Hello ladies and gentlemen, we’re discussing phones today. In this one we’re going to be looking at a phone that someone has asked me to cover. This one is the HMD Pulse +.
HMD to me is one of those brands that i don’t really care about because they’re bringing nothing new. At least with the Nokia brand, they could sell nostalgia and we all know how that ended.
So after ditching the Nokia brand name, HMD finally decided to drop their mask and release phones under their brand name. They released a bunch of phones such as the:
- HMD Aura
- HMD Pulse
- HMD Pulse+
- HMD Pulse Pro
- HMD Skyline
We’re going to be looking at the HMD Pulse+. I’ll be getting my information from GSMArena and Kimovil to balance for accuracy.
HMD Pulse+ Full Specs
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Body | Plastic frame and back, 187g, IP52, Dual SIM tray, micro SD card slot, 3.5mm jack |
| SoC | Unisoc Tiger T606 |
| GPU | ARM Mali G57 MP1 |
| Software | Android 14 |
| Benchmarks | AnTuTu 10: 223,000 |
| RAM | LPDDR4X, 4GB, 8GB |
| Storage | eMMC 5.1 (128GB/256GB) |
| Display | 6.6″ 720p IPS-LCD, 90Hz |
| Camera (Rear) | 108MP main + 0.08MP depth, 1080p@30fps |
| Selfie | 8MP |
| Battery | 5,000mAh, 18W |
| Connectivity | 4G, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C (2.0) port, 3.5mm audio in/out, side mounted Fingerprint reader |
Body
The HMD Pulse+ like most budget phones has a plastic frame and a plastic back. It weighs 187g and boasts IP52 splash and dust protection.
The sim tray is on the left side whilst the volume rocker and power buttons are on the upper right hand side.
Display
This phone unsurprisingly ships with a 720p (HD+) IPS LCD display. The screen size is a decent 6.56″ and it has a refresh rate of 90Hz. The advertised max brightness is 600nits (in sunlight) and there’s a hole punch notch for the selfie.
Performance
The Pulse+ uses nothing other than the Unisoc Tiger T606. This is one SoC that we’ve discussed to death here. The T606 is on par with the MediaTek Helio G80, G81 and G85 when it comes to performance. However it does not really enjoy the optimizations that those SoCs have.
The T606 will give the device a decent performance score of 223k on AnTuTu 10. Other noteworthy phones that use this SoC include:
- Infinix Hot 40i
- Infinix Hot 30i
- Infinix Smart 7 HD
- Infinix Smart 8 HD
- Tecno Spark 8C
- Tecno Pop 8
- Tecno Spark 10C
- Itel P55
- Itel S23
- Nokia G22
And so many others
Software
Just like with its Nokia phones, HMD is going with Stock Android for this phone. This phone ships with Android 14 and there’s really no information on if HMD are going to be supporting or how long they’re going to be supporting it.
Cameras/Video
The Pulse+ ships with three cameras. On the rear, there’s a 50MP main camera and a (wait for it) 0.03MP auxiliary camera 😂😂😂. In front, there’s an 8MP selfie.
I’ll like to inform you guys that the max supported camera resolution of the T606 is 24MP. The rear camera can only do 1080p videos at 30fps.
Battery
To power this device, there is a 5000mAh battery that can only be charged at a max power of 10W. 10 bloody watts 😂😂😂.
Connectivity
This is a 4G phone which supports WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5. It also sports a USB C port which supports USB OTG. It covers most of the relevant 4G bands (1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28, 38, 40) in Nigeria so there should be no problems using this one at all.
Miscellaneous
This device supports dual nano sims, a micro SD card slot and 3.5mm jack. There’s also a single firing loudspeaker as well. There’s also GPS support as well.
HMD Pulse+ Review
You see I looked at the specifics and I was like, “it’s okay, it’s okay” until I saw the price (€120 or 210,000 Naira). The price pissed me off so much, I was going to do a video about it but I didn’t have the patience to start arranging clips and doing a voice over or anything. This phone is not better than any of the aforementioned phones above. It is not. It is not even better than the Redmi 13C, 14C or the Redmi A3 Pro.
I did a video a while back highlighting the top 10 phones that you can pick up for 150K and the HMD Pulse+ is no better than any of them. The Itel P55 5G with its 5G capable Dimensity 6080 is far better than this device.
When you try to dip your toes into a saturated market, you have to have something going for you that makes you stand out. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a ruse.
Transsion came in with the cheap and affordable mantra, Gionee came with big batteries, Xiaomi came price to performance and quality + affordability. HMD is offering absolutely nothing. There’s no reason why I should pick their vanilla phone over any of the other vanilla T606 or Helio G80, G81 or G85 phones on the market. Their brand name isn’t even that powerful to command such a price. For 200k, I’d rather buy an Itel RS4 or Samsung Galaxy A05s and feel satisfied.
So that’s the review and that’s why I can’t be half assed about HMD. That’s it, I hope you all have a very blessed evening and a great night’s rest. Cheers.
Note that prices have moved up a bit but the HMD Pulse+ isn’t better than any of these phones.
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