number of third-party players, and the mind boggles at the possibilities of what one can do with a removable back, in terms of screw-on mounts (like a camera grip, or one with a built-in strap).
In the hand, the phone is certainly sizable, but it’s comfortable to grip and lightweight (197g-202g) to hold, not to mention a lot more premium than the price would suggest. Expectedly due to its non-sealed design, water and dust protection is only at IP52 levels, rated for minor splashes, but I do expect it would be far easier to service as a result. There’s no charger in the box, but you can pick up the 33W CMF Power Charger for ₹799 if you purchase the phone on Flipkart.
Display
Continuing the feel of getting a great bang for your buck, there’s a 6.67-inch full HD+ AMOLED panel on the front with an adaptive 60 Hz/ 120Hz refresh rate. It’s saturated, vibrant and likely among the best displays I’ve seen on sub-20,000-rupee phones. It’s rated at 2000 nits of peak brightness, with a typical brightness of between 500 and 700 nits, which means it isn’t the brightest display around but it’s perfectly usable in all but the brightest of outdoors.
There’s high-definition streaming support on OTT platforms, although HDR streaming on Netflix was missing. It has a built-in under-display optical fingerprint sensor as well, which works snappily for the most part. While the display doesn’t disappoint in every day browsing, media consumption or gaming, the reality check of its price point comes by way of a few small details - the bezels aren’t the slimmest, the bottom firing mono speaker is loud but sadly not stereo and a little bit flat.
Operating system
Yet, to me, the design and the display take the attention away from what is the CMF Phone 1’s most understated strength: the same bloatware-free, fluid-to-use and immediately recognizable Nothing OS atop Android 14 (currently at OS 2.6 and a July security update). All the same dot-matrix themes and widgets, the useful ChatGPT integration, and none of that ‘we must pack the phone with marketing tie-ins to subsidize the price’ logic at work. The two years of major Android updates and three years of security patches isn’t great though, as far as software support on a modern Android device goes.
The phone runs a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chip with 6GB or 8GB ( ₹17,999) of memory and a standard 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage, with the latter expandable to up to 2TB if you forgo a second SIM card for a microSD card. If you temper your expectations about performance, the phone will not disappoint one bit, running most games (not called Call of Duty or Genshin Impact) you’ll want to play, just not in their ultra graphics settings. The phone manages its heat output well too, without any major stutters or throttling, and battery life – with its 5000mAh cell – is respectable. With some degree of light use (WhatsApp, browsing, calls and a few photos across the day), the phone lasted nearly two days on a full charge with well past 7 hours of screen time. The 33W charging isn’t the fastest on the block, and it takes well over an hour to charge it completely.
Cameras
Encased in its metallic module on the rear, the CMF Phone 1’s camera set up is the most retro throwback of all, back to a time when the primary sensor was paired with a second depth/portrait sensor. Yep, no ultrawide camera, just a single 50MP Sony IMX882 sensor sans optical image stabilization. The single shooter does well to hold its own, with sharp and detailed daylight landscape shots, with strong HDR performance and somewhat usable low light shots with little to no motion blur.
Despite the depth sensor, the portraits and the edge detection were rather average, particularly on objects with smooth edges. The 2X in-sensor crop is good as well, as is the 4K 30 fps video from the rear camera, but if there’s something about this phone that feels hamstrung on account of its pricing, it’s the camera. Sure, it’s forgivable given the price, but less so on account of how good the rest of the package is.
Verdict
Given how cut-throat the segment is, Nothing and CMF have done well to differentiate the Phone 1 strongly on design, software, performance and its unmatched ability to grow the ecosystem of compatible accessories. Where the regular Nothing phones can be spotted a mile away with their Glyph lights, the CMF Phone 1 will stand out as well, particularly if you splurge a bit on its accessories. And even once the novelty of the ‘Accessory Point’ wears off, the phone feels well put together, both on hardware and software.
If you can look past its average cameras and slower charging speeds, the CMF Phone 1 by Nothing makes a strong case for itself.
Tushar Kanwar, a tech columnist and commentator, posts @2shar.
