Another week, another affordable Android phone to make you rethink how much you really need to spend on your next smartphone – and this one is a real head turner.
UK tech company Nothing has just announced the CMF Phone 2 Pro, the latest device from the firm’s CMF sub-brand. CMF stands for ‘colour, material, finish’, and that’s certainly evident from the boldly designed Android phone that costs from £219.
That comfortably undercuts the £799 iPhone 16, £799 Samsung Galaxy S25, £499 Google Pixel 9a and even Nothing’s own £329 Nothing Phone 3a that launched earlier in the year.
£219 gets you the phone with 128GB storage, though you can pay £30 more if you’d prefer 256GB.
To reach these bargain prices, Nothing has had to cut a few corners, but judging by the spec sheet the CMF Phone 2 Pro shouldn’t feel like a cheap toy. Confusingly, there’s no regular Phone 2, so the Phone 2 Pro is the one and only successor to last year’s CMF Phone 1.
The Phone 2 Pro catches the eye in black, white, light green and orange colourways, with different finishes depending which you pick. The black and light green have a “glass-like back” (read: plastic), the white has a sandstone finish while the bright orange version optics for a split-textured back with a metallic look.
“When designing, we’ve taken care to lend the different iterations a more sophisticated quality, in a considered step up from CMF Phone 1”, Nothing said in a press release.
You’ll either love or hate the look. But unlike the Phone 1, the Phone 2 Pro doesn’t offer removable backplates, so you can’t swap them out for another colour. If you buy one of the accessories such as a card wallet and even a fish eye lens kit, you’ll get a tiny screwdriver to help you attach them, but you’ll also need the white universal cover case, which will hide the colour of your phone.
Around the front, the phone has a 6.77-Inch FHD+ 120Hz OLED screen that Nothing says has a 50 percent higher peak brightness compared to CMF Phone 1, a nice upgrade. Also, mercifully, the new device has NFC, the tech that allows you to add bank cards for contactless payments using Google Pay. The Phone 1 didn’t have NFC, something all smartphones should have in this day and age.
You’ll also get IP54 dust and water resistance (not dunkable), a large 5,000mAh battery with 33W fast charging though no charger in the box in the UK, an under-display fingerprint sensor, and the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 5G chipset powering things. It’s a decidedly mid-range processor, but should handle most tasks aside from running the most demanding 3D mobile games.
Cameras are covered with triple rear lenses fronted by a 50MP main sensor and a 50MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom. The 8MP ultra-wide will likely herald less impressive results, while there is a 16MP lens for selfies and video calls. I’ll have to get hands on with the phone to see if the fancy-named TrueLens Engine 3.0 software with its “advanced Ultra XDR algorithms with intelligent processing” help to produce good images.
The phone also has Nothing’s Essential Space app, which is similar to the Pixel Screenshots app found on Google Pixel phones. Complete with a dedicated Essential button on the right edge, just like the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro, pressing it lets Phone 2 Pro screenshot, with you able to add a note, all collected in the app.
Pressing and holding lets you record an audio note, and Nothing’s AI is on hand to try and categorise your screenshots, as well as summarise their contents.
At 7.8mm thick and just 185g, the Phone 2 Pro is at least slim and light even though its big screen ensures it’ll be a bit of a pocket buster. You’ll get full 5G compatibility with UK networks, plus Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 – worth noting if you want the newest Wi-Fi 7 standards on all your next tech purchases.
Despite the low price, Nothing is offering three years of Android updates and six years of security patches, meaning this budget blower will still be safe to use with all apps until at least 2031. It launches with Nothing OS 3.0, which is based on Android 15, the latest version.
In all, the phone looks like excellent value for money, undercutting Nothing’s own already cheap Phone 3a by an impressive £110. If you want to spend as little as possible for a stylish and capable Android phone in 2025, the CMF Phone 2 Pro looks like it should be high on your wishlist. It’s on sale now from Nothing’s UK website.