{"id":74619,"date":"2025-08-11T12:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T12:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/74619\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T12:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T12:30:08","slug":"a-budget-phone-with-more-camera-than-you-bargained-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/74619\/","title":{"rendered":"A Budget Phone With More Camera Than You Bargained For"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all want more for less\u2014or at least I do. It\u2019s that Holy Grail of deals that makes the idea of budget gadgets so appealing<\/a>, and especially so in the world of phones. The whole idea of a budget phone<\/a> is pitching you what may as well be the bargain of the century. For less money, budget phones ostensibly offer you a device that does it all: browses the web, retrieves your email, makes calls and texts, gives you near-unlimited access to apps, and even captures important memories like your niece\u2019s first birthday and the horrible decision to hire a clown (therapy stuff). It\u2019s everything for almost nothing\u2014write that down, phone companies.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re like me, you see a good deal, and you wonder, \u201cWhat\u2019s the catch?\u201d That\u2019s what I say when I see a budget phone, but each and every time, I put my skepticism aside and open myself up to the prospect of forgetting the idea of flagships and embracing the warm bosom of budget stuff. That\u2019s what I did with the CMF by Nothing Phone 2 Pro<\/a> (hereafter shortened to the shorter CMF Phone 2 Pro), and surely this will be the one that clicks\u2026 right?<\/p>\n

CMF Phone 2 Pro<\/p>\n

The CMF by Nothing Phone 2 Pro is a budget phone with more value than you’d expect.<\/p>\n

Pros<\/p>\n

Nice camera for the price<\/p>\n

Solid battery life<\/p>\n

Fluid AMOLED screen<\/p>\n

Cons<\/p>\n

Cheap-feeling materials<\/p>\n

Shooting 50-megapixel photos is slow<\/p>\n

No more customizable backplate<\/p>\n

Accessories were botched at launch<\/p>\n

The CMF Proposition
\n\"CMF\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

There is a sea of budget phones out there, and most of them aren\u2019t even trying to be different. The same can\u2019t be said for the CMF Phone 2 Pro, a $280 device from a subbrand of Nothing, the company that makes see-through earbuds and, most recently, the divisive Phone 3<\/a>. What makes CMF different in the budget phone space? A host of first-party accessories that position its Phone 2 Pro as modular in some ways. At launch, CMF offered a few<\/a>: an attachable lanyard, additional camera lenses that include a fisheye and macro, a \u201cuniversal cover\u201d for actually putting stuff on, and a magnetic wallet mount. There\u2019s even a cool screw for attaching the lanyard built into the bottom of the device!<\/p>\n

See CMF Phone 2 Pro at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

They\u2019re not groundbreaking accessories by any means, but the idea of a modular phone is a provocative one, especially in the budget space where things get vanilla very fast. The problem? I haven\u2019t gotten to try any of that out. According to a spokesperson for Nothing, there was a manufacturing issue with the universal case that actually allows you to attach things, which prevents me (the person who\u2019s supposed to test this phone out) from, well, testing this stuff out. Not off to a great start when it comes to budget phone impressions.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s a lot of phone to test here, even if the main thing that makes this budget phone interesting isn\u2019t one of them. So, let\u2019s start with the more traditional stuff.<\/p>\n

Can a Budget Phone Have a Pro Camera?
\n\"CMF\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

There are a few notable upgrades over the CMF Phone 1, and one of them is the camera. This time, the Phone 2 Pro gives you a three-lens system that includes a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel telephoto, and an 8-megapixel ultrawide. That\u2019s, on the surface, a pretty good deal, but what matters is how all that actually translates to the pictures the phone takes. And the answer to that is\u2026 honestly, better than you\u2019d think.<\/p>\n

Obviously, you can\u2019t expect a $280 phone to take flagship-level pictures, but you want them to be above potato quality all the same. I\u2019d say the CMF Phone 2 Pro sometimes takes pictures at a level you\u2019d expect, but a lot of the time exceeds your expectations. This generation\u2019s camera was designed specifically to capture more light with its sensor, and it definitely succeeds in that endeavor. Even photos shot outdoors on a cloudy day looked plenty bright\u2014so bright that I would say I was actually surprised.<\/p>\n

Any issue I have with the camera system doesn\u2019t have to do with its ability to capture light; it would be with its sharpness. Pictures on the CMF Phone 2 Pro tend to all look a little soft, with edges that can get a little blurry. This is a budget phone, after all, but something to be aware of if you\u2019re stepping down from a midrange device<\/a> or, God forbid, a flagship. To avoid that dullness as much as you can, I\u2019d recommend shooting in 50 megapixels for the highest resolution by changing your camera\u2019s settings, which are set to 12 megapixels by default. That won\u2019t change the fact that this lens (a budget one) may just be on the duller side, but it won\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

Speaking of shooting in 50 megapixels, you should be prepared for a slight delay on the shutter when you\u2019re snapping pictures\u2014sometimes that delay between button press and a picture actually being taken is about two seconds. Again, these are the types of sacrifices you\u2019ll make when buying a budget phone, and it may be a deal-breaker for some, but if you\u2019re not expecting the best and fastest all the time, it may be worth the savings. Overall, I would describe the photos as a step above what I was expecting from a sub-$300 device, slightly soft-looking warts and all.<\/p>\n

So, What Is the Catch?
\n\"CMF\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

So far, we\u2019ve got a better-than-you-think camera, nonexistent accessories, and a very affordable price. But what about the rest of the Phone 2 Pro? If you\u2019re going to be taking pictures, you need a screen that actually lets you look at them with the right amount of color contrast, brightness, and clarity, and I can say the CMF Phone 2 Pro has that. There\u2019s a 6.77-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate that provides 3,000 nits of peak brightness. In phone speak, that equates to a fast, fluid screen with good color contrast that makes editing photos, scrolling web pages, and watching YouTube videos feel seamless. Swiping between apps and pages on the phone is responsive, just like any other phone with a 120Hz refresh rate.<\/p>\n

See CMF Phone 2 Pro at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

Performance-wise, the Phone 2 Pro is using a budget chip, the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro, but as I\u2019ve said in many other phone reviews, an older chip often doesn\u2019t matter much. The only time I noticed any real, perceptible slowness was when I was taking photos, but outside of that\u2014if you\u2019re just web browsing and using apps like most people\u2014then this will be enough performance to get you by.<\/p>\n

\"CMF\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

While the biggest differentiator of the Phone 2 Pro is still the accessories, the second biggest is probably Nothing OS, which is Nothing\u2019s custom skin over Android that comes with some visual flourishes, including a monochrome setting that defaults all your app icons to black and white. If you don\u2019t want that, you can easily change your phone to stock Android, but it\u2019s nice to have the option. As is the case with other Nothing phones, Nothing OS runs smoothly on the CMF Phone 2 Pro even with a slower chipset. Again, this is not a phone built for machine learning, Apple-style computational photography<\/a>, or graphics-intensive 3D gaming, but for all the normal stuff you do on a day-to-day basis, it performs reasonably well.<\/p>\n

One thing that I love to see in the second-gen CMF phone is an NFC chip, which means that you can actually use mobile payments. Everyone is different, but not being able to use my phone to pay for things would be a dealbreaker, so it\u2019s nice to see CMF upped its game here. Battery-wise, the CMF Phone 2 Pro comes with a 5,000mAh battery, which lasted about two days for me with normal usage. For reference, that\u2019s the same size battery you\u2019d get on the Nothing Phone 3a Pro<\/a> and lots of other phones for that matter. The CMF Phone 2 Pro also supports fast charging, but only up to 33W, compared to the Phone 3a Pro\u2019s 55W. One feature that was surprising to me was the inclusion of reverse charging, which operates at a slow and steady 5W, but it is still nice to have in a pinch. I was able to top up my Nothing Ear wireless earbuds, which was pretty neat.<\/p>\n

\"CMF\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo A lanyard attaches here, I\u2019m told.<\/p>\n

One thing that you\u2019re going to get in basically any budget phone on the market is less expensive materials\u2014this isn\u2019t an iPhone, no titanium here. The CMF Phone 2 Pro is no different and is made mostly from plastic. The bad news is the phone feels cheap in your hand, but the good news is it\u2019s also incredibly light, which I don\u2019t hate. Design-wise, I think the look of the CMF Phone 2 Pro is actually a step down from the CMF Phone 1, especially because it doesn\u2019t have a modular backplate anymore that lets you customize the look. The glass is glued on<\/a>, despite the screws that would have you thinking otherwise. My main gripe aesthetically is that the \u201clight green\u201d colorway actually looks more blue or silver than anything else. I even did an impromptu quiz in the Gizmodo office, and most guesses were \u201csilver.\u201d I\u2019m not going to go full color police here, but if your name is CMF (an acronym for color, material, and finish), you ought to nail the whole color thing.<\/p>\n

Am I Budging on Budget Phones?
\n\"CMF\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to be honest with you: I won\u2019t be using a budget device any time soon\u2014I\u2019ve grown accustomed to snappy pictures aided by computational photography, beefy chipsets, and a weight and feel that some midrange and budget devices don\u2019t offer. But just because I won\u2019t be switching doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t. The fact of the matter is that the CMF Phone 2 Pro does what you need it to and even excels in categories that you wouldn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n

The CMF Phone 2 Pro has a camera that performs much better than it ought to, a solid battery, a screen that will please most people in most scenarios, and even ventures to offer unique perks like accessories and bespoke software, even if one of those things was actually kind of botched at launch. In the budget world, I think it\u2019s hard to find all of those pros in one package, and for $280 it\u2019s encouraging to know that you can get a device that won\u2019t make you feel like you\u2019ve stepped back in time to a point where people still said the \u201ccell\u201d in front of \u201cphone.\u201d I hope that CMF figures out its modular identity, though. A glued-on backplate is a step back, and not having accessories available at launch is a bad look, but the idea of a modular phone is one that I think could appeal to the masses.<\/p>\n

Budget phones will never be for the legions of spoiled iPhone users,<\/a> but for the rest of the world, options like the CMF Phone 2 Pro are here to fill in the gaps and offer you quite a lot for not a lot of money, and it\u2019s nice to know that if you ever wanted to, you could still buy a sub-$300 phone and get away with it.<\/p>\n

See CMF Phone 2 Pro at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We all want more for less\u2014or at least I do. It\u2019s that Holy Grail of deals that makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[4329,53174,165,7764,900,3053,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-74619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-android","9":"tag-cmf","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-nothing","12":"tag-reviews","13":"tag-smartphones","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}