Durability test puts the screws to Nothing’s CMF Phone 1

Summary

• The CMF Phone 1 redefines the budget phone game by offering durability, quality specs, and unique design at a $200 price point.
• A resilient AMOLED display paired with a solid build withstands durability tests, including fire, bending, and scratching.
• The CMF Phone 1’s internals reveal a solid metal frame, lack of OIS in the rear cameras, and a tiny vibrator, but overall, it appears to be a durable and reliable device.

Nothing’s sub-brand CMF released its first ever smartphone, the CMF Phone 1, earlier this month. We’ve already reviewed the device, and we found its performance to be much better than expected, and at a $200 price point, it is one of the best value phones available on the market.

As the name of the brand suggests, the phone’s core focus is on Color, Material, and Finish. It comes in several punchy colors, and certain elements, like functional accessories, can be mixed and matched. Its material is mainly plastic, with hints of metal on the power and volume buttons, and on the camera bar. Lastly, the finishing touches include a textured finish for the Black and Light Green colorways and a vegan leather finish on the Blue and Orange variants.

It’s rare that we get to see a $200 phone gain so much hype, and for all the right reasons. It’s also not every day that we get to see a pocket-friendly phone pass through Zack Nelson/JerryRigEverything’s durability test, and both of those statements stand true as of today.

In his test, Nelson went through all the usual durability inspections, including bending and scratching the phone, and putting the device in direct contact with fire. The CMF Phone 1, surprisingly, passed with flying colors. The 6.67-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED 120Hz display (yep, for $200) only started showing scratches on level 6 of Mohs Hardness Scale, which essentially means that putting the device in the same pocket as copper pennies shouldn’t scratch it. The front-facing camera being under-the-display means that it, too, is unlikely to get scratched in your pocket.

Nelson went on to scrape the body of the device with a utility knife, and considering that its mainly plastic, the body doesn’t hold up too well. The SIM and SD card trays are also plastic, though they’re all fit together seamlessly, and exude a semi-premium appearance.

Considering that the device’s backplate comes off easily, we had initially expected that its battery would be replaceable at home, like the Fairphone 5, though that is not the case. Removing the backplate reveals warning text on the battery that suggests users not to disassemble it, or “related protective parts without authorization” (yeah right, authorization from whom?).

Putting the CMF Phone 1’s display in direct contact with a lighter flame for 20 seconds didn’t bother it too much, and bending it didn’t show any signs of cracking or creaking, with no effect on the device’s performance either. “I imagine the back panel being physically bolted to the frame helps from a structural perspective,” said Nelson.

A peek inside the CMF Phone 1

The CMF Phone 1 comes with a flathead screwdriver, though its only role is to help you unscrew/screw the backplates on and off. To open the phone’s internals, for which you need authorization, mind you, you’ll need appropriate screwdrivers, like the ones iFixit sells.

Opening up the phone reveals that its internal frame is made of solid and thick metal, which helped the device pass the bend test. It also reveals that the two rear cameras have no OIS (optical image stabilization), with only EIS (electronic image stabilization) for the main rear shooter. Additionally, the phone’s vibrator is placed at the bottom of the frame, alongside the SD card slot, and it appears to be tiny, which might indicate that the phone might not have much of a haptic punch.

All-in-all, the CMF Phone 1 was able to survive everything thrown at it, and while it’s clear that some corners were cut to bring it down to the $200 price point, durability wasn’t one of them.