Smartphone manufacturer HMD has taken a new path, but with the Pulse Pro it has taken a wrong turn. The low entry price covers up some of the shortcomings, but not all of them.

Finnish smartphone company HMD Global is synonymous with the Nokia brand name. Since 2017, HMD has kept the once iconic brand alive. This year, however, the company is taking a different path and wants to prove that it is not based solely on the Nokia name. In April, it launched its first three smartphone devices under its own name: HMD Pulse, Pulse+ and Pulse Pro.

HMD remains true to its philosophy of bringing affordable devices to the market. With the Pulse Pro and its brothers, it stays below the price level of 200 euros (179 euros, including VAT): a market segment in which there is not much left to offer. At this price level, you have to have realistic expectations, but this device requires a little too much tolerance for error.

Do it yourself

The HMD Pulse Pro doesn’t have the most striking design. The glossy back is sensitive to fingerprints and the thick screen bezels and perforated front camera could be more discreet. HMD likes to highlight the repairability of the device. The screen, charging port and battery can be removed from the device.

This idea is noble, but also very ambitious in this price range. The question is how much money and effort users are willing to put into a device that costs 179 euros. We tried to remove the back cover, but it is still stuck. We only recommend a DIY repair if you have steady hands and knowledge of the inside of a smartphone.

Counting pixels

The large 6.56-inch display has a resolution of just 720 x 1,612 pixels, which means the HMD Pulse Pro falls below the Full HD limit. The price is only a limited excuse here, because the Motorola Moto G54 5G, which is ten euros cheaper, definitely reaches the limit. The LCD screen lacks color depth.

Other specs are equally mediocre. The brightness doesn’t exceed 350 nits: limited sunlight is enough to see your reflection on the screen. The 90 Hz refresh rate is acceptable. The image quality is enough to scroll through your emails, but not much more.

Made in China

Budget phones are rarely, if ever, speed demons. The HMD Pulse Pro doesn’t have a processor from Qualcomm or MediaTek, but from Chinese company Unisoc. Unisoc processors are almost exclusively found in budget phones, and for good reason. The Unisoc T606 has to work hard for the simplest of tasks, and although there is 6GB of RAM available, multitasking is not an option here.

Doesn’t the HMD Pulse Pro simply live up to its price? Unfortunately, we can’t say that either. We put the device next to two price peers that we recently examined in our mass test for budget devices: the Motorola Moto G54 (169 euros) and the Nokia G42 (199 euros), also from HMD. In the graph you can see how the HMD Pulse Pro performs below average. In today’s world, everything has to be fast, but this device prefers to do it a little slower.

The GPU is a Qualcomm Adreno 710. This seems like a safer bet, but unfortunately the HMD Pulse Pro misses the graphics mark completely. We thought we had reached a lower limit of graphics performance with the Motorola Moto G54, but HMD has lowered the bar even further. Considering we tested what is essentially the best model in the Pulse series, this doesn’t bode well for the other two devices.

Cameras

Unfortunately, the bad news is not over yet: the 50 MP main camera is completely unconvincing, even when the conditions are ideal for it to shine. On a sunny morning in Milan, the camera manages to deliver grey, listless images. Grass and other plants look artificial. Zoomed-in images are absolutely sad: you can almost count the pixels.

There is no wide-angle camera. That doesn’t bother us, in this price range it’s usually a bargain: it’s better to have one high-quality camera than several useless cameras. The 2 MP depth sensor is one of the useless additions. The smartphone needs almost half a minute to achieve the portrait effect and then delivers an inferior result.

The 50MP front camera seems to be the best of the three. Self-portraits aren’t particularly good, but we don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s just a shame that when you start using the camera you first have to go through a tutorial with suggested poses that you can adopt.

Good battery condition

Fortunately, there are also positive points. Nokia phones always have a good battery and HMD has extended this to the Pulse Pro. Here, the poor processor often proves to be an advantage, as you don’t have to run battery-intensive workloads with the device. In the fitness test, the phone performs significantly better than Motorola and is on a par with its cousin, the Nokia G42. If the battery ever gets weaker, the skilled DIY enthusiast can replace it with a new one.

You’ll need to be patient when charging. An average USB-C cable will give you 20W charging. It takes 33 minutes to charge to fifty percent, which should last a day. After over an hour, you’ll be back at eighty percent. The HMD Pulse Pro charges significantly faster than the Nokia G42 and gets a pass from us.

software

The software is no longer as “clean” as we are used to from HMD. The manufacturer has a Home application and also apps like Facebook, LinkedIn and Booking.com have been installed without asking. It’s not as bad as the average Xiaomi or Oppo phone, so we turn a blind eye. We’re not doing this because of the annoying and unnecessary music that occurs every time you restart your phone.

HMD has adopted a color theme that has app icons overlaid with black, but not all apps participate in this. What we like better is the placement of the power button in the quick settings. This way, turning off your device doesn’t have to involve taking unintentional screenshots.

Two major Android updates and three years of security updates aren’t very extensive, but they’re not unreasonable at this price point. In our opinion, HMD is missing an opportunity to differentiate itself. While the manufacturer values ​​repairability and durability of its phones, its update policy doesn’t yet follow that. For example, why would you get a repair after two years if your device is at the end of its life?

Conclusion: cheap, but not good (sufficient)

The HMD Pulse Pro deserves an honest final verdict. Devices are getting more and more expensive and the choice is very limited if your budget is limited to 200 euros. On the positive side, HMD still has an eye on consumers who don’t want more than a cheap device with basic features.

This device is all about good intentions. The low starting price may be an excuse to cut corners on the specifications here and there, but it would be too easy for HMD to hide behind it. Even in the lowest price range, there is definitely room for a little more.

The Nokia G42 is available in three different colors: purple, green and black. The base model has 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage and costs 179 euros. In Belgium, this device comes with a three-year warranty.

Android Update Policy: HMD guarantees that the Pulse Pro will receive three years of security updates and two years of operating system updates from the launch date of April 25, 2024.