The competition is hot in the budget smartphone space, but the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G and the CMF Phone 2 Pro are leading contenders.
Who can afford to buy a brand new phone these days? Flagship handsets cost upwards of £1,000/$1,000, while even mid-range phones are tipped to get more expensive in 2026.
Thankfully, there’s a whole class of phones that will set you back around the £200/$200 mark. The good news? Thanks to a mature smartphone market, they’re better than ever.
Or at least, the best budget phones are. Right near the top of that particular wallet-friendly class are the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G and the CMF Phone 2 Pro. What’s really exciting is that they take very different approaches.
So which of the two is best? We’ve spent a fair amount of time with both phones. Here’s which one we’d buy if we had £200/$200 burning a hole in our pocket.
Do you care about… the best price possible?
Let’s start with the most pressing issue for anyone shopping at this end of the smartphone market – price. The CMF Phone 2 Pro starts from £219 (not available in the US), while the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G starts from £199/$199.99.
That might not sound like much of a difference, but a 10% saving is difficult to ignore.
Chris Martin / Foundry
As we’ll go on to discuss, the CMF Phone 2 Pro arguably justifies the premium over its budget rival. However, if you have a strict £200/$200 budget, the Samsung phone is the way to go.
Even here, though, we should point out that the CMF Phone 2 Pro gives you greater flexibility. It offers a second model with double the storage (256GB) for £249, whereas there’s no such option with Samsung’s phone.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy A17 5G
Do you care about… an interesting design?
The Samsung Galaxy A17 5G has what we termed in our review a “Signature Samsung style”. It looks and even feels a lot like other phones in the series, and even echoes the aesthetic of more expensive Galaxy S phones.
That’s great for the all-around feel of the phone, but it also means that the Galaxy A17 5G design isn’t particularly exciting.
The CMF Phone 2 Pro, by contrast, is a serious head-turner with a design that we haven’t seen before in a phone. You could call it ‘industrial-chic’, with visible screws and a camera module that almost appears to have been bolted on.
Luke Baker
That rear panel can be easily removed, offering access to the battery. There’s even a physical component in an Accessory Point that screws into the bottom corner, allowing you to attach various accessories (such as a stand or a lanyard).
The CMF Phone 2 Pro also offers an additional physical control in the form of the Essential Key, which grants speedy access to a smart AI-assisted journaling system.
Both phones are IP54 rated, so there’s no advantage either way when it comes to dust and water resistance.
All in all, though, the CMF Phone 2 Pro is simply far more interesting to look at and way more tactile in the hand than the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G.
It’s even more appealing from the front. Where the Galaxy A17 5G gives you an ugly teardrop notch, the CMF handset goes with a more premium hole-punch variant.
Winner: CMF Phone 2 Pro
Do you care about… extensive software support?
There’s a case to be made for both phones when it comes to software. Samsung’s One UI 8 is as solid and flexible as ever, while Nothing OS 3.2 is super-stylish and full of innovative little quality-of-life touches.
We’ve already mentioned Nothing’s Essential Space, which allows you to quickly document your thoughts and online findings with a button press.
Chris Martin / Foundry
However, where the clear distinction appears is with the two software support promises.
While Nothing only promises three years of Android updates and six years of security patches, Samsung offers six years for both.
Given that most people who buy cheaper phones don’t want to be upgrading their phone very often, this gives Samsung a noteworthy advantage.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy A17 5G
Do you care about… the best performance?
You don’t buy a cheap phone if you’re particularly concerned with performance, but if you want to get the maximum output for your money, the CMF Phone 2 Pro is clearly the better choice.
Nothing’s phone runs on a capable Mediatek Dimensity 7300 Pro chip with 8GB of RAM, while the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G has to make do with a humble Exynos 1330 and just 4GB of RAM.
The results of our benchmark tests show a resounding win for the CMF Phone 2 Pro in both CPU and GPU terms. It’s not even close.
Luke Baker
Not that either phone feels especially snappy. Anyone who’s used a more premium phone will be able to detect those little pauses when opening up or switching between apps, or even when navigating the home screens.
Nor would we recommend intensive gaming on either phone. If you do, the graphics will likely be set to somewhere near the minimum level.
Even so, there’s no denying that the CMF Phone 2 Pro is the more capable phone, whatever task you throw at it.
Winner: CMF Phone 2 Pro
Do you care about… taking good photos?
Again, you don’t buy a cheap phone if photography is a priority, but it’s nice if it can do the basics reasonably well.
Both phones can take solid snaps in good lighting, but the CMF Phone 2 Pro has a couple of noteworthy advantages in the hardware department.
Luke Baker
It starts with a 50Mp main camera that has a much larger 1/1.56-inch sensor compared to the Samsung phone’s 1/2.76-inch equivalent. Larger sensors mean more light, resulting in (generally) superior detail and better low-light performance.
Unusually for a phone of this price, the CMF Phone 2 Pro also includes a dedicated 50 Mp f/1.85 2x telephoto camera. This means that zoomed-in shots are better than the A17 5G’s, which has to crop in on its main sensor.
Video capture is also more fully featured on the CMF Phone 2 Pro, with support for 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 120fps. The Samsung Galaxy A17 5G, by contrast, can only hit 1080p at 30fps.
Winner: CMF Phone 2 Pro
Samsung Galaxy A17 5G vs CMF Phone 2 Pro: Conclusion
These are two of the most accomplished budget phones on the market, but they’re surprisingly different.
The Samsung Galaxy A17 5G is your safe bet, offering a familiar Samsung experience with a solid design and lengthy software support at a sub-£200/$200 (just about) price. You really can’t go wrong.
However, the CMF Phone 2 Pro is the more interesting phone by far. It’s also just flat-out better in most respects.
Its industrial design is more appealing, its performance is far superior, and its camera system is more advanced than on Samsung’s budget phone. However, it’s not widely available in the US.
If you’ve only used Samsung phones and you want to maintain a level of consistency to the experience, or you’re simply on a very strict budget, the Galaxy A17 5G is probably the best phone for you. Pretty much everyone else should just buy the CMF Phone 2 Pro.
