The biggest gripe with smartphones these days is not their performance or capabilities. Smartphones are able to achieve more than what was expected of them, and the advancement has been steep. Nowadays, we carry a smartphone that’s probably so overpowered that we don’t even push its limits with our day-to-day tasks. So, performance is not an issue. What people, especially tech enthusiasts, are complaining about is the design, the form factor, and the functionalities of smartphones, more specifically, the lack thereof.
Smartphones have become stale. Except for the handful of foldable ones, they all look the same, feel the same, and work the same. The excitement that people had with tech products started to die off on smartphones.
Tech enthusiasts, for a long time, were looking for a phone to be excited about. To tap into this shared enthusiasm and break into this enthusiast segment, Carl Pei, co-founder of the enthusiasts’ brand OnePlus, exited the company and, with some fellow technopreneurs, started a new tech company, Nothing. This new company pretty much decided to become what OnePlus once was, bringing out phones with unique designs and features that people, especially the enthusiast community, would appreciate.
Nothing recently birthed its budget-conscious subbrand CMF, like how Redmi was Xiaomi’s low to mid-tier hold on the market, and with the very first phone launch, CMF by Nothing has become a center of attraction in the smartphone community as their first smartphone, Phone 1, broke out of the boring-looking smartphone norm and delivered something to be excited about.
Just looking at the phone from the back, it is obvious that it is not like other typical phones we see at this price or even higher on the hierarchy. The backplate, the exposed screws, and the slightly out-of-frame knob give away a distinct look and feel that we don’t get to experience in the bland market of smartphones.
Besides offering a unique look and feel, these built-in accessory points offer functional accessory add-ons that adapt to a user. The backplate, like a phone case, can be replaced if worn out or if the user decides to sport a more vibrant color. The screws are primarily used to put on or take off the backplate. However, CMF by Nothing brought a magnetic wallet-like accessory that uses these exposed screws to latch on. This magnetic thin slab screws with the backplate allowing magnetic accessories that are built for CMF Phone 1 or MagSafe accessories for iPhones magnetically attach to it.
The knob or dial in the bottom corner sticks out just enough to distinguish itself from the rest of the phone and not bother the hands that have been holding it. So far, CMF by Nothing has only come up with three functional accessories for this knob. A practical kickstand, a sturdy lanyard, and a multipurpose wallet-card holder with a magnetic plate. Unscrew the knob, put the kickstand in, and screw it back. You got a kickstand that actually feels like it’s part of the phone itself.
Like to put your phone on a lanyard so that you don’t accidentally drop or loose it in a gathering? Unscrew, put the lanyard accessory on, and screw it back; you have your phone practically melted with the lanyard; it’s not going anywhere.
Want to hook your phone to your MagSafe phone holder? Unscrew, put the magnetic back on, screw the know and the screws along the backplate, and you have a phone that sticks with magnetic holders and bases.
Want to make your phone feel fresh every few months? Swap the backplate with another color. Want to mix and match? Put on the orange backplate but keep the black knob. Don’t like the silver screws, swap them out with the matte black ones and create a two-tone finish.
This convenience of swappable, easily replaceable, yet functional add-ons is a fresh breath of air in an industry where companies are gatekeeping repairs, and the scope of upgrades is non-existent. Surprisingly, these accessory points and add-ons did not come at the cost of the phone’s overall functionality.
Looks aside, the CMF Phone 1 is an easily recommendable phone. It has a 4 nm TSMC MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G chip that is par with Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1. It comes with 6 or 8 GB of RAM with an additional 8 GB of RAM Booster occupied from 128 GB or 256 GB of internal storage and and expandable storage of up to 2 TB.
The screen is a mighty 6.67-inch Super AMOLED with 2000 nits max brightness and 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate.
For photos and videos, it has a 50 MP Sony sensor in the back with a portrait assist camera and a 16 MP front camera. Although it has no ultrawide camera, the photos it takes are somewhat serviceable, which cannot be said for most phones in this price segment.
But where it really shines is its battery performance. CMF by Nothing Phone 1 has a gigantic 5000 mAh battery that would easily last you a full day on casual use, and with light use, the phone will put you on the next day without breaking a sweat. Even though it offers a 5 W reverse wired charging to juice up your accessories, there is no wireless charging, as expected in this price range. However, the wired charging supports up to 33W, which means the phone can be halfway charged in about 20 minutes. So, average users wouldn’t really miss wireless convenience.
Another category where Phone 1 shines is the software and user experience. Once you start using it, you might actually forget how cheap the phone is, thanks to the lightweight Nothing OS 2.6 over Android 14. It also features pretty much all the things that people like about Nothing phones — the Notification History, the light software skin, etc. In fact, except for the Glyph Light, you won’t really be missing anything from the Nothing experience. On top of that, the phone brings a custom ChatGPT integration as a voice AI to help interact with the phone’s AI on the go, using the Nothing and CMF earbuds.
For what it offers at the price, you might as well forget that it is a lower-mid or budget phone. But does that mean there are no tradeoffs?
Yes, there certainly are. To everyone’s shock, there’s no NFC on the phone. The vibration motor is cheap, and the mono speaker is nothing to write about. The optical fingerprint sensor is not the fastest, and there is no OIS for the camera. The screen doesn’t also come with any specialized protection. But the trade-offs here do not outweigh the price of this phone.
CMF by Nothing Phone 1 is a good budget phone that prioritizes software and design. It doesn’t stand out with specs, but it does with design and software. The accessory points and add-ons, although made out of cheap material, are tastefully designed. These do not feel like a gimmick because they offer that functional ‘one more thing’, which separates them from other 25K phones in the market.
The CMF Phone 1’s approach, with its swappable accessories and functional add-ons, presents an interesting challenge to today’s smartphone industry. If we can make phones modular with external add-ons, why not extend this modularity to the internal components? This concept has been tried and tested successfully in other tech categories; the modular Framework laptops for instance. The Framework laptops emphasize user-upgradability and repairability by allowing owners to easily swap out and upgrade components like memory, storage, and even ports, which promotes a culture of longevity and sustainability.
Applying this philosophy to smartphones could revolutionize how we view and use these devices. Imagine a smartphone where users could easily replace a damaged screen, upgrade the camera module, or swap out the battery—all without needing specialized tools or technical expertise. This approach could transform how we handle repairs and reduce e-waste. It could also result in phones that last much longer than today’s average lifespan, which is typically limited by the failure of a single component or the lack of software updates. If modular phones became a reality, just like with the CMF by Nothing Phone 1’s modular accessories, consumers would be able to personalize their smartphones with different components to suit their lifestyle, whether that means prioritizing battery life, camera quality, or processing power.
The CMF Phone 1 has shown us a glimpse of what is possible with a modular approach to smartphone design. While it falls short in being a fully modular phone, it sets the trajectory for future innovations in the smartphone space. Embracing repairability, upgradability, and modularity could be the next step in this evolution, ultimately leading to smartphones that are not only more sustainable but also more exciting for tech enthusiasts and average users alike.
