HMD Pulse smartphone review
HMD Pulse Smartphone Review: HMD announced the HMD Pulse in April 2024 along with the HMD Pulse Plus and Pulse Pro. The HMD Pusle is available in some regions and will follow a gradual global rollout. It will expand to more countries in the coming weeks. The new HMD Pulse is a budget smartphone designed for those who want a modern smartphone experience on an extremely low budget.
The new smartphone follows the design language of its older siblings and looks quite decent. However, the smartphone does not have 5G connectivity, which cannot be expected at this price anyway. 5G hardware is expensive and including it would have increased the price significantly, but the company has other advantages to impress its users. So, let’s start with a detailed review of the new HMD Pulse and see if this smartphone is worth buying.
HMD Pulse smartphone review
Reflexes
- The HMD Pulse has a 6.65-inch IPS display with 90Hz high refresh rate support.
- The SoC inside the smartphone is the Unisoc T606 4G chipset that can reach clock speeds of up to 2×1.6 GHz.
- The smartphone comes with the latest Android 14 for a decent user experience.
- The smartphone has a 13MP rear camera with an 8MP selfie camera.
- The smartphone has a 5000 mAh battery with standard 10W charging support.
Design and display
The HMD Pulse has a flat design with a matte/frosted finish. The sides and edges of the phones are flat which gives them a solid grip and the phone should not slip easily. The overall build of the phone seems solid and should easily survive most drops and falls. Looks-wise, it looks quite stylish and people would probably find it difficult to tell that it is a budget phone.
The phone comes in three colors: Meteor Black, Dreamy Pink and Atmos Blue. The company also specified that the phone is protected against dust and splashes of water, but does not mention a specific IP rating. Let’s take a look at the display: You get a 6.65-inch IPS display with 90Hz high refresh rate support.
Having a 90Hz refresh rate should make the interface smoother and provide a better user experience. The display comes with HD+ resolution, which is understandable at this price. The display panel also lights up adequately at 600 nits in direct sunlight, so you shouldn’t have any problems using the smartphone outdoors.
Memory and internal
The HMD Pulse is equipped with the Unisoc T606 4G chipset. This chipset is capable of clock speeds of 2×1.6 GHz, which is not much, but it can probably run any app like Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and more with decent performance. Not all apps may run smoothly, but most should.
This level of performance is also seen on the gaming side. The chipset has a Mali-G57 MP1 GPU, which is a low-end CPU, so don’t expect it to run graphics-intensive games like CODm and PUBGm. You may run them but the performance can be very satisfactory. However, games like lighter and fun ones should work fine.
For the operating system, the smartphone comes with the latest Android 14 out of the box for a better experience. Additionally, there is no support for 5G connectivity, which is a compromise HMD made in making this smartphone at this price. In terms of RAM and storage, the smartphone can be purchased with up to 4GB/6GB RAM and 64GB storage. If you think the storage is not enough, you can expand it later with a microSDXC card. Additionally, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, something that is becoming quite rare these days.
Camera
The new HMD Pulse has a 13MP rear camera, which manages to capture some shots that look decent for the price. At this price, you can’t expect really good cameras or night photography, but what this 13MP sensor has achieved is acceptable. The rear camera also has an LED flash, which can help in extremely dark situations.
For selfies, there is an 8MP selfie camera that can take some selfies that can be considered good enough for the price. It won’t win any selfie awards but it’s not bad at all. It manages to capture a decent amount of detail with a natural color tone when there is enough light. Cloudy weather will ruin the performance of the selfie camera.
But at least both cameras support autofocus, so you don’t need to focus manually every time you take a photo. As for video recording, the rear camera can record at a maximum resolution of 1080p@30FPS.
Battery and others
The HMD Pulse has a high-capacity 5000 mAh battery, which can last 2 to 4 days, thanks to the use of a low-power chipset inside. The chipset consumes very little power, so the smartphone manages to provide excellent battery life with light to medium usage. So if your use includes camera, texting, social media apps, watching movies, etc., then getting 2 days of better life or even more probably won’t be that difficult.
But if you play a lot of games, the battery will drain much faster. As for charging, the smartphone does not support fast charging. Therefore, you will have to make do with the standard 10W charger, which will take a long time to fully charge the smartphone. Apart from that, the smartphone also has Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, GPS, NFC, and a USB Type-C port. The HMD Pulse starts at $150 (Rs 12,490 in India) approximately.
Pros and cons of HMD Pulse
HMD Pulse Specifications Detail
Below you can see the HMD Pulse Smartphone Full Specifications.
| Specifications | HMD Pulse |
| Grid | 2G, 3G, 4G |
| Announced | April 2024 |
| SIM | Nano SIM |
| Dimensions | 6.43 x 2.95 x 0.33 inches |
| Weight | 187 grams |
| Size | 6.65 inches |
| Show | IPS LCD 90Hz 480-600 nits brightness Ratio 20:9 ~265 PPI density |
| Protection/Others | Dust and splash resistant |
| Resolution | 720 x 1612 pixels |
| SW | Android 14 |
| chipset | 12nm – Unisoc T606 |
| CPU | Eight cores Cortex-A75 2 × 1.6 GHz Cortex-A55 6 × 1.6 GHz |
| GPU | Mali-G57 MP1 |
| card slot | microSDXC |
| RAM | 4GB, 6GB |
| Internal | 64GB |
| Camera | 13 MP (wide), AF Auxiliary lens LED flash, HDR Maximum: 1080p at 30fps |
| selfie | 8 megapixels |
| Loudspeaker | Yeah |
| 3.5mm jack | Yeah |
| Wifi | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac |
| Bluetooth | 5.0, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | GPS, GALILEO |
| NFC | Yeah |
| infrared port | No |
| Radio | not specified |
| USB | USB Type C 2.0, OTG |
| Sensors | Fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, side-mounted compass |
| Battery | 5000mAh 10W wired |
| Colors | Meteor Black, Dream Pink, Atmos Blue |
| Expected price | $150 (Rs 12,490 in India) approximately |
Conclusion
The HMD Pulse is a budget smartphone designed to be one of the cheapest smartphones possible. So don’t expect great cameras or gaming performance. You can take pictures and play some games, but that’s about it, and anything beyond that would be pushing the smartphone too far. However, HMD has managed to offer a pretty good display with a decent refresh rate, which certainly improves the user experience on some levels.
Another good thing about this smartphone is the battery life. This will last you days on a single charge, which is impressive considering the price, but there is no fast charging support.
For example, let’s take the Motorola Moto G34, which offers a better design, display, camera, and a much faster chipset. On top of that, it also has fast charging support and yet costs less than the HMD Pulse, so the Moto G34 earns our recommendation in this price range. However, the final decision is up to you, so it is better to choose a smartphone based on your needs and requirements.
