Mario Bautista
CMF Nothing Phone 1 review: Screwing around with a modular phone
Nothing has been making waves in the smartphone market for a few years now, with products like the Nothing Phone (2) and Nothing Phone (2a), which sport exceptional hardware at very affordable prices. Seeing an opportunity in the budget segment, the company came up with its sub-brand, CMF by Nothing.
CMF stands for Colour, Materials, and Finish. The company claimed it “aims to make great design more accessible while delivering an uncompromised user experience” by focusing on core product functionalities.
Initialy, the launched accessories, but earlier this year, CMF by Nothing finally launched its first phone, the CMF Phone 1. While it is an entry-level smartphone costing just S$369, it does come with flagship-esque features like a 120Hz refresh rate on the large 6.67-inch AMOLED display that can get up to 2,000-nits peak brightness, and a 50MP rear camera.
The TL;DR version:
The CMF Phone 1 might be the brand’s first phone, but it came out swinging hard with nice features like a 120Hz refresh rate, 50MP camera, and the slick Nothing OS for just S$369. The ability to swap out rear plates and accessories is just the cherry on top.
You can get the phone at Lazada, Shopee or Challenger.
The phone’s MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G processor powers it, and it can support up to 2TB of expandable memory via microSD. A large 5,000mAh battery inside supports 33W wired fast charging, and 5W wired reverse charging if you want to charge things like earbuds with your phone.
The most unique thing about the CMF Phone 1, however, is its semi-modular design that allows the user to switch out the back panel via the stainless steel screws or even attach accessories like a lanyard, card case and more.
Beyond its customisable gimmicks, does the CMF Phone 1 provide enough to be a compelling entry-level competitor? Let’s find out.
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Play with your bolt-ons
A large part of our design analysis will talk about its unique semi-modular design first.
When first hearing of the CMF Phone 1, most might have hoped for actual parts replacement, but unfortunately, it’s almost purely for aesthetic purposes. It offers minimal practical benefits, and you’ll see why below.
Because of how the back cover is made, swapping it around means that you essentially get a new rear plate, a new camera housing, and new side buttons. The good news is that if you drop your phone and dent or scuff the body, camera housing, or buttons, they can be easily remedied by replacing another back cover, and it’s reasonably priced, too (more on this later).
Aside from that, you also get the cool factor of switching up your phone’s colours, although that’s already possible with typical smartphones that have a myriad of phone cases to choose from.
CMF by Nothing’s back covers come in two different finishes. The Blue and Orange back covers have a vegan leather layer, while the Black and Light Green covers have a subtle texture embossed into the plastic. Both finishes look and feel nice, but I’m personally quite partial to the options with the vegan leather layer. Both back cover types have a matte finish and thus are fingerprint-proof and oil smudge resistant (to a certain extent), which is a nice change from the glossy glass or plastic backs.
You can buy the phone in different colours, although the Blue option is exclusive to India. That said, you can still buy the Blue rear plate as a standalone add-on in Singapore, so having the phone colour of your choice is not too much of a concern.
Before we go any further, let’s talk about changing your back cover or installing accessories.
Swap in, swap out
An official replacement back cover costs S$29, while an official accessory starts at S$19.
For back cover replacement, you first have to undo the four stainless steel screws on the back with the included screw tool in the box. After that, unscrew the larger thumb screw knob on the bottom right corner (pictured below in silverish-white).
At this point, use the screw tool to remove the SIM card tray from the phone before doing anything else. Carefully pry away the back cover, and you’re done.
From here on, you can clip on your replacement cover and follow the same order when putting everything back together:- screw in the four stainless screws, followed by the thumb screw knob, and finally, insert the new SIM card tray.
You’ll want to ensure the replacement cover is firmly clipped on with no gaps between it and the phone body. You can even mix and match parts for added flair like what I did with the coloured thumb screw knob above.
Accessories go onto the back of the phone, on top of the rear cover. Using the card case as an example, the three stainless screws on the case have to be removed along with the thumb screw knob before the card case can go onto the back. To accommodate the deeper set of grooves after stacking an accessory on, they come with longer screws. You also get a colour-matched orange thumb screw knob. It’s incredibly simple to attach, and most people who can follow simple instructions can get it right on the first try.
Punching above its weight
Moving on to the actual specs, we have a large 6.67-inch AMOLED display that can reach 2,000 nits peak brightness. It’s bright enough to ensure the screen stays legible under harsh sunlight. There’s also support for HDR10+, and content on the phone is nicely rendered with vibrant colours that pop.
There’s an “adaptive” refresh rate of up to 120Hz that only toggles between 60Hz and 120Hz. It can’t reach true energy savings thresholds like 10Hz or lower for the best battery efficiency, but at its price point, we’re not nitpicking. The phone comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage in Singapore, which isn’t too bad for its starting price. Not to mention, it’s one of the rare phones to still support expandable storage, so it’s a nice bonus.
Interestingly enough, CMF has qualified the phone for IP52 dust and water resistance rating despite its modular nature, which is impressive.
The CMF Phone 1 runs Nothing OS 2.6, which is Nothing’s Android 14 skin. As we’ve mentioned in previous reviews of Nothing’s phones, Nothing OS is clean and well-optimised with a coherent design language that makes it clear CMF is associated with its parent company.
There’s absolutely no bloatware on the phone, which starkly contrasts to other brands who love loading their mid-range (and even flagship) phones with unnecessary apps — thumbs up to Nothing and CMF towards simplicity and keeping it simple for its users.
Imaging
We know it’s an entry-level phone by virtue of its low price tag, but it’s still a little surprising to see that there’s essentially only one main camera on the rear.
This 50MP main camera offers an f/1.8 aperture, but there are no advanced Autofocus or image stabilisation features. The second cutout on the rear is for a 2MP depth sensor to help with portrait shots. While we respect CMF’s choices here, I reckon more people might have liked to see an ultra-wide lens instead for versatility.
That said, the lone camera’s photo quality is pretty decent. Main camera photos are pixel-binned to 12.5MP by default. Under good lighting conditions, you can get bright and vibrant colours with a good amount of detail retained, although this only holds up until you zoom into the images.
You can take photos in full 50MP mode, although you’ll need the best lighting conditions. Without pixel-binning helping to retain more light and detail, 50MP photos are generally dark and unusable in low-light light situations (or where you’re against a brightly lit background like in the second photo), while colours appear more washed out and desaturated.
There is a 2x digital zoom and the ability to crop all the way to 10x. However, images get very grainy at that point. For the best quality, we’d recommend not zooming in, if possible.
In low-light conditions or indoors, the phone’s Night mode does a decent job of brightening up the images while retaining relatively natural colours.
Benchmark Performance
The CMF Phone 1 uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G processor, which is a mid-range class 4nm chip that was debuted not too long ago. We are expecting reasonable performance figures for a phone of it class with decent energy efficiency, which we’ll assess below.
While we don’t have many phones tested under S$500 for a perfectly fair comparison, we’ll be pitting the CMF Phone 1 against higher-priced midrange phones such as the Vivo V30, Google Pixel 8a, Nothing Phone (2a), and the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G. These phones come with comparable processors from MediaTek’s 7000 series but are pricier.
Putting it to the test
To find out how the competitors line up specs and price-wise, check them out in this link.
To find out more about the tests we conduct and what they relate to, we’ve jotted them down here.
Benchmark Performance remarks
Considering that the CMF Phone 1 is around $150-400 cheaper than the comparisons drawn up, it performs admirably. The benchmark numbers hold up well to its competitors, although it still lags a little behind the Nothing Phone (2a), which won our Best Value award because it was impressive overall offering for its price point. The performance gap is bigger in some benchmarks when compared to the Google Pixel 8a, but that phone is also more than double price of the CMF Phone 1. Sure, you don’t get the advanced processing chops of the Google Pixel 8a and its AI photo editing functionality, but given the wide price berth, it’s reasonable to expect the CMF Phone 1 to fulfil more basic desires, which it does in our time with the phone.
Battery Life
Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test to determine a modern Android-based smartphone’s battery uptime in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage with a combination of both web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing (on documents), and more.
The CMF Phone 1’s battery life is fantastic, with a large 5,000mAh battery inside that allows the phone to reach very close to the Nothing Phone (2a) and Vivo V30’s jaw-dropping battery endurance figures.
There’s support for 33W wired charging and 5W reverse wired charging, although there’s no adapter provided in the box. Charging from 0-50% took 38 minutes, with a full charge from 0-100% completed in 108 minutes. There’s no wireless charging here, but that’s no surprise for an entry-level-priced phone.
Conclusion: Hard to say no at this price point
At S$369, the CMF Phone 1 is tough not to recommend if you’re looking for a cool Android phone for someone very young or if you’re just on a budget and need a safe option that’s tested by someone competent like HardwareZone. You get photos that are adequate for quick social sharing needs, decent performance in overall day-to-day usage, and a cool design inside and out that allows for self-expression and customization.
Its price point allows us to forgive the superficial modularity appeal, and the add-ons are cheaper than eating out in Singapore.
The battery life is fantastic; the large screen is nice for content consumption, expandable storage is present if the built-in storage is inadequate, and the slick Nothing OS is the cherry on top.
Even though the raw benchmark numbers can’t beat some competitors out there, the CMF Phone 1 returns the favour with an affordable price, water and dust protection, and a pleasant display to use.
While we cannot change the camera’s middling performance, the next closest alternative is the Nothing Phone (2a), which has appreciably better camera quality and more performance to boot.
If you have a strict phone budget and can’t spend more than S$400, the CMF Phone 1 should be your first port of call before considering other alternatives. You don’t have to participate in its ‘modular design’ revolution, but it’s a nice option to personalise the phone further while keeping it tasteful and making budget phones a tad more exciting, too.
CMF Phone 1 retails at S$369 and is available at CMF by Nothing’s Lazada and Shopee stores and at Challenger.
