A bit biased because I have wanted an HMD since one of my favourite youtubers took it apart and was able to show how easy it is to repair one of these. We all know that screens breaking and cracking is the most common problem. This, this is so easy to change out and the parts are inexpensive AND can be done at home. Besides that, it is easy to use, the battery just barely sips with screen at 50% (which is plenty bright for normal use) and just sips while watching youtube with the screen at 100%! The side sensor makes it convenient to unlock. It looks great. The sound is pretty decent. Speed is on par. Mine came with developer options unlocked. I never have it drop a signal, and it easily connects to wifi, bluetooth, and cell networks (AT&T). This is affordable and checks all the boxes for 90% of users. Read more

Welp, I bought this phone earlier this year as a gift for myself since I like the design and it was advertised as phone that buyer can fix themselves (like the screen) and they can buy parts from Ifixit. The screen has broken one. And I bought from Ifixit. And it was fun to fix myself. Until the screen broken another time (from my carelessness)... and guess what... Ifixit out of stock in the US. It's already 2 weeks... still out of stock. I tried to buy one from amazon but they don't have frame like Ifixit... and I can't repair that myself. JUST SAD! I like this phone. The back look like an unfinished phone and with the selling point is the buyers can fix it themselves, it is perfect on theme. The phone is light and fit my hand perfectly. The camera is ok. It's a decent phone at it price. It still laggy sometime with finger movement. (I don't think it good enough to play high graphic game on it so idk what's going on with the gaming outfit that they have). And 2 years update is not good enough for a phone that advertise that buyer can fix ourselves. Is HMD giving up on this just after a year? Read more

Owned it for little over a week so far. Hardware wise I think the phone is great for the pricepoint. Solid build and it looks good imo. I love that I'm able to swap out parts when I need to and that it has a headphone jack. Battery lasts really long too. Only thing which is lackluster in my opinion is the camera but most of that is software as the whitebalance tends to be off a lot of the time. Software wise it's okay. It definitely has a little bloat when you first get it though that's standard for android nowadays afaik; I removed most of the starter apps and replaced the default launcher with the nexus launcher. It also feels a fair bit slower coming from a flagship Zenfone, but considering this the baseline model I don't think it's fair to compare the two. Imo you'll definitely need to turn on adaptive refresh because out of the box it feels a lot worse than it actually is with the fixed 60hz. Working with my Mint plan flawlessly and hasn't had any issues with Bluetooth or WiFi so far, but on their website they do say it is incompatible with Verizon so if you use a Verizon plan best to look for another phone. Would highly recommend for those who simply want a basic daily driver. Read more

Got it on sale, but overall a really good phone, advertised as a 2 day battery but that's on minimal use, expect closer to a 1day battery on average use. Charges FAST AS HELL, Overall good physical feel and looks, comes with a case that I would recommend keeping on unless you get a new case for it. It comes carrier unlocked and pretty easy to use. Speakers have *no bass*, straight up no bass, otherwise its good in other regards! Read more

I love this phone. I have a Google Pixel 8 Pro that I got with a carrier deal and is of course locked. So I needed a second phone to use international sim cards while traveling. The HMD Fusion caught my eye for its design, repairability, and price point. I've used Motos in the past (G Power, One 5G Ace) and the Fusion comfortably excels, and in feel/usability it beats the Pixel 8 Pro in some respects. The screen is extremely clear and what the 108mp camera lacks in multiple modes it makes up for in brute force. For example, you can get a macro mode just by zooming in with the phone at a little distance and the high resolution captures plenty of detail. The zoom for long-distance pictures is workable but under low light the output is a little grainy. Thus, it naturally doesn't beat the Pixel Pro's camera (at a 3x-5x price difference...) but it's better than previous Motos I've used. And it's close enough to the pixel thanks to the raw power of the camera that I wouldn't consider paying for another Pixel. This is plenty for the mid-range photography I have to do (and I don't have to worry about whether the Pixel's post processing is adding fine detail that's not there in the original photo, a concern for the museum work I do). Audio playback is a mixed bag too, with the single speaker outputting sufficient quality sound for media playback. That said, it's a minor weak point as a small Bluetooth speaker is all you need to remedy that completely. Where the Fusion shines though is feel, it's amazing. The screen is super crisp and minor animations help sell a very fluid UI. The processor is dated spec-wise but for everything I do (high productivity, camera work, and light gaming) it's indistinguishable from the Pixel 8 Pro. Phone performance has generally outstripped phone needs and the cost of a flagship phone doesn't meet with proportional returns. The Fusion looks gorgeous, especially with the included transparent case which provides great grip and drop protection, and there's extremely fine attention to detail in design that makes it an object that's a joy to hold and use. The wonderfully clicky buttons are unobstructed by the well sculpted case, and the lock button including a finger print reader is the best implementation of the feature I've yet seen. Facial recognition is very responsive, making any momentary hiccup in one locking method very rapidly fixed by the other. Call quality is good and the android OS is well tailored between having necessary QoL features (ex. built in media booster for the media speaker, greatly offsetting its physical shortcomings) and a sleek layout that compares well with the increasingly cluttered Pixel experience. Fast charging support works great, battery life is fantastic, and while it presently lacks wireless charging capability, the Fusion could be getting that in the foreseeable future with a dedicated battery "outfit" (ie. case from HMD) that would expand battery capacity and give wireless charging (we'll see if/when that's released). The best features though come from the trade offs it doesn't make to hit high quality. It still has a 3.5mm jack and microSD card slot. You can disassemble it yourself with a screw-based case that's still as thin as glued phones. The battery is especially accessible (you can see it as the big square on the back of the phone) solving one of the major Achilles heels of phone longevity (with parts guaranteed for a while on ifixit). The outfits at present solve a few major use cases (extra LED, gaming controller rig) but with more planned there's a great *potential* here for expanded use over time and more tailoring to niche interests. As is though, the Fusion feels like a modern phone built with the design sensibilities of the early-mid 2000s. It hits high performance targets while making a great feeling phone that stands out from all other budget offerings. What it lacks in high-end specs or features of flagship phones it makes up for in retaining features those phones dropped which more than compensate for not pursuing their direction of technology. The HMD Fusion is a completely viable alternative path to the homogeneous rut of overpriced, underdelivering, modern cell phone design. The Finnish mad lads of Nokia (who built this phone) have done extremely well here and I can't recommend the Fusion highly enough. Great phone, and I hope that folks actually recognize that fact and make it a hit. Because this could bring us back around to well designed human-oriented tech, and we can have nice things again from an industry that's lost its way. Read more