CMF Phone 2 Pro: This budget smartphone holds its ground against Oppo K13, OnePlus Nord CE4
Nothing's sub-brand CMF recently launched its new Phone 2 Pro globally and in India, along with a bunch of TWSs. The new CMF Phone 2 Pro starts at a price point of Rs18,999 and goes upto Rs20,999 for the higher model. I have been using this hyped smartphone for a couple of weeks now, let's try and see if the hype and price are justified:
If you aren't really familiar with CMF, they are basically Nothing's more budget offering that tries to play with some bits of modularity provided with unique looks – that was their Phone 1. With the Phone 2 Pro (Nothing's weird naming scheme continues), the backplate can be removed with the visible screws at the back and you can buy and attach a separate back cover that can also mount lenses for enhanced camera performance. Not sure how many at this price point would be interested in that, but there's that. The protruding triple-camera system has a bit of an industrial look that goes well with the overall theme of the phone. The phone is made of all plastic and is IP54 dust and water-resistant.
The orange and white colours have two-tone backs, while the black and green (the one I am using) have the same tone throughout. The right side features the power/lock key as well as the essential key (more on it later). The left side carries the volume buttons. The bottom houses the dual hybrid SIM card and micro card slots, primary mic, USB type-C and the loudspeaker. The top only has the secondary mic. There are symmetrical bezels around the 6.7-inch (20.5:9 aspect ratio) display and this 185-gram phone isn't too bulky to carry around.
The 6.77-inch full HD+ (1080x2392) OLED display with upto 120Hz refresh rates. The display is right with good viewing angles for using outdoors. It can handle high-resolution videos quite well and isn't too bad for viewing HDR content, given the price tag.
The phone has a triple camera system, up from a single camera in the predecessor - a 50MP (f/1.88) main camera, a 50MP (f/1.85) telescope camera, and an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide camera. You can expect to take decent shots with some dynamic range in daylight without any moving subjects. There's not much detail and sharpness to be seen in low-light, and you also only have 4k video from the main camera. The camera app is a little laggy at times when switching between lenses, though it has gotten a little better with the last major update. Portrait shits are also okay at best with some edge detection working well for stills in good lighting conditions.
Equipped with MediaTek's 7300 chipset (up to 2.5Ghz octa-core processor, Mali G615 MP2 GPU) with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS2.2 internal storage (base variant gets 128GB). It is running NothingOS 3.2 based on Android 15 with the April security patch installed currently. The phone has no third-party apps pre-installed out of the box, has a bit of a minimal-looking OS but that's customizable.
You can put controls from quick settings to your home screen as a widget, change icons in the default launcher and double tap to lock or wake the screen up. There's no sidebar for adding shortcuts and no way to keep apps in memory for longer, which many Android OEMs provide. It handled day-to-day tasks fine, but every now and then there's definitely some frame drops, such you would want to come back to the homescreen and exit the app opened at the time. It's still not exactly sluggish in general, but the jitteriness can be seen every now and then, including in an app like YouTube.
For gaming, expect a heavy game like 'Genshin Impact' at 30fps and same for 'Wuthering Waves' at medium settings, which isn't too bad, but it's not segment-leading either. Pressing the 'Essential key' starts essential space that captures what's on the screen at the time, and you can long press the button to record audio. The phone's AI can be used to transcribe and keep the screenshot saved, so you can check it later and get summaries, too.
Powered by a 5,000mAh battery, the phone also comes with a 33watts charger in the box (along with a transparent case) that can charge it from 1% to full in a little over 90 minutes. The phone generally lasted me a day, but with some gaming, it can go well under a day. It heated up at times when using a higher-watt quick charger to charge it, but nothing alarming.
The mono speaker at the bottom is, frankly, one of the worst I have experienced in a smartphone recently. It's not just about a single speaker, but the speaker itself barely has any depth or bass to it and does distort while playing music or videos above 60% volume most of the time. 5G reception, though, is quite stable and reliable with consistent performance for working on the go. GPS and WiFi performance are also generally trouble-free. Fingerprint scanner is okay, but we have had more reliable and quicker ones available at this price point by now.
I summary, the CMF Phone 2 Pro seems like a good enough option these days for a smartphone around 20k price range. While its camera and speaker are quite average, the display and software experience don't disappoint. It's not a home run by any means, and anybody using a CMF Phone 1 doesn't have any reason to upgrade already, but it can still hold its ground against the likes of the Oppo K13 and OnePlus Nord CE4.
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