CMF’s Phone 1 Is Better Than Any $199 Smartphone Should Ever Be

I’m coming up on 10 years of covering mobile phones, and after some time with the CMF Phone 1, I don’t think I have used a more perfect phone for the money. CMF is a sub-brand by Nothing, founded by Carl Pei of OnePlus fame. It’s been dabbling in ultralow-cost devices, like smartwatches and earbuds, but the CMF Phone 1 is its first Android phone. And it costs $199.

I make it a point to review cheap smartphones—I remember the days when I scrounged every penny I earned to buy my first smartphone, the $200 Samsung Galaxy Captivate in 2010. It’s important to help steer people on a limited budget to good devices. This year alone, I’ve tried the $150 Moto G Play and the $199 Galaxy A15—the latter of which I found to be a disappointing successor to the excellent Galaxy A14 from 2023. But none of these phones hold a candle to the CMF Phone 1, which blows its peers away.

Phenomenal Value

CMF’s design language for the Phone 1 is its first win. This device is far more visually interesting than any other $199 handset in the US. The industrial look comes alive when you embrace the $35 swappable back covers. Use the included screwdriver to pop off the screws and you can change the back to a different color. My choice was orange.

The screwdriver is a bit short, and so it’s a little hard to remove the screws—I can’t imagine changing the back often. This also doesn’t mean you’ll be able to start repairing stuff yourself or swap out the battery—CMF urges customers not to remove the battery without authorization (there’s a warning label on the battery). There’s disappointingly not much here to make repairs easier, unlike HMD’s new Skyline.

Part of the fun is the Accessory Point, the little wheel at the right corner of the phone. Remove this thumbscrew and you can affix other accessories, like a lanyard, kickstand, or wallet. My favorite of the lot is the kickstand, and I dare say it doubles as a fidget spinner of sorts. Functional, fun, and nifty! CMF is even encouraging customers to 3D print accessories for it.

But all of these design tricks, while unique, aren’t what makes the CMF Phone 1 special. No, that’s the actual hardware, build, and specs. Instantly, my first impression after booting it up was its speed. In the time I spent with it, I don’t think I noticed any lag or stutters, which is rare on a $199 smartphone. That’s thanks to the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 inside with 8 gigs of RAM, but it also has a lot to do with the optimizations between the hardware and software, which is Nothing OS. (It’s still Android, but Nothing’s layer on the top offers a specific aesthetic with some tweaks, like the completely monochromatic theme on the home screen.)

OK, so no lag. Next, the battery life impressed. I made this my primary device as I traveled to Paris to cover Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event, and I went to bed some nights indifferent about plugging my phone in after seeing it had 50 percent left. That’s with navigation, music streaming via Bluetooth, messaging, and snapping pics. I’ve managed to push the 5,000-mAh battery with heavy usage and bring it down to 30 percent at the end of a day, but with average use, I was regularly getting two days out of it. (I cannot say the same about the $1,100 Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6.)