It might be worse for someone who tests phones for a living, but I think you’ll agree that the smartphone market has been pretty boring in recent years.
Similar designs and minimal hardware upgrades have made AI the big trend right now, but Nothing does something completely different, and I love it.
The company is still relatively new in the market and its sub-brand CMF is even newer. However, its first smartphone is here to shake up the market, especially the entry-level segment which is usually the most boring of them all.
And there’s really no reason why this should be the case, as Nothing proved with the CMF Phone 1.
It stands out especially for its design, and not just for its bright orange color. It recalls the days of mobile phones, when they could be taken apart and customized. It appeals greatly to the DIYer in me.
Those stainless steel screws aren’t just for show. Just like the old days, you can remove them (small screwdriver included) and pop the back cover off and then attach another one. There are four colours in total: orange, black, blue and light green – all for £29/$35.
The fun doesn’t stop there because the mysterious dial on the corner that we all wanted to know the purpose of is to attach various accessories.
Unscrew it and you can then add things like a kickstand or a lanyard. Simple but effective and fun. They cost £19/$25 each and only come in orange, which is fine with me unless you have the light green back cover fitted.
The final accessory (hopefully more are on the way) is a card holder which is a panel that attaches via the smallest screws, then a wallet portion that attaches via magnets in the manner of Apple MagSafe.
Again, it costs £19/$25 and is only available in orange at launch.
All of this means that the CMF Phone 1 offers something very different to its competitors and starts at just £209 or $199.
It’s no slouch in terms of specs with a 6.7-inch 120Hz Super AMOLED display, 50MP rear camera, MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset, 5,000mAh battery, and 33W fast charging. It’s very similar to the Nothing Phone (2a).
There are two things to note with the removable back cover: it means there’s no waterproofing (just splash resistance) and unfortunately the battery isn’t removable like a Nokia 3210 – although it should be a lot easier to replace than most modern smartphones.
There’s also no NFC, but I think this could still be the best budget smartphone of 2024 and we’ll have a review soon to see if that’s the case (pun unintended).
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