Punching above its weight when it comes to premium features, Nothing’s CMF Phone 2 Pro is a budget contender beyond the usual suspects.
There’s great value to be found in the budget Android space these days, but most options tend to come from the usual suspects. The UK’s Nothing is out to shake things up in both the budget and mid-range Android markets.
While Nothing has made quite a splash, its Australian handset release schedule is more than a little confusing, so it’s worth clarifying where this latest offering fits into the big picture.
Earlier this year saw the release of the Nothing Phone (3a) and impressive Nothing Phone (3a) Pro. Yet, for now, the old Nothing Phone (2) remains the flagship – even though it’s outgunned by the 3a models in some aspects – while we wait for the Nothing Phone (3) to arrive in Australia later this year as the new flagship.
Following so far? It gets more complicated, because alongside the Nothing Phone (2) flagship sits the old Nothing Phone (2a) and (2a).
Which brings us to this new ‘2 Pro’. Releasing another 2-series phone seems odd, but it’s important to note that this new handset is the CMF Phone 2 Pro, not the Nothing Phone 2 Pro. Got it?
CMF stands for “Colour, Material and Finish” and is Nothing’s budget sub-brand. It’s an interesting move to introduce a lower sub-brand in ‘CMF by Nothing’, and somewhat muddy the waters in terms of brand recognition, when Nothing already produces more affordable Nothing A-series handsets alongside its Nothing flagships.
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CMF Phone 2 Pro first impressions
While the main Nothing range is known for its striking tech-inspired design, Nothing’s CMF range looks a lot more conservative. The new CMF Phone 2 Pro doesn’t stand out in a crowd, although the visible screws on the back give it a slightly modular industrial look.
The screws aren’t just for show, you can actually remove the backplate, but there’s little point when Nothing’s accessories are only sold in the UK – which we’ll get back to later.
The CMF Phone 2 Pro sports a generous 6.77-inch flexible AMOLED display, with a 20:9 aspect ratio to ensure it’s tall without being too wide to comfortably grip. It’s built within a metal frame with a plastic back.
You’ve got the benefit of a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and 3,000 nits peak brightness, with support for HDR10+ but not Dolby Vision. That’s pretty good for a sub-$500 handset.
Flip the phone over and you get another taste of its premium features, discovering a triple-lens camera array – with a 50 MP telescopic and 8 MP ultrawide along the 50 MP main shooter, plus 16 MP on the front.
That telescopic lens comes as a surprise at this price point, even when it’s only 2x optical zoom with Electronic Image Stabilisation rather than Optical. Plus, the primary lens’ large 1/1.57-inch sensor is a step up for this price range.
From here, the design is fairly straightforward, with a power button halfway down the right side of the handset and a single rocker volume button on the left. The fingerprint reader is built into the screen.
What’s interesting is that the CMF Phone 2 Pro inherits the new ‘Essential Key’ just below the power button, which was first introduced with the Nothing Phone (3a) series.
This Essential Key is your gateway to Nothing’s Essential Space – a place to save screenshots, voice memos and images, which you can use to keep yourself organised with a little help from AI.
At the bottom of the handset, you’ve got a USB-C port, alongside a dual nano-SIM port, but surprisingly no eSIM support. There’s also no sign of an old-school headphone jack, so you’ll want Bluetooth headphones like the new Nothing CMF Buds 2 Plus.
It’s worth noting that the CMF Phone 2 Pro offers a few key improvements on the original Nothing CMF Phone 1, including the addition of NFC. That said, the Phone 1 still offers pretty good value considering it’s been reduced to $379.
CMF Phone 2 Pro specifications and price
| Display size | 6.77-inch, 20:9 aspect ratio |
| Display resolution | 1080 x 2392 (387 PPI) |
| Display technology | flexible AMOLED 10-bit (1.07 billion colours) colour depth Contrast ratio: 1,000,000 : 1 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate 3000 nits peak brightness HDR10+ |
| Bands | 5G sub-6, 4G LTE, 3G UMTS (WCDMA), 2G GSM |
| Chipset | MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G 8-core up to 2.5 GHz 4nm TSMC process |
| Rear cameras | 50 MP primary f/1.88 1/1.57″ sensor EIS Phase Detection Autofocus |
| 50MP telescopic f/1.85 1/2.88″ sensor EIS 2x optical zoom 20x digital zoom |
|
| 8 MP ultrawide f/2.2 1/4″ sensor 119.5° FOV |
|
| Front camera | 16 MP f/2.45 1/3″ sensor |
| RAM | 8 GB |
| Onboard storage | 128 / 256 GB |
| microSD slot | microSDXC up to 2 TB |
| SIM | Dual nano-SIM |
| Charging | 33 W wired 5 W reverse wired |
| Battery | 5000 mAh |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 6, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, 2.4G/5G dual-band, MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Direct, Advanced Hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 5.3 |
| Operating system | Nothing OS 3.2 (powered by Android 15) |
| Security | Fingerprint reader, Face Unlock |
| Ruggedness | IP54 |
| Dimensions | 164 x 78 x 7.8 mm |
| Weight | 185 gm |
| Colours | Light green, white, black and orange |
| Price | $449 RRP (128 GB) $509 RRP (256 GB) |
| Warranty | 1 year |
| Official website | Nothing Australia |
Features
Like the more expensive Nothing handsets, the CMF Phone 2 Pro runs on the heavily customised Nothing OS 3, which is built on Android 15. You’ve got the option to stick with vanilla Android during setup, which is good because the Nothing OS stylised interface won’t appeal to everyone.
The monochrome minimalist icons and widgets look rather stark and it takes a little time to decipher Nothing OS’ hieroglyphics.
There’s also that Essential Key for accessing Nothing’s Essential Space. You can type and record notes or add photos and screenshots to help you stay organised.
You miss out on the secondary Glyph interface, available on the Nothing Phone (3a) handsets, which takes advantage of three lights on the back to provide alerts when the phone is face-down.
The CMF Phone 2 Pro will receive three years of Android updates and six years of security updates, which is quite good considering that some Android handset makers offer minimal future updates on their budget models.
Unfortunately, to help it survive that long, you’ve only got an IP54 ruggedness rating – protecting against limited dust ingress and water splashes. Interestingly, Nothing says the phone can survive “20 minutes in up to 25 cm of fresh water”, which is surprising when IP54 isn’t considered waterproof. The rating is still disappointing when rivals like the Galaxy A35 5G go right up to IP67.
Under the hood, the Nothing CMF Phone 2 Pro packs a mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G power plant, accompanied by 8 GB of RAM and 128 or 256 GB of storage. In terms of connectivity, it supports Wi-Fi 6E and sub-6 5G mobile broadband.
It’s all backed by a hefty 5,000 mAh battery, which should be good for 36 hours between charges if you don’t push it too hard. It supports 33 W wired and 5 W reverse wired charging. Nothing includes a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box but no USB-C charger.
Surprisingly, there’s no support for wireless charging – which doesn’t seem unreasonable considering the price tag but stands out when the handset sports so many other premium features.
Quality
GeekBench 6 benchmarks aren’t bad for the budget space, scoring 1,010 on the CPU single-core test and 2,992 on multi-core, along with a GPU OpenCL score of 2,497.
That stacks up reasonably well at this price point and won’t leave you wanting when it comes to day-to-day tasks. As you’d expect, it’s more of a rival to the $549 Samsung Galaxy A35 5G than the $699 Galaxy A55.
| Phone | CPU single-core | CPU multi-core | GPU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple iPhone 16e | 2,679 | 6,144 | 23,732 |
| Xiaomi Poco F6 | 1,899 | 4,734 | 8,762 |
| Google Pixel 9a | 1,716 | 3,895 | 8,011 |
| Samsung Galaxy A56 | 1,364 | 3,898 | 6,539 |
| Nothing Phone (3a) Pro | 1,886 | 3,355 | 3,308 |
| Samsung Galaxy A55 | 1,153 | 3,428 | 3,086 |
| CMF Phone 2 Pro | 1,010 | 2,992 | 2,497 |
| Motorola Edge 50 Fusion | 1,016 | 2,937 | 1,802 |
| Samsung Galaxy A35 | 1,011 | 2,897 | 3,001 |
The camera array is another area where the Nothing CMF Phone 2 Pro delivers decent results for the price.
Outside, you get sharp images with plenty of detail, although the colours and contrast understandably fall a little short of what you’d get from a more premium handset.
The dedicated 2x telephoto lens offers decent results and you don’t see a big drop in quality when you switch to the ultrawide even though it’s understandably a bit softer. After dark, you get impressive detail, great colours and minimal noise in low-light conditions.
Likewise, with the selfie camera, the results are respectable while avoiding oppressive beautification trickery.
Keep in mind that relying on Electronic Image Stabilisation rather than Optical Image Stabilisation might deter photographers looking to make the most of the telephoto lens.
It’s interesting to note that Nothing sells modular attachable lenses and magnetic wallet/kickstand combo for the handset, the latter of which attaches by screwing off the backplate. While it all sounds great, they’re only sold in Europe.
Who is the Nothing CMF Phone 2 Pro for?
The Nothing CMF Phone 2 Pro really is the full package, with a lot of premium touches – like a great AMOLED display, excellent battery life and a triple camera array with dedicated telephoto. If any of those grab your fancy, it’s a very tempting option.
Plus you’ve got years of OS and security updates to make sure the handset lasts you a few years, it’s just a shame about the lowly IP54 ruggedness rating.
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