Miss the Lumia? You Can Have It Again… Sort Of

No comments

Not exactly a Lumia, but it is a Nokia.

HMD, short for Human Mobile Devices, previously teased a set of new phones under their brand name. It is the first phase of a series of smartphones under the HMD brand, now that they’re steering away from Nokia. The first was the powerful midrange Skyline and the next is the budget-friendly, yet still repairable Pulse. Just like the Skyline, the Pulse features a design inspired from those old classic Lumias with multiple color options. Now, you can have the Lumias with Android on them, as they should have from the beginning.

Well, not quite. It’s still lacking the iconic yellow colour and a customized interface. The phone is still uniquely designed, however, and still promotes HMD’s sustainability efforts of reducing e-wastes by making sure even a caveman can repair their phones with just the very basic screwdriver and tweezers.

While the Skyline is available exclusively on Shopee, the Pulse is available exclusively on Lazada. It costs PHP 8,390 currently but valued at PHP 11,899. And sadly, the Pulse is overpriced, possibly overvalued even.

The phone has an HD+ display with 90Hz refresh rate. A weird choice considering almost every other phone in the market either uses OLED or a FHD screen. That’s a display typical for ultrabudget phones so we’re baffled to know this here. It also features the typical 50MP+2MP setup that every budget phone uses. For the chipset, a UNISOC Tiger T606 is running the phone paired with 4GB RAM and 128GB ROM. The Pulse has a 5000mAh battery charged via USB-C complemented with 20W fast charging.

Instead of relying on Dolby’s audio technology, HMD uses Nokia’s OZO to get those rich, detailed sound experience. The phone also has a headphone jack, which shouldn’t have been a feature but rather a thing that’s always there.

Security is what HMD built upon when they restarted Nokia, and they are continuing it here. The Pulse Pro is guaranteed to get 2 years worth of Android upgrades. It’s not much but at least there is an option.

Finally, there is your connectivity. The Pulse supports dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE, and it also has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. It comes in Black Ocean, Twilight Purple, and Glacier Green (still no yellow). The Pulse Pro has a 16/256 option which users can choose without altering the price. Only Black Ocean (12/128) has a lower capacity.

The phone is available via Shopee or Smart to purchase.

SPECS:

  • 6.65″ HD+ (1600x720px) IPS LCD, 90Hz refresh rate
  • UNISOC Tiger T612 (12nm)
  • CAMERAS:
    • 50MP (Primary), f/2.2
    • 0.08MP (Depth), f/2.2
    • FRONT: 50MP
  • realmeUI 5.0 based on Android 14
  • 5000mAh, 20W fast charging
  • 4G LTE, Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC
  • Black Ocean, Twilight Purple, Glacier Green
  • PRICE:
    • 12/128: PHP 8,990
    • 16/256: PHP 8,990

Again, the phone is available to any Smart kiosk, at its online store, and third party retailers.

Tagged with ,