It’s Year Zero in the world of the Phone

I've seen the future and it's ....well... cheap

You may recall a few weeks ago I was flagellating myself because of an impulse decision to buy a really cheap phone. Well, it turns out I wasn’t just a gadget freak with an expensive habit after all. In fact, I was a tech guru surfing the leading edge of the hardware device zeitgeist. Or something.

 Apparently the world of Tech (I’ve read about this obviously – I’m in IT too, but I’ve seen zero evidence myself) has decided that phones as lifestyle accessories have peaked. Now they are just consumer durables like hairdryers and ‘fridges. So, I am actually reporting back to you on the hottest phone on the market right now and this might just be the first occasion where I have inadvertently bought exactly the right device at exactly the right time.

The phone in question is the CMF Phone 1 (CMF stands for Colour, Material Finish btw) and it’s made in India and China. I’ll talk a little about the phone itself in a sec, but we should talk about its USP straight away, because it’s a game changer.

It’s the price.

My other phone is the probably the flagship Android phone at the moment, the Samsung Galaxy Ultra. It costs £1,200 and the equivalent Apple is about the same.

The CMF Phone costs £179. That’s 85% cheaper.

So, I mean it’s going to be a pile of poorly assembled crap of course, I mean, how could it not be?

Well let’s have a look.

Right from the off it starts to defy expectations. It comes it a rather pleasant box which reveals your standard rectangular black slab, except the back has exposed screws and an accessory wheel (Can’t think what else you would call it). It has a sort of utilitarian feel to it. The screws are there to look good, but also to help make it easy to take the back off, swap for different colours or add accessories. I’ve swapped my black back for a sort of Teal-y blue colour but left I left the black bits and bobs unchanged.

And this is the second idea – namely that they have managed to actually design a phone that looks a little different, which I think is the first occasion in a decade where that has happened.

Now we come inevitably to the slightly Techy stuff. But I’m not going to bore you with all that. Except to say that there is nothing special about the experience whatsoever. It’s almost the same size as my Samsung, the screen’s nice and bright. It feels good to the touch. No lags or locking up. It’s all perfectly good.

And by that I mean perfectly good by flagship phone standards.

For £179.

I can only find 2 areas where it’s less than great. Although it takes perfectly respectable pictures, the camera is rather deficient when compared to an Apple or Samsung. Also, it doesn’t have Near Field Communication (NFC) and payments by phone need this. I use my watch (or my ring when I’m feeling brave) so this is no great issue for me, but I can see it would be a deal breaker if you do only pay by phone.

So I’m now back at the question I had a couple of weeks ago. What should I use it for? Well at the moment I’m trying it out as a sort-of weekend phone. It’s so much slimmer than the Samsung, because it is designed not to have a bulky cover on. It’s a better in-jeans proposition. Plus, at this price it’s really not the end of the world if it gets dropped. Apart from anything else you can just replace a damaged back if needed.

Believe it or not I do have the semblance of an IT hardware guiding principle and no, it’s not “buy a much has my bank balance will stand…”  It’s to try to avoid carrying around anything more than I really need. My watch has replaced my wallet. My phone has replaced my camera (That was the biggest deal of all for me and before you start, I have taken the best pictures of my 50-year photographic life with phones), my notebook, PC etc.

So, should I just flog my Samsung and go with the CMF? Well because of my photography passion I don’t think I can drop the Samsung fully, but if I say I would seriously consider doing so if they had spent another £50 on its camera.

Here’s the thing. If phones of this quality are available at this price point, I think the “phone-as-commodity” world is definitely with us. Yes, like a hair dryer, you will always be able to buy premium expensive phones, but I expect a fully featured, full-sized, really good quality phone (current flagship standard) to be with us at, let’s say, £300 within the year.

You heard it here first.