The first part contains a summary … The review is divided into Pros and Cons for your easier understanding.
THE SHORT STORY: The CMF Phone 2 Pro is a well balanced smartphone with decent performance and no bloatware apps which is quite uncommon in this price range . It performs well in regular usage and I didn’t face any heating issues . The cameras are decent and perform well for the most part. The battery life has been excellent ; it’s a 2 day phone for most people . I won’t recommend it for gaming for that check phones from IQOO. If you are after a reliable phone with clean UI and almost zero hiccups with a reliable decent camera this is the ONE to go!
PROS:
- Industrial and Unique Design: The phone has a very unique design going for it and personally I liked it coz it feels like something new and fresh from the competition and feels solid to hold. It’s made of plastic yes but has a glass type of finish so no scratches!
- Screen Quality : It features a 6.77 inch 120 Hz FHD+ Flexible AMOLED display with 10 bit colours and HDR 10+ support. This sounds really amazing on paper doesn’t it? The Display is gorgeous and has vibrant colours for the price . It can drop to 60Hz at idle but doesn’t go to 30.
Nothing OS: I feel credit should be given where it is due and having used the original Oxygen OS in my last Android phone the OnePlus 7 . Nothing OS is the best implementation of Android after One Ui 7 and I mean it ! It’s so SMOOTH and snappy! Faced no niggles in the main Ui.
Cellular Call Quality : I took a lot of calls on this device using Airtel 5G in Kolkata. The calls were clear and the person on the other side never complained . You can have long calls without an issue using the earpiece and on speaker . It supports WiFi 6 and the only thing worth mentioning is that sometimes the 5G network used to go away and switch to 4G even in prime areas which didn’t happen on other devices . I thought I should mention that . No proximity sensor issues as well.
Haptic Feedback : This phone has one of the if not the best haptic feedback in the segment. It’s an X axis motor and really well tuned for the price but please don’t compare this with flagships.
Camera : The Phone 2 Pro has one of the most versatile camera setups in this class with a proper triple camera setup the specs for which has been attached in the image. Before going into the pictures one of big omissions which I felt was the lack of OIS. Let’s dive into it!
Main Camera: The main camera shoots photos which I would called maturely processed and the dynamic range and colours are also pretty good even though it has little bit of a pop as you can see in the images attached.
Telephoto Camera: This camera shoots much better details than the primary camera in my honest opinion and the colours contrast and dynamic range are pretty good . You can look at the pictures and the background blur is done really well tbh .
Ultra Wide: Honestly I didn’t expect much from this ultra wide camera and that’s how it turned out the edges were soft and the details weren’t adequate. But , the colours were consistent . Hence didn’t use this camera much .
Selfie Camera: It did a fine job tbh because it’s a 16MP sensor and the detail levels were pretty good and the colours seemed balanced . You can trust it for some good selfies .
Artificial lighting: Under artificial and low lighting conditions the camera does come out fine at best but wont win any awards. They are a bit soft and noisy . Don’t use the ultra wide camera in low lighting conditions it’s bad . The main and telephoto performance well.
Video: The phone supports upto 4K@30fps on all the lenses except the ultra wide and the selfie camera which is limited to 1080p. The colours, dynamic range come out pretty nice using the main lens . Uploaded some video samples .
7. Battery life: The Phone 2 Pro has a 5000 mAH battery which when paired with the Mediatek Dimensity 7300 Pro the battery life which you get is solid! Expect easily 8+ hours of SOT and on light usage the phone can last close to 2 days as well on a single charge .
CONS:
- Speakers : They are the weakest point of this phone tbh because it has a single speaker unit and even that is pretty subpar . It literally has no bass and the ultra volume thing starts cracking the sound . They should have gone for stereo speakers at this price range.
2. Lack of OIS : Optical Image Stabilisation is a big miss and it leads to blurry shots like this if not taken with a very stable hand . I hope it’s solved in the next generation .
3. Charging Speed : With the charger included in the box the charging is not very fast tbh even though it’s 33W it takes almost 1.5 hours to charged from 0. A new update was released yesterday and has improved the charging speed little bit but it’s still far away from competitors.
4. UFS 2.2 storage and RAM Management : Ik at this price point I shouldn’t ask for UFS 3.1 but the RAM Management is not done particularly well . It’s pretty much on the aggressive side and kills apps very frequently especially when you use the camera and go back to the previous.
CONCLUSION:
So we can conclude that the CMF Phone 2 Pro is a very competitive phone for the price if you need a clean Ui , proper triple cameras , great battery life and a wonderful display with symmetrical bezels.
PRICING:
It starts at ₹18,999 for the 8 GB RAM/128GB storage option and goes up to 20,999 for the 8 GB RAM/256GB storage option which I find to be little on the higher side coz the Nothing Phone 3a is very close and a much overall better phone . You do get 1k cashback on Flipkart.
Disclaimer: This phone was provided to me by Nothing India.
as a part of the Nothing Community Review Programme. Be rest assured that all the opinions stated are my own.
MISCELLANEOUS:
The optical fingerprint scanner works pretty well
The unboxing experience was also pretty nice with a cable, charger and a transparent TPU case provided
There was an issue with LUTs where the camera went black which was solved in the latest update.
Hybrid SIM with Micro SD card slot is a great addition.
