HMD Pulse Pro 4G 6.56” HD+ Smartphone, Android 14, 50MP Dual camera, 50MP selfie camera, 6GB/128GB Storage, up to 59 hours battery life, OZO audio, Easy Repairability, Dual SIM – Black Ocean

Good sized memory

On the surface, the Pulse pro is an extremely good looking phone with an incredibly alluring price tag. A massive battery life, a collaboration with IFIX it to repair and upgrade yourself, the phone appears sleek and very appealing to the eye. The functionality of the phone however is pretty poor.One of the first things you'll find once booting the phone is the stock *6GB of ram* affects every aspect of usability across the device. Booting times are slow. Startup is slow. Moving between homescreen panels is slow, opening apps is slow. This is what is called a "bottleneck". Whilst the CPU is more than adequate for a budget smartphone, the stock 6GB ram is not, in fact even with the boosted 6 GB ram (12GB total) in which sacrifices international storage, the device still struggles in line with smartphones released around the 2013-2017 era in that it does not have enough ram to cope with the strain modern android apps demand. Everything is sluggish, even small apps and windows have some delay which you would not expect of a phone, even with a £100 price tag. Opening stock android apps should not be a strain on hardware.After messing around with settings by enabling the ram boost, disabling bloatware in the form of useless Google apps, using developer options to disable animations, and installing some apps to remove further bloatware Android system won't allow, the phone is able to run somewhat faster with it's own stock android 14 OS and UI, but still suffers when booting and using large ram thirsty apps like browsers and social media apps.Aside from performance, the screen is appalling for a modern smartphone. Videos are hard locked at 1080p despite the screens capability to do better, the dark and black colours may aswell be classed as off white because the screen cannot go dark enough. Brighter colours appear drained and somewhat greyscale proving even the colourful stock wallpapers to appear bland. This is not a device to watch media on.The camera front and back are absolutely atrocious. Despite a 50MP camera being a huge selling point of this device, one would need a tripod and a photography degree to get a photo that isn't in some way shape or for blurred or distorted, with colours alike to the phones screen itls self, appearing dull, greyscale and lifeless. I am yet to capture a high resolution image without some sort of distorted camera artifact, blurriness or issues with the auto focus incorrectly focusing on the wrong items, even when manually attempting to focus on objects. Perhaps the software is the issue, I dont know.The front facing camera is akin to a laptop webcam with an incrediy low bitrate rate while recording, and suffers similar issues to the back camera in that is struggles to focus, or take photos without substantial blur and image defects in any lighting or setting.With all that I'm mind, it's important to considee this device is only £100, but here's the killer...The battery is another hugely advertised feature of this phone. It will last a very long time, but this is mainly due to the incredibly poor screen. It isn't very bright, with little colour, low resolution video playback and a lackluster 90 fps screen in comparison to the now commonly released 120 fps screens on modern smartphones widely available after 2016. While the battery will last you over 2 days, it will then take you a lifetime to charge. More and more smartphones as early as HTC devices in the 2010s boasted their capability to charge quickly and in short bursts. This device cannot. Even with a recommended 30 watt fast charger, the device will take around 3-4 hours to fully charge which is a snails pace in this day and age. Let's say you forgot to charge your device overnight and have half an hour while you get ready to charge It, you're gonna find yourself on 10% at best, which will last slightly longer than the average smartphone but at the cost of performance, screen capability and sluggish charging.Then comes how the phone feels in the hand. This phone is as light as a phone with a dial pad. It weighs absolutely nothing making it feel like you're holding a plastic box with nothing inside in your hands. This isn't to mention the all over glass with metal bezzles making the phone feel like a block of ice in your hands, it is incredibly slippery to hold and I cannot believe someone at HMD held this device in their hands and went forwards with production. You will drop this phone all of the time, it will slide from your pocket all of the time, if you lay it on a desk that isn't absolutely level, it will slide off the desk and fall to the ground. This phone is begging to be dropped, perhaps why HMD put such a huge emphasis on their fix it yourself campaign.Overall, is it a good phone on a tight budget? No. There's better available from lesser brands at the same price point that feature 5G, that have better haptic feedback, that feel sturdy and comfortable in the hands, there's devices with better ram, better camera albeit without the supposed "50MP camera" there's phones in this price bracket with far faster charging, 4k 120 frames screens that, yes sacrifice battery life, but with far far better performance and screens. There's very few scenarios when you find yourself unable to charge your phone at any one time in the modern age and the prospect of charging it once every few days, over charging at short intervals sometimes even on the go is ancient. You can charge your phone on the bus, in cars, on trains, McDonald's have wireless charging and USB ports, as do coffee shops, as do pubs. You can charge your phone via PCs at the workplace, laptops, there's plug wall sockets with USB ports so you don't even need to carry around a wall socket. Everyone has a portable charger. The point here is that fast, turbo, quick charging, whatever the name, is fast and convenient. A 3-4 hour long charge isn't.Personally I wouldn't buy this phone. I bought it as a replacement as my phone broke just before Christmas and I was waiting for post Christmas pay so I could replace my old phone with something better. It will serve as a spare phone and nothing more. As a daily driver, the HMD Pulse pro is inadequate in this day and age.

I wanted a holiday back up phone. A good phone middle of the road mobile