OPINION : The Nothing CMF Phone 1 costs £ 209 in the UK , while the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra be £ 1249 . That ’s almost six times the monetary value .
You might be wondering what precisely are you getting when you spend all that special money , or how much you ’re leave out out on if you do n’t . Are the top phones deserving it ? Or does it make more mother wit to drop as little as possible ?
I have spent the last few weeks with both earphone and here ’s what I recall .
Expensive materials make for an expensive phone
A lot of the reason expensive headphone be more is because they use more expensive materials in their construction . So where you ’ll find an expensive atomic number 22 frame on the Samsung , sealed seamlessly with the high - end Gorilla Glass on the front and the back , theNothing CMF Phone 1has a plastic build .
Does that affect how you use the phone ? Not really . But it does signify the Samsung phone is more durable and – because of the eccentric of drinking glass it uses on the front – also has a screen that ’s less pensive for easier viewing in shining shape , and more repellent to scratches and impact .
Because it ’s completely sealed , theSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultra(and other likewise price phones ) is more resistant to anything getting within , namely dust and H2O . It’sIP68rated , which means it can be submerged and it ’ll be ok . The IP52 rating on the Nothing CMF Phone 1 means it ’ll not do so well with water at all – It ’s fine for modest spattering or moisture , but no more .
A reason for that is that the back is n’t whole seal off . Nothing wanted to build a speech sound that was easy to get into , and easy to deepen the face of , so with a screwdriver and a little force , you’re able to remove the back and replace it . If the back does break , it can be fixed easily .
The surprising thing about the Nothing CMF Phone 1 is that it still feel passably sturdy , and has a good in - paw flavor . I ’m not going to pretend you ca n’t feel the difference in quality between this and the more expensive phone , but at the same time , Nothing has shown you’re able to buy something attractive and unique for very fiddling money .
The customisation choice make it fun , and interesting . And the other welfare of it being made from cheaper fabric – is that it ’s much unclouded , by about 30 g. This is something you feel when using it every Clarence Day .
Can you do everything with a cheaper phone?
Because it fly the coop Android , just like the S24 Ultra does , you’re able to do pretty much all the same introductory material on a cheaper phone that you ’d be able-bodied to do on the premium example . At least when it comes to societal mass medium , chance gaming , World Wide Web browse and taking photos .
For representative , I can play my usual long stints on Mario Kart Tour with the only real difference being that dissimilar level take alittlelonger to load . I am talking a few seconds here , not an sheer eld . Once you ’re in the biz , it ’s smooth and effortless .
If you care about high - saturation games and deed where it ’s drive the central processor and graphics chip to the extreme , it ’s probably better to pay up more . With the likes of Call of Duty or Genshin Impact at their highest possible configurations , the cheaper phones will bumble and lag .
There are extra performance welfare that are prissy to have in flagship - priced earpiece too . Benefits like support for Wi - Fi 6e and Wi - Fi 7 which are more unchanging and consistent wireless connections . You might not note that all that much if you ’re just streaming TV on YouTube , Netflix and societal medium and you definitely wo n’t have any benefit from it if you ’re not using aWi - Fi 6E orWi - Fi 7capable router .
The CMF Phone 1 also lack NFC – which means no contactless requital with Google Wallet . This is something to be cognisant of if you use your phone a lot to pay for stuff .
You wo n’t find much difference in battery life between an expensive and a budget phone They ’re standardized sizes , and I found they gave me about the same battery life overall , getting me well into a second Clarence Day , and almost to the end of it with faint utilisation .
A budget display is surprisingly good
One thing that impress me about the CMF Phone 1 was how astonishingly good the video display was for a phone of this monetary value . It might not have the forward-looking adaptive refresh ability of the S24 Ultra , but it ’s big , vibrant and sharp enough .
Samsung ’s option is sharp if you turn on the higher - reticuloendothelial system 1440p QHD resolution option , but at arm ’s length when you ’re just using the phone 24-hour interval - to - day for average everyday undertaking it ’s not something I missed . It ’s technically brighter too and if we want to get pernickety , it handles highlights , dividing line and colours intimately than the budget headphone , but it ’s not so take care - blowingly unlike that you’re able to see immediately that it ’s far far better . Certainly not 6 times better .
The one constituent that make the difference is the same thing that makes the remainder between Samsung and any other phone , admit more expensive ones . The anti - broody surface on the front means it can be go steady easily in any condition , even when there ’s lots of smart light source reflecting on it .
The flagships win out when it comes to the cameras
The one real standout sphere where you see the supererogatory cost is the photographic camera experience . Not just because they ’re better , but because of how many of them Samsung has pile in . This is typical when you go up the cost points to the more expensive phones , and this equivalence is a premier example .
Nothing ’s CMF Phone 1 has two cameras , but only one of those is used to take photo . The other is just to measure the depth between foreground and background objects , to help build an attractive background blur and depth of arena .
Samsung has put four cameras on the S24 Ultra , each with a unlike focal length . you’re able to interchange from an passing wide-cut ultrawide lens , to the primary winding , which is also quite wide , then to a 3x zoom and a 5x zoom .
Using sensor cropping and AI processing the S24 Ultra can zoom up to 100x if you desire . But at those gamy levels , it is the AI and processing doing most of the piece of work , colorize in details , smoothing over the humbled solution grain and natural grain , pull in the exposure look like an crude oil painting on canvas .
Still , you may get a great variety of focal lengths , suited for different situations which leave expensive phones a lot more versatility .
you’re able to whizz in on the Nothing CMF Phone 1 , and shots look pretty good at 2x zoom . Go any further and images lose item , gain lots of noise and have an overall grainy sheen that ’s quite artificial - looking .
Otherwise , it ’s the fine item in the day or in the dark where you ’ll spot the quality difference in the images . I often base it in the fine textures of farewell , flowers , or harsh control surface like the road or pavement . Samsung ’s more expensive speech sound was just honest at processing all of that contingent and texture overall , whereas the Nothing telephone was a bit smoother and texture - free .
The more expensive telephone set also has better active range , so hopeful spot are very bright . But at the same time , it knows how to advance detail from the shadow better , where the budget phone was a bit dark and crushed .
Video quality has a similar difference . Even when fritter in 4 KB resolution , the Nothing CMF Phone 1 ’s footage was rougher and duller . And it can only shoot 30fps at 4K. Samsung can do 60fps , and even shoot at 8 K if you absolutely need it – which you probably do n’t .
Now all of this is to say – Yes , the Samsung S24 Ultra is better . Of course it is . But at the same metre , the £ 200 Nothing CMF Phone 1 equips itself well and can take good - looking colourful shots with kinsperson , friend and societal media .
Software support is worth a lot
There ’s one last thing deserving mentioning and that ’s Software . First , Nothing ’s clean , distinctive , bloat - spare software is cool . It bet undecomposed , it ’s minimum , and I love the purposefully design widgets .
Nothing , however , does n’t have the budget of Samsung , so wo n’t have the same sized team act on software program development , intent or pealing updates out . This translate to Samsung ’s software program having a great deal of built - in extras . Dedicated S - Pen sport for the stylus build into the bottom edge , and default on Samsung apps – design to be used alternatively of Google ’s – but think there are duplicate , is a common complaint . You getDextoo , for using the phone as a mini PC of sorts .
More importantly , Samsung is one of the best at roll out software updates and surety patches and will support this phone for about seven days with both . Nothing is going to have just two major updates to this phone , and three old age of security department patches .
The result might surprise you
In the last , what this comparison highlights is how good thebest cheap phonesare now .
Since the more expensive example keep having to add more , whether it ’s more photographic camera , more premium materials , more power , more wasted AI features , more of everything to keep apologise those high damage . It ’s for certain not six times the phone that this CMF Phone 1 is , that ’s for sure .
I love the S24 Ultra , it ’s probably my pet phone of the year , but I could blithely use this £ 200 phone from Nothing as my day-by-day phone and would n’t have any serious complaints . That ’s a massive compliment indeed .
