I probably have. Tested close to 100 cheap phones over the past 9 years, and I’ve never had to worry about bringing a backup in case things go bad. Budget phones are usually slow but work well. But when I took the HMD Fusion on a short trip to another state, I almost immediately regretted not bringing a spare smartphone.
The first prototype of this Android phone kept freezing and restarting itself on the way to the airport. Then, adding to my panic, it would boot to the home screen but my passcode wouldn’t work. “Invalid passcode.” what Thankfully, a force restart will return it to normal. However, the entire weekend of my friend’s wedding in Kentucky, Fusion would restart itself constantly. He also declined to launch Slack—though that may have been a blessing because work was far from my mind at the time.
HMD said it couldn’t duplicate my issues, so the company sent me another unit. It has been just fine. It’s hard to suddenly shift gears after being so frustrated with this black monolith, but it’s a decent $300 phone. It also has a trick that no other phone has today: modes.
The return of the modular phone.
HMD might not be a name you’re familiar with, so to quickly recap, it’s a Finnish company that owns the Nokia brand of Nokia Android smartphones and feature phones (aka dumb phones). A license has been granted. It started doing this in 2017, but earlier this year, the company announced that while it will still make Nokia phones, it also plans to produce phones under its own name (which means human mobile devices). Its feature phone business also continues with major contributions like Boring Phone and Barbie Phone.
HMD Fusion is one of those devices (Skyline and Vibe were too). Its focus is on repairability—just remove a handful of screws and you can replace many parts, from the battery to the screen, and the company plans to carry these parts for 7 years. (Much of this is required to comply with upcoming EU legislation.)
But what makes it? Really Standouts are the pogo pins on the back. In fact, the entire back of the phone looks like it’s unfinished. This is because you can add “outfits”, as HMD calls them. These modular components can change the look of the phone with different colored backs. They don’t stick magnetically like iPhones and MagSafes. Instead, they’re like clothing cases, and pogo pins transmit not just power, but data as well.
Photo: Julian Chokkoto
