Review the CMF Phone 2 Pro new phone from the CMF series : A new budget-friendly contender with a strong and distinctive personality and truly impressive features. The last feature will wow you!
To begin with, the CMF Phone 2 Pro is truly a controversial phone. It has received mixed reviews regarding its aesthetics and specifications. While opinions may vary regarding its appearance and somewhat modest internal components, its value appears to be seriously underwhelming! This device represents an attractive offering in the budget phone category.
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Table of contents
Detailed Review of the Phone: CMF Phone 2 Pro
1- Who is CMF? CMF is a budget-focused sub-brand of Nothing, which produces the Phone 2 Pro as the “Pro” version of its second smartphone, despite the lack of a standard “non-Pro” model. This naming may seem confusing.
The CMF Phone 2 Pro, priced at $279, is positioned as a budget device with a distinctive design and a delicate balance of features and compromises. The “Pro” designation appears to be primarily related to the triple-camera setup, giving it a look in line with the higher-end “Pro” models. However, other specifications may not fully reflect this designation. One of the most important features of this phone is that its look and feel exceed expectations given its price.
Let’s start with the Display and Build Quality:
The CMF Phone 2 Pro features a large, affordable AMOLED display with high brightness and a refresh rate appropriate for its price range. It also features an under-display fingerprint reader.
The display has an ultra-thin design, with relatively even bezels surrounding the screen and a slightly unobtrusive punch-hole for the selfie camera. Interestingly, despite housing a 5,000mAh battery, the phone maintains a relatively lightweight.
The back of the phone is made of thin plastic, allowing you to install the outer layer without feeling too thick in the hand. It’s of average quality compared to glass, but it offers good protection and a suitable thickness. With the addition of the second layer that comes with the phone, the design becomes more prominent, offering additional shock protection. It also comes with some beautiful, modern colors, including the option to transform the texture of the phone’s back into a light metal finish. The bottom part has a metallic texture, while other color options feature a full metal finish on the back.
Is the new design uncomfortable or unattractive to some?
In my personal opinion, the design is somewhat unattractive, but the phone is undoubtedly unique and significantly different from current phones in the same category. Some people love this type of phone, which features a flat back and protruding metal camera rings. While it may not be beautiful in the traditional sense, its uniqueness gives it a distinct character, contrasting sharply with the often homogeneous designs of flat-screen smartphones. The vibrant orange color enhances this unique character.
Question: Is the phone a significant advantage or a significant difference?
The CMF Phone 2 Pro offers a noticeable difference between phones that suffer from repetition and offer the same look and specifications. It offers a completely different type of phone, albeit with minor differences, such as improvements and modifications to the hardware and exterior appearance. Compared to the previous version, the CMF Pro 1, the back panel was also completely removable using screws, allowing for the installation of various accessories.
This year’s model retains four screws and a lower thumbscrew on the back. However, removing them doesn’t completely detach the back panel; rather, it allows for the installation of a separate “extra back cover.” This extra back cover is attached to the phone and secured with screws. This extra back cover provides built-in mounts for the camera lenses and a powerful MagSafe-compatible magnet.
One of the features I noticed about the phone is its strong magnets, which help you attach various accessories relatively securely compared to other flagship phones,You can also use all accessories easily, including standard MagSafe accessories and CMF’s own magnetic offerings, CMF has developed a wallet accessory that holds cards and also acts as a kickstand. Unlike some magnetic wallets that may seem insecure, this wallet, thanks to its powerful magnets, provides a secure hold on the phone, Although the phone lacks wireless charging, the MagSafe kit is very convenient for mounting the device on car dashboards, desk stands, or other magnetic mounts.
Other features: Easy-to-install lenses!
The additional back of the phone, the accessory, also features built-in mounts for camera lenses. CMF has released two compatible external lenses: a macro lens and a fisheye lens. These lenses attach directly above the 50MP main camera via mounting points on the back of the accessory.
This modular approach, centered around the back of the accessory with its built-in magnets and lens mounts, adds a touch of personality and customization. While the implementation differs from the previous generation and lacks backward compatibility (except for the lanyard attachment point), the concept itself is intriguing.
CMF Phone 2 Pro Specifications
| Feature | Specification |
|---|---|
| Model | CMF Phone 2 Pro |
| Price | $279 USD / ₹20,999 INR / £14,850 EGY (for 8GB/256GB) |
| Display |
|
| Processor | MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro (Performance comparable to Snapdragon 865) |
| RAM | 8GB (in reviewed configuration) |
| Storage | 256GB (in reviewed configuration). 128GB version available outside US. |
| Expandable Storage | Yes, MicroSD card slot |
| Rear Cameras |
|
| Front Camera | Hole-punch style (Megapixel count not specified in source) |
| Battery | 5,000 mAh |
| Wired Charging | 33W |
| Wireless Charging | No |
| Connectivity |
|
| Modularity / Build |
|
| Audio | Single bottom-firing speaker (Poor quality noted) |
| Haptics | “Pretty good” |
| Operating System | Nothing OS 3.2 (Based on Android, noted as clean, smooth, ad-free) |
| Optional Accessories |
|
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Camera & Accessories
1 – Camera
After personal experience, the accessories that come with the phone are somewhat good and of high quality. They include a micro lens that attaches to the phone, and a fisheye lens that attaches easily and produces a fisheye effect. The macro and fisheye lenses from CMF definitely work best. The macro lens allows you to take extremely close-up photos, although other phones offer similar or better results with dedicated built-in macro cameras. The fisheye lens offers a sleek and distinctive look, unlike many phones, but it adds bulk to the phone, which some find annoying.
The main camera performs well on its own, at 50 megapixels. However, I noticed that while shooting with the camera, images sometimes appear warm and sometimes pink, and it also suffers from overexposure at times. However, there aren’t many disastrous flaws.
The only disastrous flaw is the lack of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), which ruins photos in low light. Capturing photos is significantly slower, and the shutter speed is slow, causing shaky images when shooting in low light.
2 – Accessories
The zoom camera offers 2x optical zoom, which is extremely poor and impractical for everyday use. Other phones in the same category also offer 20x zoom.
The sensor is small in this phone, which significantly reduces light gathering and affects overall image quality, in exchange for a meager 2x zoom capability.
The ultra-wide camera offers a noticeably wider field of view than the main sensor and is convenient. However, it uses a small 8MP sensor, making it more of a functional add-on rather than a high-quality imaging option, taking up space on the phone and negatively impacting the processor’s image processing performance.
The external lenses ” fisheye & Micro”, while efficient, pose practical challenges. They are small, easy to lose, prone to fingerprints, and somewhat difficult to clean, which may reduce the likelihood of users carrying them and using them regularly, which makes them completely useless to some.
Conclusion
Now, if you’re thinking, ‘Alright, it’s a cheap phone, so there’s pretty much no chance the cameras are actually really good, but they’re probably just good enough in regular lighting to get a pass, and maybe the triple cameras are kind of just a stunt to get people to see it as more Pro.’ Uh, and then you’d be right.
The primary camera is a 50-megapixel sensor with no OIS. And yeah, it’s fine. Don’t expect to have your mind blown. It works, but like I said, some pink casting, it’s not going to do any miracles. Not a lot of depth of field or fast shutter speeds because of the lack of OIS. The telephoto is also only 2x, so it’s not a huge zoom, and it’s also on a much smaller sensor, so it’s sacrificing a lot of light and quality for not a lot of zoom. And then the ultrawide is, in fact, much wider than the main camera, so that’s good. But it’s also a tiny sensor and it’s just 8 megapixels, so it’s just kind of more of a fun to have, which I’ll accept. I’m, I’m glad it has an ultrawide at all.
In the meantime, though, for $279, I honestly wish this had like all of the bands in the US ’cause this would be even easier to recommend if it did. But especially elsewhere, I think this is the best budget phone out this year. I’m a fan.
There’s been a lot of action in like the mid-range phone price, like the $400 space, the iPhone 16e, the Pixel 9a, everything in there. But for sub-300, this is where it’s at.
