HMD Skyline review: The repairable phone you should buy

The HMD Skyline is among the first telephones made by HMD beneath its personal title. The corporate has been higher recognized till now because the pressure behind the Nokia name on fashionable cellular units.

Whereas the pink, Lumia-inspired design catches your eye, HMD is providing a singular characteristic not seen on any of its rivals — simple repairability — to make the Skyline fascinating. Is it sufficient to promote you on this telephone?

HMD Skyline: design

The HMD Skyline is a stunner. Borrowing lots from the outdated Nokia Lumia 920, it seems to be nothing like another telephone on sale in the present day with its squared-off corners, mild curves, and ever-so-slightly raised display screen. I’ve been utilizing the Neon Pink mannequin, and it’s not a shade for shrinking violets, because it positive factors loads of consideration. The Twisted Black model exists for many who need to keep out of the highlight.

It’s surprisingly comfy to carry, principally as a result of 8.9mm thickness and pronounced curve of the aluminum chassis, however the abrupt corners do dig into your palm finally. It’s fairly slippery as a result of the telephone is fairly vast, and though the IP54 mud and water resistance are welcome, I’m unsure how the very uncovered display screen would deal with a drop. It’s a great factor the display screen is well changed at residence.

When you’re searching for a small and light-weight smartphone, the Skyline isn’t it. The 210-gram weight is substantial, and the system is sized equally to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It’s at all times noticeable in your pocket. The hanging design is certain to please those that miss the outdated Nokia Home windows Telephone days, and the dazzling Neon Pink shade displays HMD’s apparent want to make a powerful impression with its first run of non-Nokia branded units. It’s up there with the Nothing Phone 2a Plus and the Realme 13 Pro Plus as certainly one of 2024’s best-looking, most moderately priced telephones.

HMD Skyline: digicam

Keep in mind the extremely revered PureView title hooked up to one of the best Nokia telephones? Given its comparable total design, you’d be forgiven for anticipating a number of the outdated magic to return contained in the HMD Skyline. And whereas it’s undoubtedly not a PureView telephone for the fashionable age, there are flashes of brilliance right here.

There are three cameras on the again — a 108-megapixel predominant digicam with optical picture stabilization (OIS), a 13MP wide-angle digicam, and a 50MP telephoto digicam. The selfie digicam has 50 megapixels and a helpful autofocus characteristic with eye-tracking. Let’s discuss concerning the good components first. It has a really pleasing shade profile that’s pure, but nonetheless vibrant sufficient that pictures pop. It might probably showcase some good particulars when getting near a topic, the wide-angle’s colours are near the primary digicam’s look, and lowlight photos are respectable for a telephone at this worth.

The primary digicam is the actual winner right here, however the bother is that the digicam’s efficiency isn’t constant. I took some pictures the place element was unexpectedly obscured in haze and blur, easy close-ups didn’t concentrate on the topic accurately, and different wider photographs had a whole lot of smoothing across the edges. The digicam app has 2x, 3x, and 4x zoom shortcuts, and all return very comparable ranges of element. And since they’re all solely common, they’re not all that encouraging to make use of. For a midrange telephone, the Skyline’s digicam has good specs, and the standard of its predominant digicam pictures displays this, however the software program managing the remainder wants refinement to make sure consistency and reliability.

HMD Skyline: display screen

The HMD Skyline’s display screen is a reasonably normal 6.55-inch pOLED with a most 144Hz refresh charge, a 2400 x 1080 pixel decision, and 1,000 nits peak brightness. Nevertheless, it’s notable for a number of causes, and never all of them are good. The Corning Gorilla Glass 3 is a bit of behind the curve when in comparison with the Samsung Galaxy A55’s Gorilla Glass Victus+ display screen safety. It could possibly be vital because the display screen is very uncovered as a result of design.

There are some settings-based oddities, too. For instance, the always-on display screen is off by default, and to vary it, the setting is hidden away beneath the Show menu, the place it’s a must to choose the At all times present time and information possibility regardless of it having a toggle that’s switched on. Solely then do you discover the choice to maintain the show energetic. The display screen is colourful, and I like the way in which the curved corners body movies. I’ve loved watching movies and taking part in video games on the display screen, plus the audio system are glorious.

Throughout my time with the HMD Skyline, the ambient mild sensor was unreliable, significantly in the course of the first week, when it defaulted to nearly its dimmest setting and made the telephone irritating to make use of. I turned the setting off and left the telephone at mid-brightness to cease it, turning it down at common intervals. I additionally found the default setting is for 60Hz, and I needed to manually change it to Adaptive, the place it spends most of its time at 120Hz, with 144Hz reserved for particular conditions. These issues apart, the display screen is responsive, and as soon as the Adaptive setting is energetic, it’s easy and pleasurable to make use of.

HMD Skyline: software program

HMD may be very near getting its software program good, because it has left Android 14 principally alone on the Skyline, making it clear, quick, and really user-friendly. It doesn’t hassle you with interruptions about options it desires you to attempt, there are hardly any pre-installed superfluous apps, and there’s a configurable {hardware} Customized Button on the aspect of the telephone, too. This may be set to carry out many alternative actions with both a press and maintain or a double press, from opening apps to beginning a ChatGPT dialog if it’s put in.

The software program will get off to a great begin, however it’s not with out issues. The telephone comes with USB settings disabled, so whenever you plug it into a pc, it doesn’t help you discover information. That may be rapidly modified within the Developer Choices menu, however lots of people aren’t going to know that is the way in which to unravel the difficulty. I’ve discovered it doesn’t at all times present notification icons for apps like WhatsApp, making it simple to overlook messages, and you’ll’t appear to take away the Google search bar from the underside of the Dwelling display screen both.

HMD will present two years of main software program updates and three years of safety updates, falling in need of the competitors. Nevertheless, it makes a great case for why this doesn’t matter, and it comes right down to the system’s repairability. The corporate says individuals care extra about repairing a telephone cheaply and simply than they do about having software program updates 5 years down the road, as they’re much less prone to preserve the telephone for this lengthy. Lastly, in the event you’re searching for particulars on the Detox Mode — an enormous a part of the unique promotion across the Skyline — the place apps and providers might be deactivated for a set time period to keep away from interruption, it’s not obtainable but. HMD expects it to be a part of a software program replace coming on the finish of August 2024.

HMD Skyline: efficiency

A Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 runs the HMD Skyline, with the choice of both 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB inner space for storing. There’s house for a MicroSD card, which is good to see. That is the primary telephone with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 that I’ve lived with, and whereas preliminary impressions in telephones just like the Realme 13 Professional Plus have been good, the chip hasn’t impressed right here when pushing it exhausting. It’s succesful sufficient for informal gaming, however something greater than Asphalt 9 Unite does put it beneath pressure.

Calls sound superb, with the loud and clear speaker being a specific spotlight, however one other side of connectivity has actually been irritating. The Skyline has refused to reconnect robotically to my Wi-Fi router, claiming it’s “unavailable with present safety settings.” I’ve not skilled this downside with another system (and I take advantage of a whole lot of them), and haven’t altered the settings on the telephone or router. It stays an issue regardless of taking the essential steps a non-tech particular person would to try to remedy it. I may delve deeper, however I don’t assume I ought to have to when it appears to be a difficulty with the telephone.

The opposite concern I’ve is with the side-mounted fingerprint sensor. It’s flush with the case and hypersensitive, and it’s consistently unintentionally activating. An informal brush together with your finger or palm (keep in mind, it’s on the aspect of the telephone, so this occurs usually) units it off, and I often find yourself utilizing my PIN to unlock the telephone as a result of the fingerprint sensor has been locked on account of too many failed makes an attempt.

HMD Skyline: battery and charging

This isn’t a battery powerhouse. The 4,600mAh battery isn’t the biggest you could find in a telephone, and the mixture of it, the processor, and sure the software program has resulted in suboptimal battery life. Based mostly on normal use with out gaming, I’ve anticipated the battery to final between 4 and a most of 5 hours of display screen time per day. It doesn’t have sufficient battery to final for 2 days with no cost. A 30-minute YouTube video takes about 5% of the battery, and a 20-minute gaming session takes 9%.

There’s higher information on the charging, because the HMD Skyline is among the first Android telephones with Qi2 wi-fi charging at 15 watts. It additionally works very well with my MagSafe Anker dock. It doesn’t include a charger within the field however helps 33W USB-C charging. Utilizing an Anker GaN wall charger with PD 3.0 PPS help and a appropriate cable, the battery took half-hour to achieve 50% cost and an hour to totally recharge. The telephone additionally has 5W reverse charging.

If lengthy battery life from a single quick cost is vital to you, then the OnePlus Nord 4 and the OnePlus 12R must be on the high of your listing, and even the Samsung Galaxy A35 and A55 all carry out higher than the HMD Skyline. Nevertheless, you received’t get quick wi-fi charging from any of them, which is a substantial profit right here. The Skyline’s respectable wired charging additionally helps you survive in an emergency.

HMD Skyline: repairing the telephone

If the display screen on the HMD Skyline breaks or the battery doesn’t final so long as it did when it was new, you may substitute each your self, at residence, with a fundamental specialist toolkit. You may also substitute the charging board, the speaker, and the again cowl itself. The Skyline is the primary telephone with HMD’s “Gen2” repairability, which makes the method even sooner than it was on the first series of repairable HMD devices.

How simple is it? There’s a single safety screw on the underside of the telephone, which, when twisted, pops the nook of the rear panel up, and all you want is a choose or spudger software to carry the remainder. Cautious, although, as the primary time you do that, it’s a tricky job, principally as a result of IP54 seal across the edge. As soon as it’s open, there are only a few screws to undo and connectors to unplug earlier than the display screen drops out. HMD demonstrated a display screen alternative on the Skyline, and it took lower than 10 minutes — and the battery is even sooner to exchange.

Supplied you utilize permitted instruments and components from HMD accomplice iFixit to restore the Skyline, the guarantee isn’t affected, and though components costs are usually not obtainable on the time of writing, doing it your self will at all times be cheaper than paying another person to do it. Accidents occur, and screens break, however the Skyline is among the few telephones the place you are able to do one thing about it your self, and it’s a substantial profit in the event you repeatedly have a kind of mishaps.

HMD Skyline: worth and availability

HMD has not formally introduced a U.S. launch but however did present, a $499 beginning worth, suggesting that, sooner or later, it is going to get a launch within the U.S. Proper now, it’s available for purchase within the U.Okay. for 399 British kilos and in Europe for 499 euros, supplied you select the essential 8GB/128GB model. You’ll need to spend 499 kilos to get the highest 12GB/256GB model.

Based mostly on the most cost effective possibility, it places the Skyline up in opposition to the OnePlus Nord 4 with its fascinating all-metal physique, plus the Samsung Galaxy A35, the Nothing Phone 2a, and the Motorola Edge (2024) or Edge 50 Fusion relying on the place you reside. It’s attainable to seek out the Google Pixel 8a for across the similar worth too, so look out for offers on it. When you plan on getting the 12GB/256GB mannequin, then additionally take a look at the Samsung Galaxy A55, the OnePlus 12R, and even the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE or Nothing Phone 2 if you could find a great worth on both.

That’s some very critical and really succesful competitors. The one factor none of those telephones affords that the HMD Skyline does is simple, at-home repairability. The flexibility to repair a damaged display screen or lifeless battery your self in a really brief time makes the Skyline nearly distinctive amongst its friends, with solely the costlier Fairphone 5 coming near providing the identical stage of repairability.

HMD Skyline: verdict

The convenience of repairability makes the Skyline fairly uncommon, and peace of thoughts does promote, however it’s not “horny.” You’re going to need to be sensible and know the prices concerned in repairing telephones, and maybe additionally pay attention to your personal probability of breaking a display screen at the least as soon as throughout your possession to place it above an excellent digicam or lengthy battery life. If you put the repairability apart, what else does the Skyline provide?

The design is excellent, and I do just like the in-hand consolation, however there are some issues which have stopped me from desirous to proceed utilizing the telephone. The bizarre Wi-Fi connection concern is baffling, and the fingerprint sensor may be very annoying, however these could also be “me” points and don’t spoil the telephone. Not having the Detox Mode prepared for launch is unlucky, although. Extra positively, the battery life is manageable in the event you don’t play video games and the digicam can take good pictures, plus Qi2 wi-fi charging is a welcome addition.

It’s well-priced, and it’s nice to see a brand new midrange telephone with some options not obtainable on another competing telephone. A number of software program updates could resolve a number of of the problems I’ve with the system. In the intervening time, although, you actually have to be offered on the repairability the and promise of the Digital Detox mode to hurry out and purchase the Skyline, however even those that have by no means damaged a telephone display screen will discover lots to love about it.