HMD Skyline

In the wake of the FairPhone, HMD have come along with a similar scheme to enable users of their Skyline phone to repair it themselves when components break, wear out or go wrong. This is laudable on an eco-friendly basis, undoubtedly, as more OEMs take looking after the planet seriously, from packaging, boxes, distribution and more. But it's also got to be a contender as a phone - and worth considering for the shortlist along other devices, especially similarly-priced. I hope to see here if HMD have cracked the equation.

The box doesn't have a power charger in it, for 'tis the trend, you know, more eco-claims, but it is colour-coordinated with the shade of the device. (Maybe there was a charger supplied in some regions.) Presumably those with the 'twisted black' colour got a black box! This Neon Pink is much more preferable, though I guess your average Exec. wouldn't think so in their Boardroom! There is a colour-matched USB-C to USB-C cable, however, which is cute, and a SIM Card Tray tool.

The phone itself bears a clear resemblance to various of the Nokia phones from the past, particularly those Lumia ones - and especially (and spookily) the MeeGo-running N9 of 2011. It's not made of the same polycarbonate (which was lovely) and certainly not the dinky little size in the hand of pocket. The Skyline is big, feeling heavy (at 209.5g), clunky, hefty and lumpish. But that N9 design is lovely - and part of that heft is likely to do with getting the back off, which you had no chance of doing with the N9. But beware, the Skyline is not small! But it is beautifully made.

The sides being ‘rounded’ is nice (very comfortable to hold - though very slippery) but the corners being so sharp is just styling (like the N9) and not needed - they dig into one’s palms. Especially as this phone is that much bigger. The N9 got away with that one, being so small and poly, not metal, as here. But then most phones, 13 years on, are big! The size here is 159.8mm x 76mm x 8.9mm and compares decently closely, in this respect, to my Motorola Edge 50 Pro. It's just that the latter is more 'screen' than 'corner-styling'!

The 6.55", 1080p, 20:9, 402ppi P-OLED screen has a thick bezel all around and very rounded corners (obviously not in keeping with the corners of the device) as style again. The screen is nice and bright, peaking at 1000nits - well, until I put it alongside a Motorola - then it doesn't look so bright and suffers with mushy colours and muted tones - but away from that, it looks just fine. Most people won't be comparing phones next to each other, so won't be disappointed - I'm being picky! You can also use a slider in settings to adjust the White Balance, which is a nice (if basic compared to many others) option. It has a 144Hz refresh rate which can be set to that all the time, 120Hz all the time, 60Hz all the time or to Adaptive, making its mind up for itself, up to 120Hz. It all looks perfectly smooth to me, however its set - by then my eyes aren't 18 years old!

The Gorilla Glass 3 protected (all-but) front panel eases - and very, very slightly curves - into the aluminium of the frame on all four sides and looks/feels premium. There's a selfie punch-hole up-top and centre, which is not too intrusive, under the earpiece/second of the stereo speakers. Around the phone's aluminium perimeter there are aerial cutouts of course and microphones. On the bottom, there's the other of the stereo speaker pair, USB-C port, SIM Card/microSD Card Tray and a T4 Torx screw to get the glass back off (which I'll come to). There's an IP5/4 rating for the phone, so not the best (presumably because of taking it apart) but certainly good enough for light splashing and a bit of dust!

Taking the back off the phone is not trivial. Once the Torx screw is out (for which the user will need a driver which most households are unlikely to have, I contend), using a plectrum (or similar) one needs to slide it along in the gap 'popping' it out/off as it goes along. Always remembering that it's glass of course and could break - eventually bit by bit, it pops off. Putting it back is nearly as hairy as it needs pressure applied to 'pop' it back into the various housing points. Well, I didn't break it - but couldn't help thinking that it might have been better if was plastic! HMD will sell you an iFixit kit for £90 which gives you more tools than a plectrum that you might have hanging around - which would certainly make the job easier.

Anyway, once off, the repairability kicks into the agenda and HMD will then sell you a SIM Card Tray for £14, loudspeaker for £14, back cover (for those who break it getting it off!) for £28, charging port for £19, battery for £23 and some adhesive (in order to tackle the battery). In order to get the components out and new ones in, there's more tiny screws. Here's a link to a YouTube video by HMD showing how you do all this. The whole thing feels very much less of a user-accessible route than the FairPhone for example, but rather one that most people might want someone else to do this stuff for them! But kudos to HMD - at least there are options - you can get it apart and get the spare parts to repair it. Even if someone needs to help you. It's back together again now. Phew!

So that's all good then, a step in the right direction to keep phones lasting longer and out of landfill - except, hang on - HMD are only offering 2 Android OS updates to buyers! It arrives on Android 14 and will get 15 and 16. So, last update sometime following Google's release in the autumn of 2025, which isn't really very far away. And yet the phone is geared up with repairability like it's going to be around for a long time to be repaired when needed. Feels like it doesn't quite match up somehow - and arguably at odds with the philosophy. They are also only promising Google Security patches until July 2027, 3 years from release. I guess that part of this reflects a lot of phone here (which I'll come to) for the (now) £349 but something feels a bit skewed. Anyway, for the moment, it's pretty well up to date as I write in October 2024, as it has September's patches. Make sure that you update it as soon as you can because I did find plenty of bugs before this was done, which HMD have now largely fixed.

Under the hood it's equipped with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 (4nm) which feels perfectly adequate here in testing, copying large amounts of data from a PC, for example, initial setup as it's bombarded with all sorts of tasks like installing over 100 apps, sorting out updates, setting up the system. Prior to this September update, some of this was making the phone very hot by the way, but now, not. I've tried some car-racing tasks for gaming and again, now, it breezes through them without a judder. I'm not a heavy gamer so do check other reviewers' experiences on YouTube, but I'm guessing that if you're really into gaming in a big way you're much more likely to have a beefier, more expensive gaming phone anyway. There's 8GB RAM onboard which can be 'extended' making use of some of the storage by up to 8GB, with a restart of the system. However, we have found that this option is not particularly worth doing - 8GB RAM is really plenty for today's Android, proven by the fact that I have not noticed here, even with heavy multi-tasking, any problematic app shut-downs. Applications and services sit happily in RAM from way back!

The storage on this phone is 256GB, but there's also a 12GB RAM version and a 128GB/8GB RAM one out there, too. The storage is to some degree a moot point, however, as on the flip side of the nanoSIM Card tray there's an option for those who only want to use one SIM Card, to put a microSD Card in as portable storage (or to extend the internal). I have a 1TB card in there with tons of data on it and it's reading/writing perfectly well, no lag in evidence at all. HMD seem to be saying that it's only supported up to 512GB but not here - 1TB is fine - and no, I didn't format the card in the phone. Nice to see the Memory Card surviving in certain quarters of the Android world. This unit does have dual-SIM support (in place of that microSD Card side of the tray) and also for eSIM, but check for your regional variations.

The stereo speakers are very loud. Furthermore, there's an OZO Boost available if you fancy the challenge! This hikes up the volume up, if you have the setting turned on in Audio Settings, past 100% with a second press on the volume-up key. It then gets even louder! However, in my tests here, it becomes, with most music files and services I've tried, pretty much unusable when engaged. System sounds seem to make decent use of the function as ringtones and notifications are very loud, but for media playback, music and video, it's blowing the bass out when in use and top-end frequencies are made even more shrill than when dialling it back down a bit.

It's a shame there's no built-in equaliser here - no Dolby Atmos for example - but I have found that if you turn off the OZO boost, put it on 100%, then engage our oft' referred to super audio app Wavelet, you get the best reproduction possible from the hardware. A slight payoff on volume in the process but the phone has enough to compensate as it's so loud to start with. Your mileage may vary of course, depending on music genre, file encoding or service accessed, but this what I have found. The stereo effect is decently pronounced even holding the phone as far away from the face as 2 feet. Using test video from YouTube which also play around with audio and soundstage, the phone does indeed throw the audio around making good use of its speakers. No complaints.

There's no 3.5mm ear/headphone audio socket (which would have really then felt like a Lumia/Nokia) but USB-C out (with and adapter for legacy or as-is for newer gear) works just fine and actually sounds loud and with good quality. All these tests are clearly based on using specific equipment, so again, test with yours if you can first. I'm using a pair of Google's own wired USB-C earphones for this first test. Incidentally, the OZO Boost doesn't work with ear/headphones - for obvious reasons! Second test is with a pair of Fiio FF1 Beryllium wired earbuds and 'dumb' 3.5mm-USB-C adapter, which makes the sound even louder and even better! Replacing the 'dumb' adapter with a DAC-enabled Razer one and, as you might expect, the test is then more about the adapter than the phone - and yes, it blows to ears away for volume (and quality). So plenty of options, even without that legacy port! Stereo separation is great again, soundstage present, depending again on source. Testing here with YouTube video and music. Really no complaints about audio reproduction for all-but audiophiles. Bluetooth (v5.2) sound, as you again would expect these days, is just excellent - again depending on attached gear. Testing here with a Sony WH-1000XM4 (with LDAC support) unit and also various buds. I can't see how anyone could complain about the output if this is their chosen route.

The phone has a 4,600mAh battery inside which can be charged at 33W with a wire or at 15W using wireless and the world's first (as far as I know) phone that supports the Qi2 standard, so kudos to HMD for getting in on that ahead of others! This emulates to a large degree what Apple have been doing with magnets, so that the phone can 'find' accessory charging devices quickly and lock into place without effort. Personally, I can't see the point really (except for maybe in-car on the dashboard) as I've never had any problems with Qi coils finding devices. Well, until now!

Ironically, I've had much trouble with this phone sitting it on bedside/desktop cradles. You know, the ones that sit-up and look at you (so that you can, for example, use the phone as a clock). I have four different models here which all work perfectly well with every other Android phone I've ever tried on them - and I've reviewed hundreds of phones - but here, all four of them fail to find the coil on this phone. From the image (above) you can see that coil appears to be in a decent enough central place, but clearly it's not. I have to place something under the phone, about 1cm high, for it to work (or turn it sideways and find the spot). Which is nuts - if this then renders every Qi charger stand out there produced for decades now, defunct! Lay it down flat on a charger and it's fine - and the charging works fine - so I guess that the coil in this phone is exceptionally 'low' in the back. Maybe that's something to do with repairability too. Still, at least it has Qi charging at this price-point, which many don't, and Qi2 it is, too! In addition to this, again, good at this price-point, the phone has Reverse Qi, which it executes at 5W - so top-ups for your earbuds or friend's phone!

Anyway, back to the battery and in my tests here I find that it takes about half an hour to half fill the battery from empty and almost an hour and a half for a full charge. This perfectly workable for most people, I think, even though a long way from, for example, the amazing speed Moto's 125W will do it. My 10% Reading Test returned a respectable enough 110 minutes and for most people, using the phone moderately, they'll just about get to lunchtime of Day 2 if pushed - at least it does for me and my average use. As always, it depends so much on what you're doing with your phone, so I quote here in my reviews based on the level playing field of my usage. Might not be much use to you, but if you read enough of my reviews you'll get the picture. Clinical it might not be, but hopefully you'll find the benchmark useful. Best idea is to charge at night. On a Qi stand. If you can find one that works!

Connectivity seems decent enough. I've tested all the usual elements and find that Bluetooth range is decent, WiFi 6e (if you can get it) is good and strong, tested here with 3 different networks, GPS for mapping and other dependencies seems good for locking on and holding on, NFC I have tested in local shops to pay and it seems to find the spot very quickly and the 5G cellular (I have a very good EE network here) processes data nicely, reliably and without fuss. I did have a bit of trouble with phone calls where the person the other end had trouble hearing me and vice-versa, but these tests are always network-dependent for both parties on multiple networks, so I'm not concerned about those blips. Repeat testing with other people/networks and things seem to be fine. You can also switch to WiFi calling if you prefer.

Along with the September Update and bug-fixes came one new feature, emulating others from various OEMs, that being what they're calling Detox Mode. It's actually very nicely implemented with a pleasant front-end and gives the user the options to control how much their apps and notifications can alert them. Chilling out away from social media and irritating calls/messages! It shows up as a (self-removing) widget if you place it on the homescreen and selecting it gives you plenty of options to customise how long you want to be left in peace for, who or what is allowed to get through the barrier, whether or not you want it on until you turn it off (soft, for quick breaks) or on until you reboot the phone (hard) and even change the wallpaper to a gently, calming image. It's not unique as I say, as others are doing it, but I do think that has been well thought out and is clear, easy to understand as well as useful for those who want/need it.

Security options are plentiful too, with a very nicely functioning Face Unlock which is quick and easy to set up, capacitive fingerprint scanner which works perfectly to get in, within the side-mounted power button which is just under the volume rocker on the left, the usual PIN/Pattern options, lift-to-wake, now Google's Theft Protection, Play Protection and Find My Device as well as (what I thought was Moto's) PIN Pad Scramble. So if you use PIN for opening up the phone, the system scrambles the numbers each time so that if someone's looking over your shoulder it's harder for them to clock your code. My only complaint in amongst all this is that there's no option on the power button to force the user to 'press' the power button to acknowledge the fingerprint, only 'touch', so accidental touches are frequent any annoying. Hopefully HMD will add that in an update soon.

Setting the phone up using Google's Backup and Restore using another phone was great. It gets better and better, but even for someone not using that tool, the process here is clear and straightforward. I guess it's not surprising that HMD are going to do some software-inclusion deals when pushing out hardware at this price and sure enough the usual bloaty offenders are present, booking dot com, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Kindred (whatever that is). All four, fortunately, are uninstallable. In fact the only one I found that wasn't was the now-lingering Meet from Google, which, as a standalone app, is now defunct. Still, at this price, for this hardware, we'll forgive them (in a way we won't with Sony, for example, doing similar and still charging £1200 for the phone)!

The homescreen layout is all-but (what we used to call) stock Android. But not quite. The At A Glance which Pixels have baked into the top of the screen is not there, though there is an option to add it as a widget, but the Google Search Bar at the foot of the screen is unremovable, just like Pixel. The only way to get round this one is to install another launcher, I guess - which would be a shame because otherwise it's nice here. Very much like the Nokia is, in fact, on, for example, the XR20, but modernised and with added benefits. It's also ported the Nokia's Always on Display which again, at this place in the market is a real bonus and unexpected.

The Always on Display shows the clock, day, date, weather, Notification (by icon only), charging status at the bottom and the artist name of any playing music under the date. Before the September update the track title was also present on the AoD, but they both seem to now be AWOL. The clock is fixed, big and bold, digital, 24 hour, but does suffer from the same auto-brightness issue that most Android phones do - it just gets the algorithm wrong and sometimes, in some lighting, it can't be seen. Typically, subdued lighting. Turning off Adaptive Brightness system-wide helps, but then most users won't want that off all the time and have adjust manually. Samsung seem to be the only OEM that has this sorted (and even then, via a Good Lock Module) but hopefully more will realise that it's not good and doesn't do the job well enough. Maybe HMD will be first to fix this, too, in a coming update.

HMD provide a bunch of their own widgets. Twenty four of them, actually! They have a Nothing Phone kind of feel about them, all black/white (though not pixelated)! A ton of clock and Weather options, Media controllers (the bigger ones even showing AlbumArt - take note, Sony) and Quick Settings too. The Quick Settings ones mostly create what look like folders on the homescreen with assignable shortcuts to various Settings you choose, from whatever you have in the top pull-down Notification shade. A shortcut of shortcuts, then! Talking of Settings, I note, as an aside, that the screen timeout doesn't support the 30-minute option, like Pixels do, but is rather capped at 10-minutes, like Samsung and certainly not the 'no limit' of TCL. I did hope that HMD were going to fix this in the September update so it was back to the usual 30-minutes, but not yet.

The Custom Button on the left of the phone can be, like the Nokia XR20's red button, assigned to a whole bunch of settings, functions or apps. A long-press for something, a double press for something else and a single press for settings. It's flush with the side of the phone and slightly knurled on the surface. I have it assigned to play/pause media on the long-press and torch on double-press. When you're done on the left, you can, using the same UI switch to the power button on the right and assign what you like to a double-press. I have Google Wallet on that for convenience in shops, but the options to customise/assign what you like to both these buttons are only limited to what you have installed - and HMD's core functions. It's a great addition to the hardware and genuinely useful for quick-access. This was something else that HMD bug-fixed as before the September update, use of this left button often froze the phone up and needed rebooting to get back to normal. So again, good for them for attending to this stuff.

The main camera on the back of the phone is surprisingly a 108MP f1.8 unit with OIS. The user can force the phone to use all those pixels but by default resulting photos are 'pixel binned' down to 12MP. The results from this are pleasing to me with nice colours, good detail and will be absolutely perfect for the target users. They will be equally pleased with the ability to shoot with the 2x optical zoom from the secondary 50MP f2 camera to get closer in on the subject. There's a 13MP wide-angle lens, thirdly, again providing the user with another option to open up and get more into the frame, though there's no AF for really, really close shots. The camera app is decent and simple enough compared to many - and even has a handheld Astro mode built in! In low light, the 'night' mode copes well enough creating images from situations all-but invisible to the human eye, portrait mode does a good job isolating subjects and creating shallow depth of field for bokeh, there's a Pro mode for fine control and a bunch of other modes to play with. Video can be shot at 4K@30fps, there's a very nicely-performing 50MP Selfie which will also shoot video at 1080p@30fps.

Impressively the camera software in the HMD skyline has focus peaking - something which you normally only find on higher end phones and cameras. This means that when the camera is viewing something, the exact items in the shot which were at the same focal distance (and specifically in focus) are highlighted in an extra colour so you can see at a glance whether thing you are trying to photograph is perfectly in focus or not. Nice touch. Thanks to Steve Litchfield my co-host on the Phones Show Chat weekly Podcast for explaining that and posting a couple of YouTube Shorts about this HMD Skyline which I'll link to here. HMD Skyline - Speakers, Custom Button and Focus Peaking and HMD Skyline - Self-Repair and Qi2. Furthermore, for a deep-dive on the HMD Camera with analysis and tons of samples, I'm going to do my usual trick and point you to our friends over at GSMArena and their coverage which starts here. Please do visit and support them as they do really useful work.

I forgot to mention that the vibration motor is wild! HMD should implement Sony's Dynamic Vibration with the Skyline as it would be a complete winner! I remember that the Nokia XR20's motor was similarly strong and loud, so maybe it's the same component.

In summary I'd say that this is a lovely handset. It's really nicely designed and with a premium-feeling fit'n'finish. The value-for-money equation is just about as it should be given what's on offer here, not silly expensive for the sake of the market, not cheaper than it should be to push sales. It has some really interesting features, ideas and a great nostalgia feel about it. It's big enough for those who like their phones big these days, has innovative Qi2, regardless of my complaint about older cradles, a nice-enough OLED panel, very loud speakers, custom-buttons, microSD support, good onboard storage too, a perfectly adequate chipset, RAM and good biometrics. The pearl here though for them is the repairability - if only they would match that ethos with the length of support on offer with OS and security updates. There are still bugs to fix, but certainly that September update was an encouraging and far-reaching resolution for many more before it. As always there's room for improvement but generally this is a good job at, now £349, a great price. Highly recommended.