Black Friday has come early: The CMF Buds Pro 2 are one of my top budget earbuds and they're £20 off right now

the cmf buds pro 2 by nothing photographed with a blue background, the orange charging case, and the tom's guide black friday price drop badge — (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The Black Friday sales have come early at the Nothing HQ. CMF, Nothing's budget brand, has done just that with its premium-for-cheap Buds Pro 2, my favorite £60 earbuds. You can get the CMF Buds Pro 2 for just £39 on Amazon right now.

I test a lot of the best cheap earbuds, and few have impressed me like the CMF Buds Pro 2. In their price category — £50 to £90 — they're one of the top performers. Pricier buds like the EarFun Air Pro 4+ have more detailed sound, and cheaper versions like the JLab Go Pods ANC are the best for value, but the CMF Buds Pro 2 are my number one choice for £60 earbuds.

And CMF has decided Black Friday must come early, clearly. Right now, you can grab the CMF Buds Pro 2 for just £39, which is a massive 34% discount. You're saving £20, which is a huge amount when you're trying to save as much as possible.

I gave the CMF by Nothing Buds Pro 2 a lovely 4.5-star rating in my review. If you want full details before buying, I've got a whole 2,000-word review where I go into depth.

I'll give a quick rundown here, too. The CMF Buds Pro 2 genuinely shocked me — in a good way. I wasn't expecting much, seeing as the price is astonishingly low, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The Buds Pro 2 have a very bassy sound signature, which is great if you listen to a lot of heavy genres like electronic, rock and hip hop. The Nothing X companion app has an "Ultra Bass" mode, which makes tracks sound even heavier. Don't get me wrong, I was still impressed with the performance with quieter genres like folk, but bass is where these earbuds excel.

If you've a compatible phone, you can also take advantage of the Buds Pro 2's LDAC codec, which is a hi-res Bluetooth mode that makes music sound much better. You should probably have Spotify Lossless, Qobuz or Tidal to take full advantage of this, though.

And to top it all off, Nothing partnered with hi-fi brand Dirac to tune the Buds Pro 2. In the Nothing X app, you'll find something called "Dirac Opteo." This is basically a custom EQ that predicts how each track should sound — using a series of nifty DSPs — and adjusts the bass, mid and treble balance to make the song sound even better.

the nothing cmf buds pro 2 cmf by nothing buds pro 2 in bright orange shown in the smart dial charging case against a blue tom's guide background — (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Excellent sound quality aside, the CMF Buds Pro 2 also have a range of premium features. They have responsive wear detection, customizable touch controls, a "Smart Dial" on the case (so you can play or pause music from the case) and shockingly good ANC.

The ANC is as good as the AirPods Pro 3. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I have a testing pair of the Pro 3 in the office, and I was comparing the earbuds directly. The CMF buds blocked out just as much noise as the AirPods. I was gobsmacked. I couldn't believe it.

All in all, these are some of my favorite budget earbuds, and at the Black Friday sale price of £39, an utter steal. If you want some excellent buds in exchange for very little money, I wholeheartedly recommend the CMF Buds Pro 2.

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Erin Bashford is a senior writer at Tom's Guide, focusing on reviews. She has a Masters in Broadcast and Digital Journalism from the University of East Anglia. As an ex-barista, she knows her way around a coffee machine, and as a music lover, she's constantly chipping away at her dream of having a multi-room home sound system. In her spare time you can find her reading, practising yoga, writing, or stressing over today’s NYT Games.

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