Is this a good smartphone under 20K to buy? Let’s talk about it.
I’m using this since I got it in my hands, and first take on this phone: Wow, good design.
So, talking about the unboxing experience, I have already covered it in my first impressions. You can read about the detailed specs in the dedicated thread.
I can say giving a charger and phone case in the box was a good move from Nothing.
Design & Build Quality:
Let’s talk about the back first:
I got to know that it’s coming with three cameras, and I thought how it would be placed. Then I saw it for the first time when I received the phone—I was impressed, and many of you will agree with this. Yes, you get metal rings surrounding the cameras, and the lens is this time glass.
Secondly, the phone feels lightweight and slimmer than CMF Phone 1. Also, there’s no sharp edge; instead, they’ve given curved edges, so a good in-hand feel this time.
Then, dual texture this time—top one gives a matte finish feel and below one gives you metallic feel. While the phone is totally built in plastic, you feel premium in budget segment while holding the phone.
Screws are still there, and it gives a unique look, but you can’t remove the back; it’s not replaceable. They shouldn’t have removed this option. Instead, they gave another back cover to apply on the phone, which makes it bigger.
Also, the iconic knob is still there, but this time it’s slimmer and it’s not out this time.
Talking about all buttons, all are tactile—no complaints here. Also, there is a new button—essential key button—the exclusive feature to the phone, which I will talk about in the software part.
Overall, I have used this phone without a case except for 4-5 days. Till now, not any major scratches anywhere. Basically, good phone with good design.
Display:
This display is quite good, actually it’s similar to Phone 3a series. This time it’s symmetrical bezels. It’s a bright enough display as HBM is 1300 nits and peak is 3000 nits, which will be activated in HDR only, and typical is 800 nits. In direct sunlight, the display is visible, so no issues with that.
Also, no more eye strain watching any content in low brightness as 2160Hz PWM Dimming is there. It has 1000Hz touch sampling rate, so haven’t faced any touch issues till now. I had no issues with the in-display fingerprint sensor, yeah, but it’s placed nearly to the bottom, so you’ll get used to it in some days if you had another phone which had fingerprint sensor in 1/3rd position of the display.
Sound:
Following in the line of CMF Phone 1, this time with CMF Phone 2 Pro also has mono speaker. But single firing isn’t that good this time as there is no bass or the bassy feel—you can say simple speaker in the phone. It has 150% volume boost, but it’s not that useful. I will recommend using volume up to 60-70%. I wish this phone had a good mono speaker at least.
Also, this depends upon user to user how they listen to content or music. But stereo speakers is the best setup. I didn’t have any complaints with earpiece and the mic, so no issues with calling experience till now.
Haptics:
The X-axis linear vibrator motor has been given in CMF Phone 2 Pro, because that haptic feedback has been great for me. Yeah, better than CMF Phone 1. So, if you keep your phone in vibrate mode in your pocket, you will easily feel the call or notification has been popped on your phone.
Performance:
The phone has MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro chipset—not a big jump from CMF Phone 1, so not a big difference. I haven’t faced any major lag while using phone like switching apps, but I have faced issue with camera app—sometimes it lags, not every time. I hope it gets fixed by upcoming updates.
It has UFS 2.2 storage—you will see some processing while capturing photos. Though Nothing tried to optimize it, but here and there you will face it, which can’t be fixed.
Yeah, smoothness is there while doing any day-to-day life tasks, but some small jitter you might face with some apps like those which do tasks like editing or some.
Gaming:
For BGMI, 60 FPS is good, also gives stable FPS, but in 120 it isn’t that good in classic matches. Yeah, but TDM is playable at 120 FPS with no issues. But that 120 FPS feel that flagship devices give, that can’t be here in this phone.
120 FPS in this phone is like just up and down all the time. If device heats up, if you are not maintaining temperature, you won’t see 100 FPS properly. So it’s recommended to maintain device temperature to have better FPS. I think for this device, 60 FPS and 90 FPS is playable.
I did a video regarding this, you can watch it for better understanding.
CMF Phone 2 Pro BGMI Gaming Test
Software:
This phone comes with latest version of Nothing OS which is 3.2. You get a clean OS experience with no bloatware, full of widgets that can be placed on homescreen and even on lockscreen.
Yeah, still there are many features missing like more fingerprint animations, more customization to the clock on the lockscreen. Yeah, side bar is missing in the phone, which can give easy access to any app easily and more tasks. Yeah, they have implemented it for just game mode. I hope they bring it in coming major updates.
What’s new here:
You will get Private Space, Hotspot Manager, different password for app lock. New camera app with LUT (camera presets)—you can even make your own LUT or import from somewhere by just scanning the QR of the LUT. I actually liked this feature—basically social media-ready photos for some users if they use it.
Essential Space App (exclusive feature):
This was brought up in Nothing Phone (3a) series and now to CMF Phone 2 Pro. To use this, essential key is there. The key is quite useful only when, like, getting reminders or something in daily life. Suppose you want reminder going to wedding or birthday or support cricket matches, or exam timetables… You get a reminder in the notification whatever command you give to the app.
Basically, it takes a screenshot with text and gives AI overview, and same with screenshot with voice and it also gives transcribe whatever you said.
Lastly, you get 3 major OS updates + 6 years security updates with this phone. So basically you’re getting good software support by the brand.
Battery Backup & Charging:
The phone is best at this in my experience till now. It easily survives two days without an issue if you don’t do heavy usage.
It comes with 5000 mAh capacity that easily serves an average of 8–9 hrs with normal usage—6-7 hrs heavy usage.
Charging
It takes around 1:30 hrs to fully charge the device every time for me. The timing could be here and there a little bit. I have seen similar charging time every time—if and only if charged with CMF 33W charger which was present in the box.
Camera:
Do remember the phone is priced under 20K here. It has triple camera setup—50MP main sensor, 8MP ultrawide and 50MP 2x telephoto.
First of all, there is inconsistency between ultrawide and primary sensor, but with primary and 2x telephoto, it tries to maintain there as you can see in the photos.
Ultrawide-Primary-2x Telephoto
Primary and 2x Telephoto
Missing of optical image stabilization is there in every sensor, so you may face some motion blurry photos in some cases—not every time. Especially at night, you face this issue. So I have been taking photos with stable hands.
I have also clicked some photos while riding on the bike—it gave me good results. Talking about the quality in ultrawide is good when there is good light. With primary and telephoto sensor, if there is good light and without light condition, they perform good. The dynamic range is good, and details it gives with main sensor is good. Telephoto 2x needs a little bit more improvements.
Portrait photos are not that consistent. Also, it misses hair edges sometimes. Overall, camera is good enough to give you good results—not the best. Yeah, in some cases it may fail to give output that you want, but you can recapture it anyway.
Selfies:
16 MP selfie camera No complaints here that much. It produces good results—the details are good enough when in light condition; if low light, you will see some quality drop—that will obviously happen. Also, there is no autofocus here, so don’t expect good background separation here. Yeah you can try portraits though.
Videography:
Video quality is just average—not because of stabilization, which is fine, but the overall output. Daylight videos are decent, but low-light and indoor videos struggle even with good lighting. Exposure shifts happen, and 4K feels choppy sometimes. I hope they improve this with software updates, or else you’ll see the same thing. Overall, video performance isn’t that weak, though expected in this price range.
I have shown the video sample in my video and twitter thread you can watch them over there.
Final Take:
If you want phone under 20K, I will say you can go for it. It gives you triple camera setup, good design, charger in the box, software is the key of the Nothing—although they are improving day by day. Also, you get Nothing community to talk—you will get anyhow. Cons are again same for me when I told in my first impressions:
- Similar chipset Dimensity 7300 Pro (No major chip upgrade)
- Mono speaker only (No stereo)
- UFS 2.2 storage (not the fastest)
- Low-light camera processing needs a fix
- Camera app lag
- Gaming stability at 90/120FPS needs work
