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Austin Reviews the HMD Skyline: A Mid-Range POWERHOUSE!
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Dec 4, 2024
While this HMD Skyline may be the pinkest phone I've ever been given by a brand, it is actually a fantastic option for many, many people (but not everyone). In this video, I'm going to share everything I've found while testing this phone, including what I like, don't like, and exactly who it is for! You can purchase your own HMD Skyline here (Paid Link): https://amzn.to/3VlfwJt Link to iFixit Kit for repairing this phone (Paid Link): https://amzn.to/3ZkE7iB
View Video Transcript
0:00
today we're going to be talking about
0:01
the hmd skyline now this is a mid-range
0:05
device from a company called hmd and hmd
0:08
is actually the company that makes Nokia
0:11
phones that you're probably more
0:12
familiar with but they recently started
0:14
selling their own hmd branded
0:16
smartphones in the skyline is their
0:18
Flagship device now it is a mid-range
0:21
device the msrps around $499 they do go
0:24
on sale sometimes but in this video I'm
0:26
going to be telling you guys everything
0:28
that you need to know about this device
0:30
that they gave me I'm going to talk
0:31
about the things that I like that I
0:33
don't like and exactly who it's for
0:35
after a while of testing this device so
0:37
I'm going to switch you guys to a top
0:39
down mode and we're going to talk more
0:40
about it okay to kick things off on this
0:43
device let's talk about what it is
0:45
before I get into things that I do and
0:46
don't like so starting off this is an
0:49
aluminum bodied phone it comes off to
0:52
kind of square edges which is unique in
0:54
phones nowadays the back is going to be
0:56
a glass and then of course on the front
0:58
is going to be a gorilla Glass 3 now the
1:01
device itself actually reminds me a lot
1:03
of the old school Nokia Lumia 1020 that
1:06
was actually back when I used to sell
1:07
cell phone so this kind of gives me a
1:09
bit of a nostalgic feel to it on the
1:12
bottom you do have a USBC charger and
1:15
then this does have qi2 charging which
1:18
actually means this is somewhat mag safe
1:20
it does fit to some mag safe accessories
1:22
you can see like right here um it has
1:25
holds on just a little bit it's not
1:27
quite as strong as what you're going to
1:28
get used to with iPhones
1:30
but it is something that it does have as
1:32
for the rear you have a 108 map main
1:35
camera another 50 megap camera and then
1:38
a 13 megapixel Ultra wide camera on the
1:40
back as for the battery you have a 4600
1:43
milliamp battery on the inside and then
1:45
standard comes with
1:47
256 GB of storage and 8 GB of RAM now as
1:51
for the operating system you are running
1:53
on Android 14 it does have the detox
1:56
mode that they have advertised and it's
1:59
144 Herz refresh rate now that is
2:01
something you choose in the settings uh
2:03
you can run at 144 Herz all the time it
2:06
just affects the battery life a little
2:07
bit more you can also choose from a
2:08
couple different options but I kept it
2:10
standard at 144 HZ the whole time I was
2:12
reviewing this device because I have an
2:15
iPhone 15 Pro as my main device and it's
2:17
kind of a pain and uh and my eyes are
2:20
now completely used to that higher
2:21
refresh rate and it annoys me if I don't
2:22
have that one of the biggest things
2:24
about this device is that it is
2:26
repairable we'll go into that a little
2:27
bit more later but you can see right
2:29
here there is a screw right there and
2:31
that pops the back of this device off
2:33
and that gives easy access to replacing
2:35
things like the screen as well as the
2:38
battery and I think there's a few other
2:39
components all of those can be purchased
2:41
directly from iFixit but the major
2:43
downside to that is it does cause us to
2:46
have an ip54 rating which means it's not
2:48
truly water resistant so that is a big
2:51
tradeoff but hey you get repairability
2:54
and you can fix a lot of things at the
2:57
sacrifice of that rating now of course
2:59
this is their pink color which I
3:01
actually have grown to like and but if
3:03
you do not want pink as probably a lot
3:05
of people do especially since this is a
3:07
men's gear Channel they do also kind of
3:09
have a green topaz color and then a
3:11
black color as well which is probably
3:13
the one that you should opt for all
3:14
right and now that leads us into the
3:17
things that I like and that I don't like
3:19
about this device so let's start with
3:20
the things that I do like I really
3:23
really like the design of this phone
3:25
this is probably one of my favorite
3:26
design phones I have seen in a long time
3:28
now I used to sell phones for both AT&T
3:30
and Verizon retailers and back then it
3:33
was like in the early 2010s that was
3:35
back when smartphones were making huge
3:37
leaps they were trying crazy things 3D
3:39
cameras all that stuff and uh we've kind
3:42
of gone away from that every phone kind
3:43
of looks the same and this is one that
3:45
stands out as honestly being one of my
3:47
favorite devices when it comes to
3:49
styling now of course is that pink color
3:51
which I said has kind of grown on me but
3:52
I really like these kind of squared off
3:56
Corners to them again it goes back to
3:58
the Nokia Lumia 102 20 that was from no
4:01
probably about a decade ago now or now
4:03
is so and I really really like the way
4:06
this phone looks of course you can kind
4:07
of see some of the pink kind of Corners
4:09
right here even from the front now
4:12
something that I really did like is the
4:14
detox mode on this device that is
4:16
actually something that you can add as a
4:18
widget here um and let's see if I can
4:21
get it on there it's a little bit
4:22
different while I'm filming this so you
4:23
can go through your widgets here all
4:25
right let's go ahead and search for it
4:27
detox so let's add this to the home
4:29
screen here I just did a wipe on this
4:31
phone so what you can do is you can go
4:33
in and you can activate it and you can
4:35
choose how long you want to activate
4:37
this for so it can be 1 Hour 2 Hour 4
4:40
hours in the no time frame basically I
4:42
think you have to restart the device to
4:43
get it to do that I had actually tested
4:45
that out but what you do is you go into
4:47
the settings here so you allow it to do
4:49
the contacts and then you can go through
4:51
all these different applications and you
4:53
can decide okay I want that one to turn
4:55
off what's in do detox mode I want to
4:57
turn off that one and that one because
4:59
these are all ones maybe I just you know
5:01
spend way too much time utilizing uh and
5:04
I want to have some time away from them
5:06
and then what you can do is you click
5:08
that activate button I'm not going to do
5:09
it because we're doing the review right
5:10
now and it actually removes those
5:13
applications from being able to be used
5:15
while detox mode is on and so allows you
5:18
to just essentially detox uh from those
5:21
applications for a period of time and
5:24
that is actually really cool for people
5:25
that find that they are using their
5:27
phone a little bit too much and I really
5:29
like that another thing that I really
5:31
liked about this device is its refresh
5:33
rate now for a device that's a mid-range
5:35
phone so the half the price of like an
5:36
iPhone 15 Pro that I'm using or I guess
5:38
now a 16 Pro which I'm not using is it
5:41
has a 144 Herz refresh rate which I
5:44
really appreciate it is so silky smooth
5:47
I didn't have it slowed down at all um
5:50
it was not an issue for me at all and
5:51
that 144 HZ refresh rate just makes
5:53
things feel so nice and so smooth if
5:56
you've never used a higher refresh rate
5:58
on your phone say you're using like a
5:59
standard iPhone or an older Android um
6:02
you may not appreciate it until you
6:05
actually have a phone that has a higher
6:06
refresh rate it just makes things feel
6:08
so much smoother now another thing that
6:10
I really liked was its repairability
6:13
I'll link a short that I did up here uh
6:16
where I showed you guys how to
6:18
disassemble this device but basically it
6:20
is just a quick little screw right there
6:22
you pop that and then that pops up and
6:24
you can just basically pry the device up
6:26
you can get an iFix it kit that helps
6:28
you do that whole thing link that down
6:30
in the top comment in the description uh
6:32
but it is really nice to be able to have
6:33
a repairable device like this and it
6:36
really saves you money in the long run
6:37
it means a lot less waste you're not
6:39
throwing a device away or anything like
6:41
that and I really do appreciate cuz
6:42
there's not many devices out there that
6:44
are repairable and so that's a cool
6:46
functionality of it and then the last
6:48
thing is I mean honestly this is just
6:49
kind of a standard Android obviously
6:51
it's customizable everything you would
6:53
expect from an Android device and stuff
6:55
but I ran into no issues with speed
6:59
which is generally the biggest downside
7:01
of budget devices well mid-range devices
7:03
well devices are just way too expensive
7:06
nowadays but this being a mid-range
7:08
device with an MSRP of around
7:10
$499 I ran into no speed issues at all
7:13
if you're looking for a phone that's
7:15
fast but still on a budget this is a
7:17
really really good device I had no
7:19
issues at all just getting into like
7:20
different applications I have that on
7:23
rotate looks like and all of that it is
7:26
it really is a fast phone I have no
7:28
qualms at all with it um as you can see
7:31
it it swaps between applications really
7:33
fast yeah again it's just I had no
7:35
issues with speed which is really
7:36
impressive for the price and that leads
7:38
me to the things that I don't like about
7:40
this device and I have to say this
7:42
device is not becoming my daily driver I
7:44
was kind of hoping I might be able
7:45
switch over to it because I'll be honest
7:47
I'm kind of tired of using an iPhone and
7:50
I was hoping maybe this would be a good
7:51
replacement and there's three things
7:53
that were the reason why I didn't really
7:56
want to switch to this phone to be fair
7:59
the phone using is twice the price at
8:01
$1,000 instead of $500 and this even
8:04
goes on sale quite a bit so it's not
8:05
truly a fair comparison but it made it
8:08
so that I couldn't move away from my
8:10
iPhone 15 Pro so the number one thing is
8:14
it's
8:15
speakers I actually use my speakers
8:18
quite a bit uh not everybody does use
8:20
their external speakers all that often
8:21
but I have to say the speakers on this
8:23
device are nearly unusable now I'm
8:27
assuming it's not just this device
8:30
but they are just super tinny they're
8:31
really hard to hear they don't have any
8:33
base to them um and they're just nearly
8:35
unusable for phone calls for music
8:37
especially or anything like that uh so
8:40
if you're somebody that uses external
8:41
speakers this probably isn't going to be
8:43
for you the other thing that I didn't
8:46
like about this phone is its cameras now
8:48
Those sensors look gigantic uh and the
8:52
advertising behind it has it so that the
8:54
you know I think it's 108 megapixel
8:55
camera on it 50 megapixel 13 megapixel
8:58
wide R wide wi angle but in all reality
9:02
the pictures just didn't look very nice
9:05
now you jump into the camera and I have
9:06
to say the actual functionality right in
9:09
here usability is super super nice
9:11
there's tons of really great settings
9:12
you can adjust everything but the major
9:14
issue that I had was when I was taking
9:18
photos like it speed is even great but
9:20
the the issue I was running into and it
9:22
doesn't that one actually worked pretty
9:24
well but when I was taking pictures of
9:25
any like person um it was running into
9:28
where it was super fuzzy and it just was
9:31
not quick enough at taking the picture
9:34
that it was just really really fuzzy
9:36
didn't look very nice and I found that I
9:38
just I couldn't trust this as being a
9:40
good camera especially since I do take a
9:42
ton of photos especially for gear 43 in
9:45
videos for gear 43 and stuff like that
9:48
so I couldn't really trust the camera to
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be a highquality camera now again of
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course this is a phone that's like $399
9:55
it's on sale $4.99 MSRP so again it's
9:57
not really fair comparing it to an
9:59
iPhone phone that's $1,000 but it was a
10:01
good reason as to why I didn't switch
10:03
over to this device and then the final
10:05
thing is this is kind of touted as being
10:07
somewhat of a minimalist device having
10:09
detox mod being able to turn off all
10:11
those things and that is an awesome
10:13
thing being able to turn it off for 1 2
10:15
4 hours there were no time frame and
10:16
stuff like that but the biggest issue I
10:20
have with these type of devices that are
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trying to be a minimalist device to kind
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of give you detox is you can overwrite
10:27
it at any point in time you just
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deactivate at it you can turn your
10:30
device off or just turn off the detox
10:32
mode and so it gives you the choice to
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move back to it and you have to
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physically choose to decide not to have
10:39
those applications by turning on the
10:40
detox mode and it's just something you
10:42
can turn off and so it really isn't
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truly a minimalist phone and for those
10:46
people that really do struggle needing
10:48
to be on their device this may not be a
10:51
great solution may be for those people
10:52
that you know have a mild issue with
10:54
being on their device all the time um
10:56
but the detox mode I don't think goes
10:58
quite far enough and that is a bit of a
11:01
bummer and so who is this phone for it's
11:05
for somebody that's looking for a very
11:08
very well done device that is extremely
11:11
smooth is high quality and is just you
11:14
know really really nice this metal Body
11:16
and Glass back in the the main screen
11:18
and the UI everything's super fast super
11:20
Snappy has no issues I have no
11:23
complaints on any of that kind of stuff
11:24
so general usability of this device is
11:27
amazing but if you are somebody that
11:30
needs a good camera or needs good
11:33
quality external speakers this is not
11:36
for you the those two things just are a
11:38
big drawback to this device and you'll
11:41
probably want to go a different
11:42
direction but if those two things don't
11:44
matter to you you just want to be able
11:45
to use a good device for a good price uh
11:48
and those two things don't bother you
11:50
this thing is really really good um the
11:52
body is super nice like I said really
11:54
really high quality looks really really
11:56
nice um everything works smoothly the
11:59
applications are all Snappy it has that
12:01
high refresh rate good battery life um I
12:04
think it's for just really anybody that
12:06
might want those things but maybe the
12:08
camera and speakers don't matter to you
12:10
get it with that said I do have a link
12:13
down in the top comment and in the
12:15
description of this video if you guys do
12:16
want to purchase it it is a paid link so
12:19
I do get a commission if you guys decide
12:20
to purchase it and make sure to stay
12:22
tuned next time for another awesome
12:23
men's Gear review
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