HMD stopped using the Nokia brand for its recent Android phones, but it still reaches into the bag of old Nokia designs – and this time it pulled out a winner. The HMD Skyline is attracting a lot more attention than any other phone that it has produced since maybe the first one. And it’s mostly positive attention too, though the comment section was not without critical voices.
Let’s start with the good news – people love what they see. Resurrecting Nokia N9/Lumia design and painting it in bold colors is proving to be a successful strategy (and it is not unlike what Motorola has been doing).
Some people are waiting on reviews (ours is coming soon), but plenty are already excited. The camera section of the reviews will draw particular attention – this is the best (on paper) camera that HMD has produced yet, but whether it’s actually good remains to be seen.
Availability is a concern, HMD has launched only a few of its products in North America and the Skyline isn’t one of them (not yet, anyway). Even most countries in Europe are still waiting for this to launch. The company has a few more devices in the pipeline, so we’ll see which arrive in what markets.
A bigger issue is the price – some say that £400 is too much for a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 phone and if that is true, then €550 is definitely too much. This is fairly typical of HMD phones, a weaker chipset than expected for the price tag. We’re just glad it’s not a Snapdragon 480+ or something.
HMD Skyline
Still, the chipset is one of the most common complaints that we encountered in the comments under the poll. With good reason too, the 7s Gen 2 is on par with the Dimensity 7300 found inside the €200 CMF Phone 1.
The limited software support (2 OS updates, 3 years of security patches) does cast a shadow on one of the Skyline’s main attractions – repairability. There might be custom ROMs down the line, but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
The response to the HMD Pulse trio was quite muted, a weak start for HMD’s own-branded Android phone line. The Skyline, however, has been met with buzz and positive attention, which shows there is hope for the Finnish phone maker. Now if it could only sweet talk Qualcomm or MediaTek into getting a good deal on a powerful chipset.