Tom’s Guide Verdict
Few phones ever go under $300.
It’s the most customizable phone you might get.
The only big drawback is that you’ll need to settle for a subpar camera performance.
(Image credit: Future)
You get three colors to choose from: black, orange, and light green.
But thats not all.
For a phone of this caliber, you wont find anything else that matches this level of customization.
Even with its modular design, it somehow still retains an IP52 rating for some water and dust resistance.
When it comes to brightness, this AMOLED panel manages to muster up a respectable peak of 1,129 nits.
Meanwhile, a 16MP camera serves as its selfie shooter.
However, this manual mode is only reserved for taking photos.
Selfies from its 16MP camera struggle when theres contrasting light sources.
Don’t expect much from the zooming capabilities of the CMF Phone 1.
As a result, the detail loss becomes magnified the more you zoom.
Not surprisingly, the CMF Phone 1 is a disappointment for low-light photography.
To be fair, most cheap phones tend to underperform in this area.
Although, I can vouch that any phone under $300 will offer similar results.
Scrolling web pages is silky smooth, while apps open in an instant.
Plus, its performance doesnt stutter when Im frenetically switching between apps.
However, theres a lot more to be desired with the CMF Phone 1’s graphics processing performance.
Frankly, it struggles in keeping a playable frame rate with some of the games I played.
Overall, it averaged 15 hours and 2 minutes in our testing.
Thats longer than what other pricier phones, like theGalaxy S24 Plus, achieves with their battery life.
Thats a speedy time I can gladly accept given how it doesnt offer wireless charging.
Functionally, Nothing OS 2.6 on top ofAndroid 14runs just like most Android phones Ive tested.
Simplicity is a strong focus with Nothing OS 2.6 and thats exactly how I prefer it.
ChatGPT integration is available only when you pair the phone to a CMF or Nothing wireless earbuds.
But again, this is widely accessible to any Android phone.
That’s rough if you intend on keeping the CMF Phone 1 for longer than 3 years.
The only area Im really disappointed about is its camera performance, which for some could be a dealbreaker.
This is the one compromise youre going to need to make.
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
