Introduction: NOTHING CMF Phone 1
Nothing is a London based Private limited company, founded on October 29, 2020. Nothing is a relatively new brand with its three smartphone released till now. CMF is even more recent; it’s a sub-brand of Nothing, released its first smartphone, “Nothing CMF Phone 1” on July 09, 2024.
Nothing Phone 2a seems to have a lot of similarities with the CMF Phone 1, but it offers a totally unique style and design language of its own. Nothing markets the design and quality as the main pillars of the CMF Phone 1. The phone is partly modular, with a back cover that can be screwed off by the customer to change the colored case and a port in one corner where accessories can be added. The design also looks quite industrial, especially with the visible stainless steel screws on the back. CMF refers to it as “engineer’s aesthetics“.
The whole deal with the screws is that they are actually functional, Unscrew them and you can swap out the back plate. This customizability option gives the flexibility for repairability since any damage to the rear sides of the phone is easily addressable. Changing the backpannel gives us the nostalgic feeling about that era when we could open the backpannel and even could change the batteries too. Now let’s see what specs we are getting with this artsy look:
DESIGN and DISPLAY of CMF Phone 1:
The design of the CMF phone 1 describes of its unique and eye catching looks. The CMF phone 1 comes in a rotatable and detachable dial/wheel with four exposed screws around the edges of the back panel, and a dual-camera setup on an elevated bump in the upper left corner, to give the CMF Phone 1 a distinctive mechanical design. The CMF Phone 1’s exterior is made entirely of plastic yet it feels sturdy and resilient. Extra grip is added for prolonged use even with wet hands thanks to the matte plastic frame design and textured back panel. But the smartphone is heavy and its attractiveness is somewhat diminished by the thick bezels around the screen.
The CMF Phone 1 has a flat 6.67-inch AMOLED display which is large enough for everyday tasks and offers generally good picture quality. Though clear and sharp but somewhere the image lacks vibrancy, probably because the displays slightly warmer tone reduces the overall richness of color. The screen has about 2,000 nits of peak brightness with a typical brightness value between 500 and 700 nits. The screen of the CMF phone 1 is good enough for everyday work social media and movie watching. The 120Hz refresh rate of the CMF phone 1 provides improved experience and becomes more fluid and smooth while multi-tasking.
CAMERA PERFORMANCE of CMF Phone 1:
The CMF Phone 1 sports a 50 mp f/1.8 Sony primary camera sensor aided by a 2mp f/2.4 depth sensor. While the sensor of the Phone doesn’t lose color accuracy in low light but at night time it does soften certain areas of the images. In portrait orientation the edge detection is very good for a budget smartphone.
This phone brightens and softens facial details in artificial lighting to compensate for the limitations of the sensor. The 16MP (f/2.0) front-facing camera of the Phone takes good selfies during the day but it has trouble focusing consistently in dim light which makes the images look grainy and uninteresting.
The CMF Phone 1 can record 1080p videos at up to 60fps and 4K videos at 30 fps. Additionally it has the option to record in HDR but it can only record in 1080p at 30fps. The front camera of the Phone has an HDR recording option and can record at up to 60fps in 1080p. Overall, The CMF Phone 1 can shoot decent videos through all its sensors with an average sound quality output.
SOFTWARE and CHIPSET PERFORMANCE of CMF Phone 1:
The CMF Phone 1 delivers good performance for its price, thanks to its 2.5Ghz MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G (4nm) chipset which is not usually found in smartphones under Rs.20000. This smartphone makes it easy to browse the web, play light games and browse social media. Additionally it functions well when playing graphically demanding games like Real Racing 3. The RAM Booster technology from NOTHING adds 8GB of RAM to the smartphones that enhances performance when doing demanding tasks. Furthermore, NOTHING has been able to control the smartphones heat well enough to prevent it from ever getting too hot.
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Coming down to the software, it is amazing that Nothing has not equipped the CMF Phone 1 with a rudimentary version of NothingOS. Alternatively the smartphone has the same simple bloatware-free user interface found on more expensive Nothing smartphones. Comparable to the Nothing Phone 2a the CMF Phone 1 gives users an option between Nothing’s proprietary UI NothingOS 2.6 and the stock Android interface.
BATTERY PERFORMANCE of CMF Phone 1:
The CMF phone 1 comes with a 5000mAh built-in battery, same as the Nothing Phone 2a. It easily lasts for a day even with heavy use on 5G. Though the smartphone does not come with a charger but it does support 33W fast charging which must be brought separately, manages the phone to charge 50 percent in roughly 20 minutes. It doesn’t have wireless charging.
Verdict – The CMF Phone 1 comes in three memory variants. The base variant comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It costs INR 15,999 in India.
In this price range, there are plenty of interesting alternatives compare to the CMF Phone 1 to consider which provides good value for money. Some of the major drawbacks of CMF phone 1 are like, it has an ip52 ingress protection rating, it lacks the OIS in camera and even It doesn’t provide any charger in the box which is compulsory for this price segment. As we can see, aesthetics are the core element of the CMF Phone 1. It doesn’t shine in any particular area like cameras or software but it’s a good all around phone with its unique design and build quality.
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