Building upon its parent company’s audio expertise, honed over time crafting intriguingly designed, feature-rich, and good-sounding TWS buds, CMF’s new earphones look very promising. Priced at Rs 4,299, the CMF Buds Pro 2 rock a stylish design, boast tons of features including ANC, and add a customisable smart dial to the case that helps elevate the overall experience quite a bit. Let’s delve a little deeper, shall we?
Table of Contents
Design and fit
Featuring a solid fit and finish, the square case impresses right from the get-go, especially the orange variant I have with me for review. You can also get it in light grey, dark grey or blue if you want. The orange one looks nice and peppy though, and quite fanta-esque. Bearing the CMF logo on top, the most prominent element on top is the smart dial placed in the corner. By default, this does nothing. However, you can use the companion app to customise it and use it to control volume, apart from assigning functions like play, pause, ANC control, etc. More on this in a bit.
A status LED is placed in front of the case, and a Type-C port on the right. Opening it up reveals the buds inside, bearing a familiar stem design. A pairing button is placed in the middle of the buds’ resting position, while the buds themselves stay in place thanks to magnets and don’t fall out even if the case is turned upside down and shaken vigorously.
The buds are lightweight, fit quite well, and are comfortable to wear for long periods as well. They feature IP55 splash resistance, and CMF says that the device is subjected to a bunch of tests to ensure they last – including drop tests, testing charging port durability, testing case opening and closing, and surviving extremes like high temperatures and humidity.
App support and features
The long list of features offered by the CMF Buds Pro 2 include support for LDAC (along with AAC and SBC), High-Res audio, spatial audio effect, ANC up to 50db, dual connection, and low lag mode. You can also query ChatGPT using the buds directly in case you’ve paired them with a CMF or Nothing phone.
Using the Nothing X app (on Android or iOS), you can customise the settings of the CMF Buds Pro 2, set EQ, configure ANC, toggle spatial audio, and choose how the controls work, among other things. While the buds do offer touch-based controls just like most other TWS earbuds out there, the ability to use the Smart Dial wheel on the case to perform certain actions adds an extra bit of convenience here. The dial is disabled by default, but using the app, you can set it to control volume… which seems the most obvious thing to do, really. Next, you also customise single press, double press, triple press, and long press actions for the dial, and set them to play/pause, switch ANC modes, launch the voice assistant, mute or unmute the mic, toggle the low lag mode answer or reject calls, or switch tracks. Now these actions can be useful in variety of different scenarios. Given that the case is likely to be in your pocket when you’re using the buds on the move, the touch actions on the buds themselves might be more accessible. That said, we know how fiddly touch controls on earbuds can be, and sometimes, just fishing the case out of the pocket to use the smart dial might just seem more convenient. Heck, I was able to press that dial even when the case was in my pocket, though rotating it seemed tougher. The tables get turned when you’re using the buds paired with a laptop or tablet, say for entertainment or work calls. The case would normally be much more handy, and it becomes so convenient to just press the dial to mute or unmute the mic, rotate it to adjust volume, and so on and so forth.
Sound quality and ANC
The 11mm titanium-coated driver and 6mm tweeter turn in a solid performance, especially for bass-heavy genres. The tuning is certainly tilted towards bass to keep the masses happy, and that’s where the EQ presets come in handy. While bass lovers would definitely appreciate the sound profile on offer, other genres also sound good with the right preset.
I didn’t really find anything to complain about in terms of audio quality, as the CMF Buds Pro 2 handled different genres quite well. The bass can overshadow instruments and vocals though, especially at higher volumes, but there are five different levels of bass intensity in case you want to tweak the thump. The ANC is quite capable as well, and dulls out even strong noises well. The likes of Bose or Sony might not lose sleep over ir, but the CMF Buds 2’s ANC prowess is certainly very notable for its price segment. That said, at higher levels it creates a vacuum sort of sensation in the ears. Adaptive ANC adjusts levels spontaneously based on ambient noise, but you can manually adjust the level as per your preferences via the Nothing X app too.
Battery life and call quality
The buds come with 60mAh batteries, while the case packs an additional 460mAh. The company promises up to 11 hours of use with ANC off (for AAC), and up to 6.5 hours with ANC on. And if the case is brought into the equation, the usage increases to 43 hours with ANC off and 26 hours with ANC on. There’s no wireless charging on offer here, but you do get quick charge, and the device charges to full in a little over an hour. Call quality is pretty decent, with the six mics and Nothing’s Clear Voice tech doing their job well.
Verdict
Priced at Rs 4,299, the CMF Buds Pro 2 come across as a full-featured, good-sounding, and capable pair that offers good bang for the buck. The smart dial is more than a gimmick I feel, and can come in useful in a variety of different scenarios. Those looking for a more balanced sound signature could possibly look at the OPPO Enco Air 3 Pro (review), which are priced similarly. All said and done, given the features on offer, the sound quality, and ANC capabilities, combined with goodies such as LDAC support and smart dial, the CMF Buds Pro 2 offer a very compelling package in the sub-Rs 5k segment.
Editor’s rating: 7.5 / 10
Pros:
- Nice fit and finish
- Good audio quality with LDAC support
- Effective, customisable ANC
- Useful Smart Dial
Cons:
- Bass-heavy tuning
- ANC can create vacuum in the ears
