CMF by Nothing has once again proven that it is the IKEA of gadgets with the new Phone 1, Watch Pro 2 and Buds Pro 2, all of which feature fun designs combined with temptingly affordable prices.
Nothing’s sub-brand CMF, which launched in 2023, continues its cheap-but-cheerful theme with this new trio of releases. The Phone 1, in particular, offers a lot (in theory) for its $199 / £179 / AU$399 price tag, making it a strong contender for our guide to the best budget phones.
As for the specs, the phone (1) sports a 6.67-inch AMOLED display (with a 120Hz refresh rate) and runs Android 14, which is covered by Nothing OS. The camera setup is also promising for the price, with a 50MP f/1.8 main camera that includes a depth sensor for portrait shots and is joined by a 16MP selfie camera.
Otherwise, performance shouldn't differ radically from the Nothing Phone 2a, thanks to a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chip and a 5,000 mAh battery. Base storage is also 128 GB and it has IP52 water resistance, meaning it will be able to withstand the odd splash.
Perhaps most interestingly, the CMF Phone 1 also has a removable back cover. This means you can unscrew the original cover and replace it with other covers to give it a new look. Sadly, you can't swap out components like the battery, meaning the Phone 1 doesn't go as far as the Fairphone, but it's a neat feature nonetheless.
You can pre-order the CMF Phone 1 from Nothing’s website now in black, orange, or light green for $199 / £179 / AU$399 (for the 128GB / 8GB RAM version), with shipping planned for July 12. It’s worth noting, however, that the phone is being sold through a “beta program” in the US, as it’s not yet fully optimized for US cellular networks.
If you're looking for an affordable smartwatch or a pair of wireless earbuds, Nothing's CMF sub-brand may also be your best bet. The CMF Watch Pro 2 is the sequel to last year's debut model. For reference, our review of the CMF Watch Pro concluded that it was “a great value smartwatch, but not a perfect one.”
As you'd expect from the $69, £69 or AU$119 price tag, the Watch Pro 2 doesn't include Google's Wear OS, meaning no third-party apps come with it. But it does promise basic smartwatch features such as heart rate tracking alongside sleep, stress and blood oxygen saturation monitoring (the latter of which measures blood oxygen saturation levels).
Impressively, you also get GPS tracking, plus the promise of an 11-day battery life. Like the Phone 1, there’s also an intriguing customisation feature with the option of swappable bezels. Throw in a 1.32-inch AMOLED display with auto-brightness (missing on its predecessor), and you’ve got another contender for our guide to the best cheap smartwatches – provided Nothing has fixed the phone connectivity issues that blighted the previous version.
Finally, there are the new Buds Pro 2, which are the follow-up to the brand's original wireless earbuds from last year. The main upgrade is improved active noise cancellation, which now blocks sound up to 50db (up from 45db), plus a claim that sound quality has improved.
Design-wise, there’s also a new case with an integrated dial, which lets you control the volume of the earbuds and noise cancellation and activate ChatGPT. That’s right. Like the Nothing Ear (a), which featured in our guide to the best tech of 2024 so far, the Buds Pro 2 have ChatGPT integration, which lets you connect to the AI assistant on your phone CMF or Nothing.
The Buds Pro 2 cost $59, £59 or AU$99 and are available in orange, dark grey, light grey and blue. They are expected to ship very soon, on July 12.
They are cheap, but are they good?
The CMF by Nothing brand deserves a lot of credit for bringing fun, playful design to budget phones, headphones, and smartwatches. On paper, all of the new releases seem to be good value for money, though naturally there will be limitations at those price points.
We haven't tested the CMF Phone 1, Watch Pro 2, or Buds Pro 2 yet, but we did look at some of their predecessors and spiritual ancestors, and they're still good guides to what to expect.
Our review of the CMF Watch Pro praised its design and claimed there was a “premium sheen to everything” from the hardware to the software. But we also found its Bluetooth connectivity to be spotty, which made notifications a pain, and it’s worth bearing in mind that you don’t get an app store with a fairly basic feature set.
In our review of the CMF by Nothing Buds, which are the siblings to the Pro series, costing $39 or £39, we had a similar experience. We said they were “hard to fault for their low price”, but core features such as active noise cancellation were understandably disappointing.
Still, given that the Buds Pro 2 offer an improvement in noise cancellation and boast an impressive 43 hours of playback on a single charge, we expect to compare them to the best budget wireless earbuds, including the Sony WF-C700N and JLab Go Air Pop (our current top two picks), very soon.
