HMD has stopped using the Nokia brand for its recent Android phones, but it’s still dipping its toes into the old Nokia designs – and this time it’s come out with a winner. The HMD Skyline is garnering a lot more attention than any other phone it’s made since probably the very first phone. And it’s mostly positive attention too, although there were critical voices in the comments section too.
Let’s start with the good news – people like what they see. Reviving the Nokia N9/Lumia design and painting it in bold colours is proving to be a successful strategy (and it’s no different from what Motorola is doing).
Some people are waiting for reviews (our review is coming soon), but many are already excited. The camera section of reviews will draw particular attention – this is the best (on paper) camera HMD has ever made, but whether it’s actually that good remains to be seen.
Availability is a concern, HMD has launched only a few of its products in North America and the Skyline is not one of them (not yet, anyway). Even most countries in Europe are still waiting for it to launch. The company has a few more devices in the pipeline, so we’ll see which devices come to which markets.
One big issue is the price – some say £400 is too much for a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 phone and if that’s true, then €550 is definitely too much. This is pretty common for HMD phones, weaker chipsets than expected for the price. We’re just glad it’s not a Snapdragon 480+ or something like that.
HMD Skyline
Still, the chipset is one of the most common complaints we found in the comments under the poll. With good reason, the 7s Gen 2 packs the same Dimensity 7300 found in the €200 CMF Phone 1.
Limited software support (2 OS updates, 3 years of security patches) overshadows one of the main attractions of Skyline – repairability. There may be custom ROMs in the future, but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
The response to the HMD Pulse Trio was quite lukewarm, which was a weak start for HMD’s own-branded Android phone line. However, the Skyline has received buzz and positive attention, showing that there is hope for the Finnish phone maker. Now it would be great if it could convince Qualcomm or MediaTek to give it a good deal on a powerful chipset.
