This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
You would think that in 2025, nearly 20 years since the first smartphones arrived, we would finally be able to buy a no-compromise phone for a budget price.
But that hasn't really been the case.
In the past few years, smartphone prices have gone up, not down. And the quality of budget phones has honestly improved in very slow increments.
Just look at devices like the $200 Samsung Galaxy A16 with a processor that still stutters and lags, making an easy argument to upgrade to a more expensive device. Even at the $300 price point, you have devices like the Moto G series that come with a compromised LCD screen rather than OLED.
It was (almost) perfect
So you can see how I was really excited to test a new kind of budget phone that made very little of those adjustments.
Big and beautiful OLED screen? Check.
Fast and smoother performance. You've got it.
Decent haptics? Surprisingly, yes!
A good camera? Yes, indeed.
Thin and lightweight? You bet!
Solid battery life. Check again.
And there are many other details that make this phone special, including just the sheer value of getting a phone with 256GB of storage for $280, while Samsung charges $300 for the Galaxy A26 that only has 128 GB on board.
Not to mention the creativity of Nothing. You can add a screw-on case with custom lenses and it also adds MagSafe magnets to the back of the phone. And you can easily add a kickstand or a lanyard. Now, that's cool and creative.
So… have I found the perfect budget phone?
Well, those were my thoughts in the first few days of living with the CMF Phone 2 Pro, the latest creation by former OnePlus guru Carl Pei (now founder and CEO of London-based phone maker Nothing).
There was really very little to dislike about the CMF Phone 2 Pro, even from a seasoned and occasionally grumpy phone reviewer like myself.
But then…
But then I opened the YouTube Music app, played my favorite song and the moment I heard it, I knew that this was a deal-breaker. I had just stumbled upon the biggest flaw of this otherwise phenomenal budget phone.
Yep, the loudspeaker quality kind of sucked.
The sound was too quiet, but also the low frequencies were completely missing and even the mids sound muddy. It's just an incredibly dull listening experience, and I was so disappointed I had to turn off the song immediately.
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Now, I am the kind of person who listens to a lot of music, YouTube videos and podcasts on their phone, and if you are not like me, then great — consider the CMF Phone 2 Pro about as perfect as budget phones get.
But if you like listening to music on your phone, too, then… curb your enthusiasm.
And it's a bummer that most reviewers don't seem to ever mention that as if it was not something you bump into every day.
I am not saying other budget phones in the sub-$300 price will give you much better sound quality. I would actually suggest going for at least a $400 phone for that, but I was hoping the CMF would be different in its new energy and vigor. After all, wouldn't it be the dream to finally have THE PERFECT budget phone?
But let me know: do you care about the loudspeaker on your phone, and is that an important factor for you when you pick your next phone?
Victor, a seasoned mobile technology expert, has spent over a decade at PhoneArena, exploring the depths of mobile photography and reviewing hundreds of smartphones across Android and iOS ecosystems. His passion for technology, coupled with his extensive knowledge of smartphone cameras and battery life, has positioned him as a leading voice in the mobile tech industry.
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