HMD Pulse Pro Review: Questionable Debut

The Pulse Pro is one of the first smartphones from manufacturer HMD under its own brand.

They are known for their budget smartphones, which are sold under their name in partnership with Finnish technology giant Nokia. As well as semi-smart so-called ‘feature phones’ that are often nostalgia-inducing retreads of Nokia’s legendary models from its time as the world’s largest mobile giant.

But HMD is apparently tired of being in Nokia’s shadow and wants to show what they can do without Nokia. They gave us hints about that at the Mobile World Congress show earlier in 2024, and now the first HMD-branded smartphone models have been released. A chance for them to impress and show how they differ from the Nokia versions.

An opportunity they don’t seize. When I unpack the Pulse Pro and go through it step by step, from specs, design, build quality, screen, features, performance and software, it feels like it should say Nokia on it. It’s another mobile phone in the same budget segment where Nokia already has so many strong competitors, and there are very few things about the Pulse Pro that differ from it.

Colorful options

The design may be called a bit more playful, with its three color options – green, purple and black – straighter screen edges and glossy back. But Nokia phones have also experimented with looks over the years, so if it had had that branding I wouldn’t have commented. Because everything else about it feels very familiar.

The construction is claimed to be ‘dust and splash proof’, but no more information than that is available. It didn’t break in a rainstorm, so that’s at least some reassurance. You get dual SIM slots and a separate micro SD card reader, plus a fingerprint scanner in an unnecessarily small button on the side.

The Pulse Pro, like the Nokia G22, is built to be easy to repair.

Buy an iFixit kit and you should be able to get into the phone with relative ease to replace the screen, battery, and other components if they become damaged or worn out.

Disappointing performance

Considering its affordable price, you shouldn’t expect great performance from the Pulse Pro, but it’s even worse than I hoped. Weak performance from a Unisoc T606 chipset, which can perform simpler tasks thanks to 6 GB of RAM and slightly faster storage than expected.

Connectivity takes place via 4G or Wi-Fi 5 networks. You get an IPS screen with a 720p resolution and a refresh rate of up to 90Hz, which makes for unreliable viewing angles and struggles with brightness outdoors.

And only a single speaker on the bottom. It does deliver a nice detailed sound thanks to OZO audio enhancement, but that doesn’t help much as it’s mono and not very powerful. In any case, you get an analogue 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom of the short side. That should be considered a plus.

Uneven and unreliable photography

The camera is a 50Mp sensor from an unknown brand, but I can safely say that it is not one of the better sensors.

It’s not very big and has noticeable color control and noise issues when I try to shoot at night. In daylight it produces sharp images, but with somewhat pale contrast and no real vibrancy in the colors. Above all, the autofocus is slow, so action photos do not always follow and can sometimes be blurry.

It’s the only active sensor on the back, so you’ll have to make do without wide angle, zoom or macro, and the extra lens houses a 2MP depth of field support sensor for portrait photography. The camera digitally zooms fine up to 2x, but every digital enlargement after that noticeably decreases in quality. I shoot video in 1080p at 30 Hz and get acceptable image stabilization.

However, I don’t really care about the thin sound from the microphone. This is strange, since I sound perfectly acceptable during a phone conversation.

The front selfie camera is also 50Mp, but a smaller and faster sensor (or one that can handle the weak hardware more easily) would certainly have been welcome. I have to delete a lot of self-portraits because they simply can’t focus on my face despite active facial recognition. The focus ends up on the back of the chair just behind it, blurring details of the face. The color management for skin tones is also often wildly different, both when photographing and filming a video call, for example.

A 5000mAh battery, together with a low-resolution screen, ensures that the Pulse Pro has very good battery life. You can be active all day long: streaming movies, surfing the internet, emailing and occasionally taking a photo or film. If used carefully, it will last for two days.

Unfortunately, it is not very fast at charging. It supports 20W power via USB-C, but you don’t get a charger included.

With a powerful universal charger I get about a little over 1% charge per minute, but the last 20% is slower, taking as long as 1.5 hours in total to get a fully charged battery.

Software doesn’t store it

Does HMD do anything interesting with the software? The only thing they get credit for here is a three-year update promise instead of the two years that is usual in the budget class.

Otherwise it’s the same Android experience as the Nokia phones: simple stock-style interface, plus a folder of unnecessary extra apps that I’d rather install myself or skip, like Facebook, Amazon and LinkedIn, as well as its own support and maintenance app. And HMD chooses to use monochrome icons for the home screen apps in the default theme.

That’s actually the only unique thing. That’s actually not enough to stand out.

Price and availability

In the UK, the Pulse Pro costs £149.99 direct from the HMD website, or £129.99 if you trade in a qualifying phone. Replacement parts are available through iFixit.

The phone isn’t available on contract, though, so you’ll have to buy it straight away and tie it to a SIM-only deal. Use the widget below to find the one that suits you best.

This is one of the cheaper budget phones out there, but the Samsung Galaxy A15 (4G) is a much better phone if you’re willing to spend a bit more, while the Moto G04 offers more for less.

Of course, buying both phones means giving up repairability, but the Nokia G22 offers it at the same price.

Should you buy the HMD Pulse Pro?

Probably not. Performance, connectivity, screen, cameras, battery and other features don’t differ significantly, and apart from battery life and a stylish if plasticky exterior, there’s nothing to impress or appeal.

As a result, it is barely reasonable in its price range and so difficult to recommend to anyone.