HMD Skyline review: Weird phones are cool again

The HMD Skyline debuted last month, offering a wallet-friendly price tag, a strange design, and lots of repairability options. Considering the state of smartphones in 2024, that’s all pretty unusual.

So, of course, we had to test this self-proclaimed “repair-it-yourself phone for creators” and see if it was worth the cost. Who doesn’t want to be able to repair their own stuff again?

Design

The HMD Skyline has a striking design. It stands out in the excellent neon pink or twisted black colorways and is also extremely boxy.

At a glance it kind of looks like the phone comes with one of those super durable cases with the sharp edges, but that’s actually just the design of the Skyline itself. I’m assuming the design was chosen to help make it easier to open and repair since I don’t think those sharp edges will be good if they land on a hard surface, but I absolutely love how weird it looks. You’ve got this bright pink color on a box phone that looks like it’s straight out of a 2000’s sci-fi flick and it all just screams “my phone is different than yours.” Is it the best design I’ve seen this year? Probably not. Is it the most unique? Absolutely.

Aesthetic choices aside, the HMD Skyline is pretty standard otherwise. You’ve got a power button/fingerprint scanner combo on the right side underneath the volume buttons, a USB-C charging port, speakers, and SIM tray (that does take a microSD card!) on the bottom, and a unique action button on the left side.

That action button works like Apple’s action button on newer iPhones. You can adjust what it does on a long press and double tap, which can be anything as simple as turning on silent mode, starting navigation to a specific place, kicking off a ChatGPT conversation, or anything else that you can dream up. I like this kind of thing since it opens up customization options so broadly, and HMD’s implementation here feels simple and fast.

Hardware

Performance

HMD has opted for the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 CPU here, helping to keep its price range down. It’s paired with 8GB of RAM, which generally makes for a pleasant experience whether gaming, watching videos, or browsing social media.

The display is a 2400 x 1080 resolution pOLED screen, which looks good. It’s got HDR10 support and a 144hz refresh rate, and while it’s not quite going to compete with the absolute top shelf models from Samsung, it’s a good, bright-looking screen that’s fun to use. I have no complaints here, especially in the price range.

Battery

Battery life is good, with HMD using a 4600mAh battery. I consistently managed to get a full day of usage out of the Skyline, which comes in about where you’d expect for a battery this size. I imagine some users can squeeze a little closer to the 48 hour mark that HMD markets, but I’m a little too active on my phones for that.

Interestingly, the battery is also replaceable by the user. It’s not quite like the phones of yesteryear where you just removed the back and swapped batteries out in 15 seconds, but it’s pretty easy to remove the back and unscrew everything in case you need to do a full repair. HMD says their batteries are good for at least 800 charges before you notice any degradation, though, so hopefully, it doesn’t come to that anytime soon.

You get 33W fast charging and 15W wireless charging, and the Skyline also supports Qi2 magnetic charging, unlike the Pixel 9 series.

Software

The Skyline doesn’t get too flashy with Android 14, opting for a pretty basic and relatively unskinned flavor out of the box. You do get some little tweaks here and there (matching wallpaper, the customization for that aforementioned action button, etc) but if you’re familiar with plain Android you’ll feel right at home here.

HMD has also tried to market the Skyline as a more zen experience, with a digital detox mode coming soon to the phone and custom notification and ringtone sounds that are a little more pleasant than what you normally hear on smartphones. Nobody likes those shrill, jarring notification tones in the middle of the night, right? I think HMD’s custom sounds are fine and peaceful, but there’s not as many options as you might be used to on a regular Android device.

Digital detox mode sounds very cool, allowing you to limit notifications during set times, especially from social media apps. Unfortunately it’s still not available, but is expected to arrive via software update sometime soon. In the meantime, you can still use Google’s built-in Do Not Disturb and Digital Wellbeing tools to mimic something similar.

There are a few bloatware apps included on the Skyline, including LinkedIn, Booking.com, Facebook, Kindred, and Amazon. All of them are uninstallable, however. Otherwise it’s all standard Google apps for things like messages and emails.

One thing to note is that HMD is only promising two years of software updates for the Skyline. A few years ago, that’s pretty decent, but other major OEMs are guaranteeing much more than that these days. Google’s new Pixel phones get 7 years of updates, for reference. Just something to keep in mind.

Camera

The camera on the HMD Skyline takes center stage in the marketing push, with a ton of fancy creator tools and extras to help you get that perfect shot for Instagram. There are lots of additional features here, like an astrophoto mode for starry night shots, gesture control, and eye tracking. Nothing over the top AI like we’re used to seeing, but plenty to keep in your toolbox.

You get three cameras here; a 108MP main shooter, a 13MP ultra wide camera, and a 50MP telephoto lens with 4x hybrid zoom.

The shots are fine, although maybe a little unremarkable. In good lighting conditions, you’ll get good photos. The zoom is fine, but 4x really does seem like its limit; you won’t want to rely on it or the quality degrades quickly. Night mode also tends to over sharpen images a bit worse than we usually see.

The extra features are nice, but the core camera hardware here is just okay, especially when HMD is fending off very tough competition from affordable Pixels.

Verdict

All in all, I really love this phone. I don’t think it’s for everyone, clearly, but I applaud HMD for doing literally anything different in a market where everyone seems to follow each other. Sure, the action button probably could’ve been branded a little more different to Apple’s implementation and the camera leaves a little to be desired, but hot pink? Sharp edges? A microSD card slot? The Skyline isn’t afraid to make compromises in order to stand out.

Now for most people, the $499 price tag is certainly tricky. You can get a Google Pixel 8a for the same price, with slightly better performance and a much, much better camera. It’s not neon pink, doesn’t have an SD card slot, and it’s not very easy to repair, but for most people, it’s probably the better option.

But if you’re like me and you’re kind of tired of the same old phones getting rehashed and released every year, the HMD Skyline brings something new to the party. It’s not the best, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s weird, and I love that.