CMF Phone 2 Pro vs Nothing Phone (3a): OK, what are we looking at?

Intro

The CMF by Nothing experiment continues, as a new phone under the brand has just launched. CMF Phone 2 Pro comes with a slight redesign, but kind of following the old “modular” idea, aggressive pricing, and the full Nothing software experience. It’s also called “Pro” now, for some reason. What it’s lacking is the glowing Glyph on the back, which is still the signature of the Nothing phones.

The Nothing Phone (3a) is also an evolution of its own — it took what made the Phone (3a) alluring and built on it by adding a camera and bumping the hardware this year.

Both phones are midrangers, the Phone (3a) is $100 more expensive. Which one to go for?

Design and Display Quality

Modular vs glowing

The first CMF Phone 1 introduced an interesting modular concept with a little rotating wheel on its bottom right (from the back). You could screw in different modules like a kick stand, card holder, and lanyard. The CMF Phone 2 Pro keeps this concept but also kind of changes it — the back panel is not interchangable, but you can place a plaque on its back, which is magnetic and serves the same purpose.

The one upgrade to the “modular” style is that you can now place external lenses over the camera. We’ve seen this type of accessory in the past — where you attach an ultra-wide or telephoto lens on top of your regular phone camera. CMF by Nothing just offers this playful accessory from the past as a 1st party design.

Nothing Phone (3a) is an entirely different thing — with a transparent back, which reveals faux internals underneath (these are also just pretty design elements), and the glowing Glyph interface, consisting of three LED strips. Unlike the modular CMF Phone, which uses its back panel for practical add-ons, the Nothing Phone (3a) uses its back panel to serve you silent notifications, or have a countdown timer.

The CMF Phone 2 Pro is entirely plastic, whereas the Nothing Phone (3a) has a glass back, but still a metal frame. In terms of size, both are about the same, and the CMF Phone 2 Pro is slightly lighter. And buttons? Well, they both have a total of four buttons, placed in the same locations — volume up and down, power, and the new Essential Key that’s used to access the Nothing Essential Space (a.k.a. Nothing’s light integration of AI. More on that later).

Both phones have that “industrial” slightly geeky look to them. Though, the Phone (3a) definitely looks a bit extra with its transparent back and LED strips. If you are into fun colors, the CMF Phone 2 Pro does come in a vibrant orange, and then black and white. The Nothing Phone (3a) comes in black, white, and a cool blue.

On paper, it sounds like Nothing is using the same panels here — 6.8-inch OLED screens with 120 Hz panels, 1080p resolution, and 3,000 nits peak brightness. Yes, even on the $279 CMF Phone 2 Pro, that’s an impressive spec. Let’s check out the measurements, then:

Well, the tests seem to reaffirm it. Yes, there are slight deviations, but such is the nature of OLED panels. In general, these seem to be very much the same screens! Well, the Nothing Phone (3a) does use scratch-resistant Panda Glass to protect its panel, and the CMF Phone 2 Pro — unknown. So, maybe there’s a slight difference in quality and endurance, but we are not going to take Mohs picks to these.

Performance and Software

What does Pro mean anymore

They are both 2.5 GHz chips built on a 4 nm process, yet the Snapdragon does score higher than the Dimensity — about 10% faster, consistently. OK, what about their GPUs?

Again, another time where the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 scores more than 10% better than the Dimensity 7300 Pro. None of these scores are something to be super-excited about, but since we are doing a comparison and all…

What matters here is how these phones run in real life. Obviously, you won’t be playing Warzone Mobile on them, but for browsing, chatting, and YouTube binging — how do they work? Well, mostly fine. Those that are spoiled by the performance of a flagship may notice slow response when going from camera to picture directly — takes some time to process. And launching a heavy app or pulling back a recent app from the carousel takes a beat longer than you’d like. But we can’t criticize the day-to-day performance of these phones too much. They are fine… just fine.

There is, of course, the new Essential Space. This got launched with the Phone (3a) and is like Google’s Screenshots app, but on steroids. Press the Essential Key and the phone will take a screenshot, and you can record a voice note while doing so. Said picture goes into the Essential space and AI is employed to automatically add tags to it or even pull relevant information, like timely notifications. It’s all based on the information present whenever you took a screenshot. It also works in the camera — just press the Essential Key instead of the shutter and the picture will be treated the same way.

Both phones have this and it seems it will be getting new features from Nothing regularly. The CMF Phone 2 Pro will be getting 3 years of Android updates and 6 years of security patches. Pretty generous for a $279 phone, and the Nothing Phone (3a) comes with the same commitment.

Camera

Upgrades from one, on to the other

The Nothing Phone (3a) come with a curious, no-frills upgrade. A 50 MP main camera, 50 MP 2x zoom camera, 8 MP ultra-wide, and 32 MP selfie camera. That’s right, it’s a sub-$400 phone with a triple camera that doesn’t do the “macro” or “depth” camera trick — these are three different, usable framing options.

Surprisingly, the CMF Phone 2 Pro followed suit, with its own 50 MP main, 50 MP 2x, and 8 MP ultra-wide cameras. The only difference here is on the front — a 16 MP camera instead of the 32 MP. The main camera appears to be the same, the sensor under the zoom lens is very slightly smaller. 

Main Camera

Here, we see the clear differences between the two cameras. While the CMF Phone 2 Pro did, indeed, bring out more detail, its colors are oversaturated and exposure a bit too high. The Nothing Phone (3a) image is more natural.

Zoom Quality

When zooming in, both phones give us similar quality. Again, the CMF Phone 2 Pro’s vibrancy is turned up more and colors appear skewed.

Ultra-wide Camera

Both phones have 120-degree ultra-wide lenses and while both distort towards the edges (normal for an ultra-wide camera with no extra-treatment), the CMF Phone 2 Pro’s artifacts are more evident.

Selfies

In the selfie department, they are quite comparable. The colors of the CMF camera are still a bit off, and its dynamics are flatter, while the Nothing Phone (3a) gives us a slightly more realistic picture. It also has better details when going in to pixel-peep.

More Camera Samples

Battery Life and Charging

Covering the norm

Both of these have 5,000 mAh batteries, and it seems like they only differ in charging speeds — CMF Phone 2 Pro having 33 W, Nothing Phone (3a) taking in 50 W. But the processors of the phones may also make a difference in how long they last. Here are the tests:

PhoneArena Battery and Charging Test Results:

Little surprise there, they are kind of the same. Interestingly enough, the Nothing Phone (3a) lasted much longer on our browsing test, but got drained a bit faster by the YouTube infinite playlist.

On charging, as expected, the Nothing Phone (3a) is slightly faster to top up.

Specs Comparison

CMF Phone 2 Pro	Nothing Phone (3a)
Size, weight 164 x 78 x 7.8 mm 185 g	Size, weight 163.52 x 77.5 x 8.35 mm 201 g
Screen 6.8″ OLED 120 Hz 3000 nits peak	Screen 6.8″ OLED 120 Hz 3000 nits peak
Processor MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Pro 4nm	Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 4nm
Versions: 8/128 GB 8/256 GB	Versions: 8/128 GB 12/256 GB
Cameras: 50 MP main 8 MP ultra 50 MP telephoto, 2x zoom 16 MP front	Cameras: 50 MP main 8 MP ultra 50 MP telephoto, 2x zoom 32 MP front
Battery: 5000 mAh	Battery: 5000 mAh
Charging: USB-C 33 W wired No wireless charging	Charging: USB-C 50 W wired No wireless charging

Conclusion

While the CMF Phone 2 Pro is a pretty good offer for $279, the Nothing Phone (3a) does offer some more. Some more performance, definitely a better and more natural camera.

Now, whether you prefer the glowing Glyph interface of the Nothing Phone or the modularity of the CMF Phone 2 Pro — that’s up to you. Though, we’d like to point out that there aren’t that many modules available (wallet, kickstand, lanyard), and 3rd party manufacturers don’t seem to have jumped at the chance just yet. The lens add-ons you can slap on the CMF Phone 2 Pro’s cameras are fun… OK, but the camera isn’t amazing to begin with.

So, final verdict — we do veer towards the Nothing Phone (3a), but if budget is king — you won’t be disappointed by the CMF Phone 2 Pro.