This is the CMF Phone 1, a sub-brand by Nothing that promises to give us a more affordable smartphone option. 

So, let’s see what this refreshing RM1,099 smartphone brings to the already saturated smartphone market and how it is different since it can transform your phone with its unique modular accessories!

 

Unboxing

So let’s start with the unboxing processes. Yes, because there is more than one unboxing as this makes the phone different from everything that you have seen. 

In the box, in addition to the phone itself, it comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable and a unique orange-colored SIM ejector pin. 

So, what’s so unique about that? Well, the fantastic thing is that the phone is really modular when it comes to the accessories. 

 

Modular Cases

So, sold separately are these interchangeable cases or covers. They are available in Orange, Blue, and Light Green. These are not ordinary cases that are typically used just to protect the phone, but this case transforms your phone into a brand new color since it requires you to unscrew and screw them to put them on. How? Let me explain.

So, each case comes with a unique tool which is a flat screwdriver on one side and the SIM ejector pin on the other. Depending on which color you use, there is also the included SIM ejector slot cover, the Circular Accessory Point, and the included screws as well. 

What you need to do first is to unscrew a total of four screws, take out the SIM ejector slot case…

…and unscrew the Circular Accessory Point. Then, just press the Circular Accessory Point gently and slowly take out the case. 

To be honest, this is something that needs some getting used to, so it might be a little harder the first time that you do it. But after a few times, you will get the hang of this. 

Then, just insert the phone case, screw on the included screws, and next insert the SIM ejector slot cover, the Circular Accessory Point, and you’re all set!

So, the Orange color has a vegan leather finish. It is the same for the Blue color, and the other Light Green is in a brushed aluminum finish. If you’re using the Black color, it has the same finish as well. 

If you’re wondering why everything needs to be tightly fastened, especially for the screws, well, that is because this phone, the CMF Phone 1, has an official IP52 rating, hence why the battery is also not removable. Yeah, only if the battery was removable, right? Good times!

 

Accessories

So, in conjunction with all of the cases, there are also other unique accessories that give you the feeling like you’re building your own Lego smartphone. 

First, there is the Card Case; inside, there’s the back plate, the cardholder which holds magnetically, and the included screws. 

Putting this on is a little easier than the phone case where this time you just need to unscrew three screws at the bottom and the middle, put on the back plate, then put on the included screws, and you’re done. Based on my test, you can fit up to three cards in here, which was really great to know. 

Then, the next accessory is the Lanyard. Once again, the driving factor of this is the Circular Accessory Point where after unscrewing the previous one, just screw this on and you can just hook the lanyard, and you’re all set once again. 

Then finally, there is the Stand which is for, well, to make the phone stand by itself, which is perfect for watching videos vertically and horizontally as well. And yes, in case you’re wondering, you can use the accessories together with the modular cases and also just by the phone itself.

 

Build Quality

Finally, let’s talk about the phone itself and its build quality. 

As you can see, it looks incredibly unique and has a very beautifully raw-crafted design. It has a high-quality hard plastic at the back which has a matte finish, so the phone is fingerprint-free. 

All in all, it feels extremely good in the hands and feels extremely premium, something that you cannot say about other smartphones within this price range. 

The screws at the back, as seen earlier, are made of stainless steel and the buttons are aluminum. The color variant that I have is the Black version, and there’s also the exclusive Blue color variant which is only available in India. 

The phone could lay down flat on the surface, and if you press the bottom right, it will wobble a little. If you’re typing on a virtual keyboard, it holds up pretty well and the haptic feedback was really nice too.

 

Screen

The phone screen uses a 6.67-inch Super AMOLED display, so obviously, it’s not using the flexible OLED display like how it was used on the Nothing phones due to the price factor, of course. 

When it comes to watching videos, the high quality was great with playback specifications on Netflix at Widevine L1 with a max resolution of Full HD, but no HDR playback on the app. 

It has up to 120Hz refresh rate which goes from 60Hz to 120Hz with a touch sampling rate of 240Hz. The screen can go up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness, which is also very refreshing to know, especially for a smartphone within this price range. 

So, other than watching videos, just using the phone daily has been great with no complaints so far during my several uses of the phone daily, especially with a P3 color gamut for the best color accuracy. 

The in-display fingerprint unlock was quick too, so no complaints here either.

 

Camera

As for the camera, while it looks like it has two, in actual fact, there is only one usable camera which is the main 50MP camera, as the other is a depth sensor. 

My first impressions of the photos look great, very close to the image processing of the Nothing Phone 2a both during the day and night as well. 

The front camera is a 16MP camera, and the selfie photos look great. The image processing is similar to how Nothing has always done with their smartphones, which has always been nice, and so it was on this phone.

Also, when it comes to the overall video quality as well, the rear camera can record up to 4K 30fps, and the front camera can record up to 1080p up to 30fps.

 

Specs

As for the other specs, it comes with the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G chipset, the same one that comes inside the OPPO Reno12 Pro, which I’ve just recently reviewed. 

But the good news is that when it comes to gaming tests, I found that Genshin Impact’s performance was way better on this phone compared to the OPPO Reno12 Pro, which was very interesting indeed. 

There is a dedicated Game Mode with game-centric settings like toggling the performance mode. Even without toggling the performance mode, it performed well at Medium settings at 60fps with motion blur turned off, compared to struggling at lower settings on the Reno12 Pro. 

After toggling the Performance mode, you can set the settings to High, 60fps with motion blur turned on, which was amazing. However, keep in mind that this performance mode will indeed impact the battery life a little more than usual. 

Playing PUBG Mobile was well optimized on the phone, and overall it was a great phone to game on.

The phone’s battery is up to 5,000 mAh. There’s no wireless charging, but it has up to 33W wired charging that goes from 0 to 50% in about 23 minutes, and it has reverse wireless charging up to 5W. 

The battery life is safe to last about 2 days, but we will see how much screen on time I get when I use the phone daily. 

Finally, as for the software, it is shipped with Android 14 with Nothing OS version 2.6, which has some new widgets like the date widget, a new battery widget to monitor connected devices, and the pedometer widget during the launch of this phone. 

The AI features like ChatGPT integration and AI wallpaper generator are also present over here, similar to the flagship Nothing phones. 

The software integration with the newly released CMF Buds Pro 2 and the new Watch Pro 2 has been really great, further enhancing the overall ecosystem of CMF. The watch can also be used as a viewfinder, which works flawlessly too. The prices are just RM299 for the Buds Pro 2 and RM339 for the Watch Pro 2, which looks sleek as well. 

There is a promise of 2 years of Android updates and 3 years of security upgrades, which is really great to know. 

Specifically here in Malaysia, the only variant is the 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Something that a lot of other phones do not have is the expandable storage, which can expand up to 2TB via the TF card. 

In-depth review of this unique and affordable phone coming soon!