HMD Skyline review

Start [Music] [Music] here we have a mid-range phone that's rather unique the hmd skyline the skyline is one of the first phones by hmd's own brand instead of Nokia's it's got a couple of tricks up its sleeve I'm will for GSM Marina and Design and build let's see what it's all about in our full [Music] review hmd isn't exactly in the spotlight these days but it's producing phones like the hmd skyline the skyline is a mid-ranger with a high refresh rate OLED screen a solid chipset and triple cameras on the back plus you get expandable storage and wireless charging but the most unique feature here is that hmd has designed the phone to be easily repaired by removing just one screw you can pop off the back panel and expose the internals and from there you can quickly replace a battery or broken screen you can get spare parts directly from hmd or you can also find them at iFixit along with the needed iFixit standard repair kit the removable back panel is made of glass with a frosted finish it's smooth to the touch doesn't collect smudges easily and in this color way it's quite vibrant too overall design-wise the hmb skyline brings an old school Vibe with its sharp Corners flat top and bottom and rounded sides one interesting Accent on the front is that the screen has rounded Corners which contrast with the sharp angles of the phone's body and despite Screen specs and features the detachable back the phone has some protection against water and dust rated at ip54 the display of the phone is a 6.55 in OLED with a 1080p resolution and a high 144 HZ refresh rate the screen is sharp enough at 401 PPI and it also has support for hdr10 video and for brightness we measured a maximum of around 4 180 nits with a manual slider and this could boost up to over 1,000 nits in auto mode which is decent for outdoor use in the Sun though it falls behind the competition a little bit the 144 HZ refresh rate makes your swiping and scrolling that much smoother than your typical 120 HZ panel however it's a static mode you choose in Stereo speakers test settings if you want to have an Adaptive refresh rate which can dial down to 60 HZ to save energy you'll max out at 120 htz for audio the hmd skyline has a pair of stereo speakers with very good loudness and if you use the volume boost you can reach very high volumes at the Side-mounted fingerprint reader expense of sound quality the hmd skyline has a side mounted fingerprint reader it's hard to feel as it sits flush to the frame but it's fast and responsive we just wish it could be set to activate just on press to avoid Mis touches and storage here is expandable Storage options through micro SD card on top of the 128 or 256 gigs on board the interface of Android 14 and UI the h MB Skyline is basically stock Android 14 this means the user experience is much like the Google pixels but of course without those pixel specific features there is a unique feature here though a dedicated Hardware button called the custom button you can assign different actions to it and launch apps too hmd promises two major Android updates and 3 years of security patches to the skyline we actually expected more seeing as this is a phone geared toward a DIY repair suggesting the phone should stay in operation longer than usual another Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 performance way to futureproof a phone is to have a cutting edge chipset so that it remains relevant down the line but the hmd skyline uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 which is actually more of a run-of-the-mill mid-range chip in Benchmarks benchmarks the phone actually falls short of many of its competitors in this price range the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 is usually found within less expensive phones still there's nothing wrong with the performance here it's pretty solid Thermals the management is good too in our prolonged stress tests the hmd skyline maintained good sustained performance without heavy throttling the hmd skyline has a 4600 Battery endurance and charging test mAh battery which is a bit smaller capacity than the 5,000 found in most mid-rangers in our battery life test the skyline's results weren't too impressive with an overall active use score of 10 hours and 47 minutes most direct competitors did a bit better the hmd skyline supports up to 33 wat wied charging but doesn't come with a charger in the box with a proper adapter we were able to charge it from 0 to 57% in half an hour and a full charge took 76 minutes which is somewhat slow at least there's support for wireless charging and reverse wireless charging which is rare to find in a mid-ranger and now the cameras the hmd Camera specs skyline features a 108 mapix main cam a 50 megap two times telephoto Cam and a 13 megap Ultra wide camera the main camera produces nice and Main camera: photo and video quality clean photos during the day with good detail and sharpness and wide dynamic range colors are somewhat Bland especially compared to the other two cameras in low light the results are not very good if you don't toggle on the dedicated night mode the photos are soft and low in detail with limited dynamic range and contrast the night mode takes care of most of the issues by balancing out highlights and shadows adding contrast clearing up noise and adding sharpness however the results end up looking oversharpened the quality of the main Cam's 4K video recording is good with nice detail sharpness and dynamic range and great contrast the colors remain Bland though as they were in the photos also there is no support for electronic stabilization in 4K resolution if you want stabilization you'd have to switch to 1080P and the results are decently smooth and here's a look at 4K video recorded at night you get clipped highlights and washed out colors and the footage is quite noisy too moving on to the two times telephoto cam Telephoto camera: photo and video quality this camera lacks ois but we were impressed by the level of detail sharpness and Clarity the dynamic range is wide and the colors are Lively too however at night the two times zoom camera struggles to deliver decent results with or without night mode images are soft noisy and lack fine detail 4K videos from the telephoto cam have nearly identical processing and quality as those from the main cam there's just a slight drop in sharpness and more Vivid colors the hmd skylines ultrawide Ultrawide camera: photo and video quality produces decent photos for this sort of camera the dynamic range is okay contrast is nice and the colors are Lively and in low light conditions the results aren't great but still above average for an ultra wide cam 4K videos from the ultra wide are more than decent they're adequately sharp with nice contrast Lively colors and a wide dynamic range if only there was stabilization and and finally we have Selfies selfies from the 50 megap front-facing cam which even has autofocus they have goodlooking colors and plenty of detail and wide denic range they're not the sharpest selfies we've seen But skin tones come out pretty nice so there you have it the hmd Conclusion skyline it's almost unheard of for manufacturers to encourage you to repair a phone at home and on top of that you have a unique look expandable storage wireless charging and versatile cameras however the skyline also falls behind in several ways there arrivals with a better chipset faster charging longer battery life and better camera performance in low light lack of video stabilization in 4k is also a bummer so the hmd skyline could be worth checking out if you're after the novelty but not necessarily if you want the most bang for your bug thanks for watching guys Alternatives and selfie video quality here are a couple of alternatives on our channel the Google pixel 8A and the Motorola Edge 50 Pro let us know what you think and I'll see you on the next one