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00:00All right, so CMF Phone 1 by Nothing is kind of a confusing name, but what this phone's
00:21trying to do, not confusing at all.
00:23Love it or hate it, this is one of the most interesting new phones in the world at the
00:27moment because Nothing came along a few years ago and said, hey, what if we tried to make
00:31an average budget phone, but with a focus on software and design?
00:37And it kind of worked.
00:38Those phones are pretty good.
00:39And so now CMF is the budget sub-brand of Nothing.
00:44And they've come along and said, hey, well, what if we did the same thing, but even more?
00:50So that's how you end up with this.
00:52This is a $200 Android phone that, on paper, doesn't really stand out specs-wise in the
00:57sea of other $200 Android phones that you can get, but it absolutely does stand out
01:03with its software and design.
01:05And I just want to start with the design first because that's the most interesting thing
01:09about this phone by a mile.
01:10So this is the CMF Phone in black.
01:13And on the surface, it's nothing too crazy, right?
01:16It's got flat sides, pretty average bezels all the way around this big AMOLED display
01:21and dual cameras up in the corner on the back.
01:23But then you realize two things.
01:26First, there's a knob, like a dial down here at the bottom corner of the phone.
01:31And second, there's also a bunch of these metal screws all the way around the outside.
01:35And that's because this plastic back is completely removable and replaceable in a couple different
01:41colors.
01:42There's black, there's also orange, there's a blue, and there is a light blue, which
01:47also kind of has a little green hue to it, depending on who you ask.
01:50So right off the bat, this idea is pretty unique, like for any phone, especially at
01:56this price.
01:57I remember back in the Moto Maker days, a while ago, you could sort of customize your
02:02phone, but that was also much more permanent.
02:03And it's been many years since we had removable backs on phones.
02:07And even though nothing else comes off and the battery isn't removable, and the back
02:11still feels super cheap and flexible because it is.
02:15But once it's on the phone, it feels pretty rigid and sturdy.
02:18And it's still cool to see the ability to change the color.
02:21And it's a convenient little upsell for the company that's selling the phone itself for
02:26so cheap.
02:27So then in the box for the cover, you also get this little orange combo SIM ejector tool
02:31and flathead screwdriver, since you'll need this tool to remove the SIM card tray and
02:37all of the screws to get the back off.
02:39And then it comes with a matching SIM card tray and dial to pop on the back so that
02:44everything matches up.
02:45But you can also totally mix and match if you want.
02:47It kind of makes the phone maybe feel a little bit more like your own.
02:51So the color changing back is one thing, but then there's also this knob I keep pointing
02:55at down here in the corner.
02:57And this is a separate feature.
02:58So I remember when they first started teasing this on Twitter, we were trying to figure
03:02out like on the Waveform podcast, like what is this going to be?
03:05Is this a volume knob?
03:06Is this going to be just like a fidget toy or is it a mappable thing with the software?
03:11Like what's the, what's the knob?
03:14And it turns out it's a mounting attaching point for some accessories.
03:18So it's not like something that spins freely.
03:20It's kind of just a fancy thumb screw with a colorful cap.
03:24And if you take it off, you can replace it with one of three accessories that they've
03:28made so far.
03:29There is a kickstand, which lets you prop up your phone on like a flat table or a surface.
03:35There's also a card holder wallet, which lets me put up to four cards in the back and then
03:39slap it on the back with magnets and carry it around with me.
03:43And there's a lanyard.
03:46Not sure how many people are going to put their phone on a lanyard, but you now at
03:50least have the option to.
03:51You can securely attach it to the corner of the phone.
03:54So is this a gimmick?
03:58I'm going to vote no.
04:00I think that kickstand is the one thing that I would actually want to have on my phone
04:04or at least the option to have on my phone whenever I want.
04:06It's kind of nice that that's available for it.
04:08But in general, it's just the main point of it is it's one more useful thing to separate
04:14it from other phones at 200 bucks in the design department.
04:17I was going to say it feels kind of like an ultra budget version of MagSafe, where instead
04:21of having magnets, you literally have to screw the thing onto your phone.
04:26But then I realized, wait, this magnet accessory, which is the plate that you screw onto the
04:31back of your phone for the wallet, connects with this suspiciously familiar looking ring
04:37of magnets in the middle.
04:38So just for kicks, I slapped a MagSafe mount on there and it stuck like really well.
04:44So I actually think if you want to buy like a car mount or some accessory to attach to
04:50this phone, I actually think you could buy a MagSafe one.
04:54This is the Moment MagSafe puck and it will hold the phone from the back.
05:00So the more you know.
05:01Now it obviously takes a bit of work, several screws, the SIM card ejector tool and the
05:05twisting and all that to take these accessories off the back of the phone and put a new one
05:10on.
05:11So this isn't something you'd probably do every day or multiple times per day or anything
05:15like that, but it works.
05:18You have the ability to.
05:20And then when there's nothing on the back of the phone, this dial actually kind of protrudes
05:23the exact same amount as the camera bump in the opposite corner.
05:27So it prevents it from rocking back and forth at all.
05:30Well played, CMF.
05:31Well played.
05:32So they've got lots of neat little hardware customizations.
05:34But the other important thing about a phone is what it's actually like to use.
05:38So I've been using the CMF Phone 1 for the better part of about a week now.
05:42And to be honest, it feels just like I'm using a nothing phone, which is a compliment.
05:48Matter of fact, it's literally running nothing OS 2.6.
05:52And aside from the light up glyph interface, it's not missing a single feature that the
05:57more premium nothing phones actually have.
06:00It's got the cloned apps feature where you can have more than one instance of a single
06:04app installed.
06:05It's got game mode.
06:06It's got the clever little one handed pull down gesture where you can pull down the notifications
06:11without reaching.
06:12And of course, all the aesthetics, you know, the icon pack, the home screen widgets, the
06:16dots font, all that fun stuff.
06:19You still have that spot where you can view all of your notification history.
06:23Underrated feature.
06:24You know, it just, it behaves exactly like a nothing phone.
06:28And using this phone, I can honestly say that there were stretches of time where I'd
06:33forget I was using an ultra cheap phone.
06:36Like it's a fairly bright responsive display.
06:39It's typically five to 700 nits, but it's an AMOLED that peaks at 2000 nits.
06:44And it's adaptive between 60 and 120 Hertz with a 240 Hertz touch sample rate.
06:50So it's decently smooth and quick.
06:52So, you know, just flipping around through the daily inconsequential stuff, like scrolling
06:57through social media or reading emails or light web browsing for that stuff.
07:04Of course, this phone is totally fine.
07:06Super smooth.
07:07The chip powering everything here is the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G.
07:12It's about on par with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 as far as benchmarks.
07:16And they pair it with either six or eight gigs of RAM, depending on what spec you get.
07:19It's really decently well equipped for 200 bucks, but you can definitely get this phone
07:24to show its price though.
07:25Like it's not perfect.
07:27These aren't complaints.
07:28These are just facts about the trade-offs you obviously have to make to get a phone
07:32to be this cheap.
07:34So like this phone has a 5,000 milliampere battery and a really solid battery life, but
07:39there's no wireless charging.
07:40And of course there's no charger included in the box.
07:43If you're wondering though, it supports up to 33 Watts, but then this phone also has
07:47no NFC.
07:48It has a really crappy, cheap vibration motor.
07:52It has a single mono speaker down here at the bottom.
07:55That's surprisingly easy to just block with one finger.
07:59The optical underscreen fingerprint sensor, I actually think that's pretty impressive
08:02for this price range, but it's also been noticeably on the slower side for me and sometimes asked
08:07for multiple reads before unlocking.
08:10And then these plastic backs, you know, like I said, they feel fine when they're attached
08:14to the frame of the phone, but like a car bumper, when they're not attached to the
08:18frame, you can really feel how flimsy they are.
08:21These are plastic.
08:22The buttons in here are, they feel like they're literally held on by elastic that I feel
08:28like I could snap at any moment.
08:30I mean, they haven't yet, but they just look like they could.
08:33And of course with removable backs, the whole phone can't be super water resistant.
08:37So it's just IP 52 rated, basically just good for a splash.
08:40And we all know budget phone cameras have never been anything special.
08:44This phone is rocking a Sony sensor.
08:45It's a 50 megapixel primary sensor for the camera.
08:48And it takes, I would say serviceable photos.
08:51They're not terrible.
08:52I would say, you know, it's an IMX 882.
08:55So it's actually the same sensor that's in the Poco F6 and the Realme 12 Pro and some
09:01other pretty budget phones and also the Moto Edge for some reason.
09:05But anyway, there's also no OIS.
09:08So when the light starts going away, it gets rough pretty quick.
09:11And then that second sensor up at the top, well, that's not a camera at all.
09:17That actually, it almost never really does anything.
09:20Turns out it's just a depth sensor for specifically shooting 2X portrait mode photos to get a
09:25bit of a cleaner, more accurate bokeh cutout.
09:28But it didn't also complain much at all when I took photos with it covered or anytime while
09:34shooting actually.
09:35So hey, budget phones make sacrifices.
09:38That's not a new concept here.
09:40But I like the set of trade-offs that they made with this one.
09:44I mean, squinting back at it, it doesn't look bad for a $200 phone.
09:48And I think the set of trade-offs that they made in the name of really good design and
09:53software, I like it.
09:56Now this phone is mainly targeted towards India.
09:58That's the market that it's supposed to be most competitive in.
10:01And in that market, yeah, there's other cheap phones.
10:05They're a little more expensive than this, but they will also have like the two years
10:09of software updates and three years of security updates.
10:12They will also have big screens and relatively thin bezels and MediaTek chips.
10:18They're usually not AMOLEDs though.
10:19So that's good about this one.
10:20And a lot of them will also have micro SD card expansion, which this phone also has.
10:25Probably the only notable missing thing is NFC, but just the sheer amount of time I was
10:30able to enjoy using this phone and not thinking about its price because of how smooth it is,
10:35all the software features it has.
10:37That's pretty sick.
10:38It's a $200 phone engineered to look cool, basically.
10:42And CMF has also just introduced a bunch of other stuff as well.
10:45There's a new smartwatch, $69, nice.
10:48Also a new set of earbuds, $59.
10:52So to give you an idea of what they're working on, but let me know what you think.
10:56That's my review of the CMF Phone 1.
10:59Thanks for watching.
11:00Catch you guys in the next one.
11:02Peace.