The maker of Nokia phones, HMD, has got off quite the start with its own branded smartphones, but it really still can’t quite escape the shadow of Nokia despite being an independent brand now, as it has decided to retail the HMD Skyline in Malaysia, a Lumia-inspired design device with mid-range specs, with an interesting price point of RM2,099.
While the phone has been spotted on Shopee as a sold out listing for RM2,399, we believe it will eventually be priced at RM2,099 as HMD has made a guess the price teaser post on its Facebook page.
The HMD Skyline no doubt looks like a Lumia device based on its rounded edges on its body and screen bezels, but its specs are rather underwhelming for a modern RM2,000 device. For instance, you get a rather small 6.55-inch 1080p P-OLED display that refresh at 144Hz but only peaks at 1000 nits of brightness, it is powered by a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chip that’s paired to 8GB RAM and 256GB of expandable storage, not quite on par with what the competition is offering.
Its camera setup is however pretty decent, you get a 108MP wide camera with OIS, a 50MP camera with 2x optical zoom and a 13MP ultrawide, it supports up to 4x lossless zoom in case you want to get clearer close up shots, while its front camera takes up to 50MP stills and supports auto focus.
Despite this, what HMD really wants to emphasize on this is Gen 2 repairability, which users can replace the screen, battery and charging port by just popping off the backcover and standard tools, which you can possibly purchase the parts directly from the company if you ever need to replace them.
Other hardware features include a 4600mAh battery with support for 33W wired and 15W wireless charging, a custom button for shortcuts, and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
The phone ships with Android 14 out of the box and comes in colors of Neon Pink and Twisted Black, which are hardly the bright Lumia colors we used to see, but nonetheless, this is still an interesting device to look out for and we expect HMD to handle warranty and after-sales support directly as usual.
