Nothing’s sub-brand CMF (Colour Material Finish) is shaking up the Indian smartphone market with its first release, the CMF Phone 1. Tailored for budget-conscious buyers, this phone is all about eye-catching design and affordability. But does the CMF Phone 1 offer more than just good looks? Does the CMF Phone 1 phone have enough to take on competition? Dive into our CMF Phone 1 review to find out.
Nothing CMF Phone 1 Review Pros and Cons
Pros
- Reliable performance
- Unique Customizable Design
- Clean UI
- Good primary camera
- Long-lasting battery with fast charging
Cons
- No NFC
- No eSIM support
- No Ultra-wide camera
- Sub-par IP rating
CMF Phone 1 Review - Design & Build
The CMF Phone 1 boasts a standout design, especially from the back, with its industrial look featuring visible stainless steel screws. These screws aren’t just for show—they secure the removable back panel, allowing for easy swapping. Despite missing the Glyph Interface of its parent brand, the CMF Phone 1’s creative design, with interchangeable back panels, deserves attention.
The back panel is firmly secured with screws, a SIM ejector tray, and a rotating wheel screw, allowing for accessory attachments like a kickstand, card holder, or lanyard. These accessories are sold separately for Rs 799 each, while panels in Orange, Light Green, and Blue (exclusive to India) are priced at Rs 1,499. The Blue and Orange panels feature a vegan leather finish and are 1mm thicker than the regular ones.
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Available back covers include Black, Light Green, Orange, and Blue. Black and Light Green have a textured plastic finish, while Blue and Orange have a vegan leather layer. Both styles offer a good grip and resist dirt and fingerprints, though the screws can gather grime. The back’s standout feature is the circular “Accessory Point” for attaching additional accessories. Current accessories include a lanyard, stand, and card case, with the latter featuring a detachable magnetic wallet.
The CMF Phone 1’s build includes a plastic replaceable back and a reinforced metal camera island, with an unspecified glass finish on the front. It offers IP52 splash resistance and feels solid with no chassis flex. The phone’s design features nicely curved edges and a unique control layout, with a left-side volume rocker and right-side power button.
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It includes a single bottom-firing speaker, no 3.5mm audio jack, and a hybrid SIM tray for either a second nano-SIM or a microSD card. An under-display optical fingerprint reader is both snappy and accurate. The front bezels are modest, not excessive.
CMF Phone 1 Review - Display
The CMF Phone 1 has a 6.67-inch Full HD+ LTPS AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, a 20:9 aspect ratio, and a pixel density of about 395 PPI. It is an 8-bit colour panel that bears a centered punch-hole setup for the selfie camera. The phone’s 120Hz adaptive refresh rate switches between 60Hz and 120Hz, complemented by a 240Hz touch sampling rate for smooth scrolling and gaming. It supports HDR 10+ for enhanced video quality on platforms like YouTube. It boasts a brightness of 700 nits (typical) and peaks at 2000 nits for HDR content, ensuring a vibrant viewing experience.
The display quality is typical of what you get in the price range. The outdoor visibility is decent, if not impressive, making media consumption slightly difficult under direct sunlight. Colour calibration is somewhat boosted but remains vibrant, with a high contrast ratio and deep blacks. he 120Hz refresh rate on the CMF Phone 1 works smoothly across the UI and supported apps. With Widevine L1 certification, it ensures HD streaming from Netflix and other OTT platforms. While it lacks MEMC and DC Dimming, it does have 960Hz PWM Dimming. The type of glass used remains unspecified by the company.
CMF Phone 1 Review - Cameras
The CMF Phone 1 features a dual rear camera setup with a 50MP primary sensor and a portrait sensor with an f/1.8 aperture lens. For selfies, it has a 16MP camera in a punch-hole setup. While standard for its segment, the CMF Phone 1 stands out with impressive camera performance in well-lit environments, though post-processing can be slow.
Daylight photos with the 50MP main camera (default 12.5MP binned resolution) have nice colors, good contrast, and dynamic range. Details are solid, though not very sharp up close. Human subjects are captured well with natural skin tones, and portrait shots are decent with excellent background blur, despite occasional subject detection slips. The AI Vivid mode enhances contrast and color saturation slightly, for a more vibrant look.
Capturing at the full 50MP resolution doesn’t add noticeable detail and looks like upscaling. There’s no dedicated telephoto camera, but the 2x zoom mode in the camera UI results in soft, fuzzy images, though colors and contrast remain consistent with 1x mode.
In low-light conditions, the main camera performs well with detailed, low-noise images and natural colors. HDR stacking helps develop both darker areas and highlights without blowing out light sources. Disabling night mode processing results in cleaner images but clipped light sources.
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CMF Phone 1 Review - Performance and Software
The CMF Phone 1’s software, running Nothing OS 2.6 on Android 14, offers a clean, minimal experience with fewer pre-installed apps than rivals. Users can switch between Android’s Material UI and NothingOS themes, the latter providing a unique black-and-white UI. The Nothing Icon Pack isn’t pre-installed, causing some third-party app icons to appear in color, but it can be downloaded from the Play Store for consistency. Nothing promises two years of major software updates and an additional year of security updates.
Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300, the CMF Phone 1 features an octa-core setup with 4x 2.5 GHz Cortex-A78 and 4x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores, along with a Mali-G615 GPU, built on a 4nm process. It comes in 6GB RAM + 128GB and 8GB RAM + 128GB UFS 2.2 storage configurations, with RAM expandable virtually up to 16GB and storage expandable up to 2TB via microSD. While it performs well in synthetic benchmarks, it falls short of the Dimensity 7200’s AnTuTu and Geekbench scores.
The CMF Phone 1 manages heat efficiently with an elaborate liquid cooling system, including a heat pipe and graphite sheets. The thermal-throttling curve is gentle, ensuring no major stutters or slowdowns, and the device remains lukewarm to the touch. It handles regular usage and gaming smoothly, with no app freezes or crashes. Even running BGMI at HDR graphics and Ultra frame rate settings was seamless, with only a minor temperature increase and an average of 37.06 FPS, outperforming many competitors.
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CMF Phone 1 Review - Battery and Charging
The CMF Phone 1 packs a 5000mAh battery, similar to the Nothing Phone 2a. With its optimization, it easily lasts a day on heavy 5G use and up to two days with minimal use on Wi-Fi. During my mixed use of Wi-Fi and occasional 5G at 120Hz, I got 6 to 7 hours of screen-on time over a day.
The phone supports 33W fast charging but you will have to buy the charger separately. It goes from 0 to 50% in about 20 minutes and to 100% in just over an hour with the official charger. However, it doesn’t support wireless charging.
Review Verdict: Should You Buy the Nothing CMF Phone 1 5G?
Smartprix Rating: 8/10
Design and Build:
Display and Speakers
Software
Performance
Camera
Battery Life and Charging
8.2/10
7.7/10
8/10
8/10
7.5/10
8/10
The CMF Phone 1 starts at Rs 15,999 for the 6GB RAM and 128GB storage variant, with the top-end 8GB RAM option priced at Rs 17,999. The Phone 1 stands out with its innovative design and accessory attachments, offering unmatched versatility in the market. Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 SoC, it delivers swift performance, and its clean software provides a user-friendly experience. However, it has minimal ingress protection, a single unimpressive speaker, no NFC, and no charger in the box. If these aren’t deal-breakers for you, the CMF Phone 1 is a solid choice. For those prioritizing a better camera, speakers, and fast charging, the Realme P1 is a worthy alternative.
First reviewed in July 2024.
