CMF Phone 2 Pro is official — and it could be the budget phone of the year

Budget phones just got taken up another notch by the newly announced CMF Phone 2 Pro. The Nothing sub-brand takes what was already impressive about last year's CMF Phone 1, and rounds out its capabilities to hopefully snag it a spot on our best cheap phones guide.

While it's a little awkward to buy outside of Europe, the CMF Phone 2 Pro still costs under $300, while offering a full flagship-sized display, triple rear cameras and huge memory and battery specs.

We're less certain about how good the performance will be, and whether only three years of full software updates is good value for this price, so stay tuned for a full review and ultimate verdict soon.

For now, let's check out the CMF Phone 2 Pro's specs in detail and see what makes this budget phone special.

CMF Phone 2 Pro: Specs

CMF Phone 2 Pro: Price and availability

CMF is selling the Phone 2 Pro from £219 for 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, with a more expensive 8GB RAM/256GB storage option available for £249. The latter model is the only one up for grabs in the U.S., where it costs $279. You can get these reliably from Nothing's website, but other retailers will apparently stock it too.

Pre-orders for the CMF Phone 2 Pro are open now, with sales commencing on May 6. However, as with previous Nothing/CMF products, U.S. shoppers can only get a hold of it via the Beta Program directly from the Nothing store.

CMF Phone 2 Pro: Design and display

CMF was aiming for greater sophistication with the CMF Phone 2 Pro's design compared to the older model.

That includes making the phone thinner and lighter than the CMF Phone 1 (down to 7.8mm thick from 8.2 mm and 185 grams from 197 grams), and adding more premium flourishes like an aluminum camera block surround and stainless steel screws.

How about durability? The dust/water resistance has been upgraded, now IP54 up from IP52. Essentially, you now get better better protection from water splashing from any direction as opposed to just vertically dripping water.

The color options this time are again black, orange or light green, with a new white option. The green and black editions come with a "glass-like" back texture, with white having a sandstone finish and orange getting a metallic finish, all of which should help make this phone stand out among plainer-looking competitors.

A larger 6.77-inch FHD AMOLED display on the CMF Phone 2 Pro is an obvious upgrade from the 6.67-inch panel of its predecessor, but that's not all the CMF Phone 2 Pro changes with its screen.

This phone now offers a rated 3,000-nit peak brightness, 800-nit typical brightness and 1,300 nits outdoor brightness, a 50% improvement over the last model. You also get 2,160Hz PWM dimming to hopefully reduce potential eye strain.

CMF Phone 2 Pro: Cameras

The CMF Phone 2 Pro features a 50MP main camera, which offers 64% more light intake than the CMF Phone 1, and features support for up to 4K video recording at 30fps.

There's also an 8MP ultrawide camera and a 50MP telephoto camera — a rarity for this price point — that offers 2x optical zoom and 20x digital zoom.

These replace the 2MP depth sensor of the CMF Phone 1, and should provide a massive upgrade in photo performance.

The 16MP selfie camera is seemingly unchanged from the previous model. But an upgraded "TrueLens Engine" and new photo effect presets should make this camera, and the rest, feel fresher.

CMF Phone 2 Pro: Performance and battery

The Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G chipset in the CMF Phone 2 Pro is a direct sequel to the Dimensity 7300 in the CMF Phone 1.

The company touts a 10% CPU performance improvement and 5% graphics improvement compared to the previous CMF Phone, although given the benchmark results we got for that model, we don’t expect the Pro version of this chip to provide significantly better results.

CMF provides the Phone 2 Pro with 8GB RAM on all variants, and either 128GB or 256GB storage with the option to add up to another 2TB with a microSD card. Many budget phones offer similar default memory specs but expandable memory is disappearing from many brands’ devices, so it’s good to see it stick around here.

The CMF Phone 2 Pro’s 5,000 mAh battery now apparently offers an extra hour of battery life compared to the CMF Phone 1, despite the capacity not changing.

We'll do our own testing to verify this but the 15-hour result of the Phone 1 gives us hope for another strong performance. 33W wired charging returns as well, so we expect to see similar performance to last year, with a 62% refuel after 30 minutes plugged in.

CMF Phone 2 Pro: Software and special features

It’s great to see the CMF Phone 2 Pro offer contactless payments with NFC support, unlike the previous model. This is a feature found on basically all other modern smartphones, so it’s nice to see one of the ways the last CMF phone lagged behind is now addressed.

The CMF Phone 2 Pro runs on Nothing OS 3.2, based on Android 15. It'll get three years of Android updates and six years of security updates, which is a little on the short side compared to the gold standard of seven years of full updates the Pixel 9a get. But perhaps for the price, three years of updates is sufficient before you start looking for a replacement.

The Essential Space, and the accompanying Essential Key, first seen on the Nothing Phone 3a series, have been added to the CMF Phone 2 Pro. These are the phone's main app and control for AI-focused features like indexing screenshots and transcribing your voice notes.

CMF phones are meant to work with all sorts of accessories, and CMF is of offering several of its own options once again. This includes a Universal Cover for attaching accessories, lanyard, fisheye and macro camera lenses, a wallet/stand combo, and various bundle options collecting two or three of these items together.

Sadly, none of these are coming in the U.S. directly, which removes a key part of this phone's appeal for a large chunk of potential buyers.

CMF Phone 2 Pro: Outlook

There's been a lot of movement in our best cheap phones ranking lately, and the CMF Phone 2 Pro could cause another shakeup once our review is complete. Its low price and high-quality specs combination sound ideal, especially given the price of a flagship device or even some other "budget-priced" phones.

It appears that the CMF Phone 2 Pro will have the same limitations as other cheap phones — limited performance and below-average software update support. But everywhere else, CMF seems to have pulled out all the stops, upgrading elements like the cameras and the phone's looks and durability in particular.

If you're willing to jump through a hoop or two to buy one, this phone could be a fantastic pick for users trying to keep spending down, but unless you're already sold on the phone, wait for our review first to see if we find any major pros or cons that could change your mind.

CMF Buds 2 series

In addition to the new phone, CMF is debuting three different earbuds to potentially pair with them, and with a neat spread of prices. This line-up consists of the standard CMF Buds 2 ($59/£49), the Buds 2 Plus ($69/£59) and the Buds 2a ($49/£39).

The regular Buds 2 feature hybrid 48dB active noise canceling (ANC) and Dirac Opteo tuning, plus a Spatial Audio Effect for the illusion of 360-degree sound.

These wireless earbuds are rated to last 13.5 hours per charge, and a total of 55 hours with the case, and to be water/dust resistant to the IP55 standard. The color options for this model are dark grey, light green and orange.

Going up a notch, the Buds 2 Plus add a Hi-Res LDAC for sharper audio, and further EQ customization via a Personal Sound tool. It also ups the noise cancellation to 50dB, and the battery life to 14 hours and 61.5 hours with the case. These only come in two colorways: blue and light grey

Finally, the basic Buds 2a lack several of the special features found on the other buds, but these still come with 42dB ANC and Dirac-tuned sound, plus a battery life of 8 hours/35.5 hours and an IP54 resistance rating. Dark grey, light grey and orange are the color options here.

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