Watch out Samsung: Very cheap rival Android phone is coming next month

Samsung might be looking over its shoulder as plucky UK tech outfit Nothing has just announced the launch date for its latest Android smartphone, and it’s set to challenge Samsung’s cheapest phones with something a little different - and the new handset could be even more affordable than the £319 Nothing Phone 2a. Nothing has a sub-brand called CMF - which stands for ‘colour, material, finish' - and it’s been confirmed the CMF Phone 1 will be unveiled on 8 July. 

Nothing has only existed since 2020 when former OnePlus executive Carl Pei felt it was time for something different. In the intervening years, Nothing has released several sets of in-ear wireless earbuds as well as three phones, most recently with the excellent Nothing Phone 2a that Express.co.uk awarded four stars to in a review.

We were also impressed with the CMF Watch Pro, one of the first products to come out of Nothing’s CMF sub-brand - especially as it costs an unbelievably low £69. Despite that it packs in several days of battery life, a heart rate sensor, stress and blood oxygen monitoring, and tons of sports tracking options.

The announcement of a CMF Phone 1 is exciting as it could give UK Android fans a smartphone with great design and features for a genuinely affordable price. When shopping under £300, smartphones can be perfectly capable but tend to lack character and are not very thoughtfully designed. It looks like Nothing is making sure that isn’t the case here, with teaser images appearing to show that the phone has a physically moving circular dial (see above).

This could of course be purely decorational, a fidget spinner addition, but we hope it has a function - it could potentially scroll through menus, change volume, or be used to zoom in on web pages or when using the camera. As for the product itself, 91Mobiles reported the device could be a rebadged Nothing Phone 2a in a different casing, minus the flashing lights on the back Nothing phones are known for, and with lesser tech specs such as a weaker processor. We’ll also have to wait and see if the phone will run Nothing’s eye-catching monochrome-styled Android software or if it’ll have something different.

But that’s not all CMF will launch on 8 July.

“On the same day, CMF by Nothing will also be releasing the second generation products Watch Pro 2 and Buds Pro 2,” the company told Express.co.uk via email. It could be that part of the Buds case appears in the teaser image used at the top of this article, carrying the design language onto other devices besides the phone.

You can tune in to the announcement at cmf.tech from 10am BST on 8 July.