CMF Clip Pro Review – Trusted Reviews

Introduction

While there are now a lot of open-ear or clip-on earbuds on the market, many can seem quite expensive for the obvious compromises they offer. It’s rare to find somebody (unless you constantly need spatial awareness) who could buy a pair of these and have it be their only set of buds.

Even if you need to know what’s going on around you some of the time, you’ll probably want a sealed pair with noise-cancelling for commutes and plane journeys, so the open pair is probably your secondary set.

That’s where the budget end of the market comes in. Can’t justify spending £199 on the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, or the high £179 cost of the Shokz OpenDots 2? That’s okay when there are options like the EarFun Clip 2 for £70 or the Soundcore AeroClip going for £79 (at the time of writing). It’s a lot easier to afford something that’s about half the cost of the leading models, especially if it delivers many of the same essential features.

Nothing’s CMF sub-brand is known for undercutting rivals and overdelivering on features, and it’s back doing it again with the CMF Clip Pro. I quite like the Nothing Ear (Open), and the brand has evidently learned from those hook-style buds when making its much-smaller clip-ons.

These work with Nothing’s companion app, have a tiny, lightweight build, and promise 10 hours of playtime on a charge. To find out if they’re a worthy pair of open headphones, I’ve been putting them to the test.

Design

• Lightweight and comfortable to wear
• Small charging case with a smart dial control
• Comes in three colours: Dark Grey, Light Grey, and Coral

CMF has done a great job with the design of these tiny buds. They have a bit of a glossy plastic look, but a matte finish on the stretchy clip part over the titanium wire, plus a raised and textured surface over the buttons. They only weigh 5.9g per bud, and they’re incredibly comfortable to wear with a no-fuss fit and lightweight grip. The best cuff earbuds have a barely there feeling, and these don’t disappoint in that area.

There’s a chance they may slip slightly in vigorous exercise, but I haven’t noticed them dislodge at all during weeks of testing. They’re IP54-rated, and also available in a few colours: Dark Grey, Light Grey, and Coral. I’ve been testing out the darkest shade, which looks pretty subdued. The charging case is also compact and pocketable, and it has a feature carried over from the CMF Buds Pro 2: the smart dial.

In the control settings within the Nothing X companion app, you can adjust what the smart dial does when you press it, press and hold it, or rotate it. Rotating it is just for volume control, and that’s what I’ve found most useful, especially as a double press-and-hold locks the smart dial, handy if you think you may accidentally adjust volume while it’s in your pocket.

Having volume control readily available from the case has turned out to be really useful for me, but if it’s not for you, it’s easy enough to enable and disable the dial from the app. The other on-bud controls are those easily identifiable buttons on the rear part of the clip. They’re reliable and satisfyingly clicky in use, and they’re customisable too.

It might be nice if the plastic used on the buds felt a tiny bit more premium, but that’s nitpicking at this price. When it comes to general everyday usability, the controls, comfort and portability are all excellent for this category.

Features

• Customisable controls and smart dial
• Anti-leakage mode
• 32.5 hours of total battery, extending to 36 hours in long battery life mode

Aside from the smart dial, there are many other special features to the CMF Clip Pro that you access via the Nothing X app.

I tried the fixed spatial audio with multiple tracks, including the likes of That’s So True by Gracie Abrams and Noah Kahan’s She Calls Me Back – in all cases, the spatial setting made songs feel hollow and lacking weight, so I’d leave it off.

There’s also an anti-leakage mode to reduce the amount of audio those around you hear. Unless you really need it, don’t bother. It makes your audio not only quieter but very muffled. It may be worth the sacrifice for your privacy, perhaps on calls, but it’s not a feature for good sound.

Bass enhancement is on by default, and designed to tackle the inherent bass limitations of open designs. There’s quite a bit more distortion with the default (level 2) of bass enhancement, but I don’t mind it at level 1, or off entirely. I think how much you like this will come down to how sensitive your ears are, and what genres of music you prefer.

There’s an equaliser, some presets for tweaking the sound, and dual-device multi-point connection, which works well. And there’s also a Long Battery Life toggle. This keeps you on the AAC codec (rather than high-res LDAC) and turns off battery-draining extras like the EQ, bass enhancement or spatial audio. Honestly, a lot of us should consider turning this on. It’s hard to hear the difference between AAC and LDAC in an open design.

When it comes to battery, you’re meant to be able to get 10 hours of playtime on a single charge, with an extra 22.5 hours of recharges in the case, adding up to a total of 32.5 hours. Nothing says this extends to 36 hours on the long battery life mode.

I ran a three-hour test playing a Deezer playlist over AAC at 50% volume from a Pixel 10 Pro. The battery dropped by just 20%, suggesting around 15 hours of total playtime, much better than CMF’s 10-hour estimate. Just keep in mind that using the high-res LDAC codec or a higher volume will bring you closer to 10 hours of use.

Sound Quality

• 10.8mm dynamic drivers
• Bass enhancement, presets and a three-band EQ
• Low-end and high-end quite boosted by default

I aimed to do the majority of my listening with these while using the default mode, which is the Pop equaliser preset and level 2 bass enhancement. If you were to use these right out of the box and never set up the Nothing X app, this is how they’d sound.

That amount of bass enhancement brings out some of the low end that you’re going to lose due to the open design, but it doesn’t sound that natural, with a slight lack of detail to the thump of a bassline. It’s something I noticed a fair bit while listening to Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter.

Switching bass enhancement to level 1, or off entirely, helps a lot to add texture and clarity. In the default setting, Massive Attack’s Teardrop, a bass stress test, just sounds mushy and distorted.

Highs are also pretty boosted, so you may find these ultimately end up too bright for a long listen. There’s too much harshness in Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River, even at a moderate volume, and that’s what might make these a touch fatiguing. These also aren’t that spacious, compared to rivals.

Of course, recommendations depend on what types of music you prefer, but some tweaks take these from sounding “fine for the price” to “good enough” for most of us. One of those would be to reduce the bass enhancement, and the other would be to take down the treble two or three notches in the basic three-band EQ.

You can’t make these sound as good as the warmer (and much more detailed) Sennheiser Accentum Clip, but they’re really not a total disaster, given the price.

Should you buy it?

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