Buying a visually striking phone at an affordable price has become an uphill battle as major companies show reluctance to experiment with budget offerings in design. HMD decided to seize the opportunity by unveiling the Fusion a month ago. Beyond its striking design, the phone has a hidden trick: Gen 2 repairability. This means it can be easily repaired at home without you having to make a trip to the dreaded service centre.
HMD Fusion
Rs 17,999
What Is Good?
- Eye-catching design
- Competent primary camera
- Reliable battery life
- Fairly clean UI
What Is Bad?
- Subpar performance
- Underwhelming multimedia experience
While the inclusion of repairability in the HMD Fusion’s design is admirable, are there any cut corners in essential features? Read my review to find out.
Pricing and Availability in India
You can purchase the HMD Fusion from Amazon and the brand’s website. The company also offers Flashy and Gaming Outfits for free when you buy the phone. Here’s the pricing:
| Variant | Price |
| 8GB+256GB | Rs 17,999 |
Design
The HMD Fusion’s design is as bare shell as it gets, so much so that a look at its rear makes everyone look at it with raised eyebrows. “Did they forget to put the cover on?” one of my colleagues asked rather seriously.
Well, they didn’t forget anything. That’s just how it looks – deal with it. It’s clever because it reminds you what this phone truly represents – repairability. It also has a retro-futuristic vibe to it, which I quite dig.
| Design | Specifications |
| Colour options | Noir |
| Weight | 202.5g |
| Thickness | 8.3mm |
| IP rating | IP54 |
| Port and Button placements | Bottom: Headphone jack, primary microphone, USB port, and speaker grille
Top: Secondary microphone Left Side: SIM card tray Right Side: Power button and volume button |
The exposed screws and glossy centre part, which by the way indicates the battery’s position, contributed majorly to shaping my opinion. Besides the CMF Phone 1, the Fusion could easily be counted as one of the most unique-looking phones unveiled this year.
Speaking of the exposed screws, they aren’t just for show; instead, they highlight HMD’s noble initiative of making its entire lineup of phones Gen-2 repairable. Anyone can repair the phone at home after purchasing spare parts online. It also opens the doors for DIY fanatics who want to customise their phones. Currently, the brand hasn’t given a clear direction of where we can purchase spare parts but hopefully, they will announce it soon.
The phone’s right side accommodates volume rockers and a power button/ fingerprint scanner. While the volume rockers work as expected, the fingerprint scanner is unreliable. It often stops recognising fingerprints, making unlocking the phone a hassle.
Carrying the HMD Fusion around will seldom strain your wrist because of how well its weight is distributed. It feels like it’s built to last, almost as if it will stand beside you for years and watch you grow into a fine person. The IP54 rating at this price is also commendable, despite the whole DIY aspect.
Accessories
The HMD Fusion features a two-way connector on the rear for attaching accessories, aka ‘Smart Outfits’. It reminds me of the fun Moto Mods from the Moto Z4. I received two “Smart Outfits”: a gaming controller and an LED ring-light case.
I loved the latter because the case offers better drop protection, and its ring light comes in handy when you want the subject to be illuminated well in low-light conditions. The only tradeoff you deal with is that it adds bulk to the phone. The Gaming Outfit is also great since it provides a console-like experience at an affordable price, with secure phone placement and comfortable grips.
Performance and Software
Every operation in the HMD Fusion is piloted by the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, a year-old chipset.
| Hardware | Specifications |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 256GB |
| Storage test | 51468 |
| CPU Throttling test | 85% of its maximum performance |
| Geekbench 6 | Multi-core: 2233, Single-core: 921 |
| Software version | Android 14 |
| Connectivity details | Dual SIM, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS/AGPS, GLONASS, BDS, and Galileo |
| Number of Software Updates | 2 years of OS updates |
Using an old chipset in a phone to manage the entire workload is acceptable. However, recommending it at a price range becomes challenging where phones like the iQOO Z9x and CMF Phone 1 deliver much better scores in the benchmark at a similar price range.
Keeping benchmarks aside, the Fusion didn’t experience lags or stutters while keeping up with my routine tasks. To give you context, my typical day involves social media surfing, calling, texting and binge-watching content.
To kill time, I played two of my favourite games, BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile. While defeating opponents in both games, I noted that the phone faced no setbacks running BGMI on the lowest graphical settings, with the frame rate hovering around 40 fps and the mid-tier setting at 30 fps.
Call of Duty: Mobile functioned smoothly at 60 fps on the lowest setting. Frame rates halved to 30 fps when I upped it to Medium, with my experience being marred by annoying lags during pivotal moments. This isn’t exactly what you’d expect from a phone that has a gaming controller as an official accessory – but it is what it is.
The HMD Fusion runs on Android 14 out of the box. Whenever I used the phone, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the golden days of stock Android, given that the UI’s appearance feels archaic compared to its rivals. It is fairly clean with a few pre-installed apps and seldom acted up during my usage. The display might be partially responsible, but the phone never appeared smooth; instead, it seemed to operate at a relatively lower frame rate.
Display
The Fusion’s display is next on the list of its flaws. Like the chipset, the brand has given it an LCD with an HD+ resolution at a price point where its competitors arrive with a Full HD+ AMOLED screen.
| Display | Specifications |
| Size | 6.56-inch |
| Type | LCD |
| Resolution | HD+ (720 x 1612) |
| Refresh rate | 90Hz |
| Peak brightness | Claimed: 600 nits, Tested: 342 nits |
| Minimum brightness | 03 nits |
After spending hours watching a lot of content, I noticed a few areas where the visual quality could be improved. The colours seemed to be muted, and certain portions of the videos were slightly less detailed in some instances.
However, the screen has one saving grace: Widevine L1 certification. It signifies that you can watch your favourite movies or series on streaming services at their best resolution.
Indoors, the display was bright enough to play Subway Surfers at 45 per cent intensity. Still, I had to look for shades outdoors as I experienced difficulty checking whether I had clicked a great photograph under direct sunlight.
The Fusion has a bottom-firing mono speaker. The speaker quality was decent, that said its loudness left a lot to be desired.
Camera
The dual camera module on the Fusion’s rear performed so admirably in my testing that it seems to balance out its other weak points. To be clear, the main camera did the heavy lifting, considering the other is just a depth sensor.
| Camera | Specifications |
| Primary Camera | 108-megapixel with EIS |
| Secondary Camera | 2-megapixel, Depth |
| Selfie Camera | 50-megapixel, fixed-focus |
| Video recording capabilities | Up to 1080p at 30 fps, EIS |
On one of my daily walks, I took the Fusion with me, intending to capture rare moments you occasionally encounter in our fast-paced life.
The primary camera aced at producing crisp images with nearly accurate colours. The HDR tuning was mostly on point and the photos were well exposed. However, I discovered midway through clicking multiple shots that the camera operated at a lower shutter speed even during well-lit conditions, causing certain images to be blurred when subjects moved unexpectedly. So if you let go of otherworldly thoughts and achieve the Buddha state, you can capture photos perfect for posting straight to Instagram with just a few touch-ups.
The main camera’s lowlight performance is equally praise-worthy since it replicated its daylight success story here too. It retained almost every detail it could see in photos while capturing close-to-natural colours. However, resorts to slow shutter speeds, resulting in blurred images when dealing with restless subjects in the frame.
The Fusion was able to capture portraits beloved by kids since the skin tone was accurately rendered with good edge detection. The front camera takes selfies well enough for your next profile picture on WhatsApp but struggles to preserve details on your face like stubble.
Battery
The 5,000mAh battery inside the HMD Fusion has enabled it to last a day of consuming hour-long podcasts on YouTube, clicking pictures for social media, and casual gaming, with some juice still left for your next-day shenanigans.
| Battery | Specifications |
| Battery | 5,000mAh |
| Charging Adapter | 33W fast charging, charger-in-the-box |
| Charging Time | 1 hour and 28 minutes |
| PCMark battery test | 15 hours and 56 minutes |
We ran the PCMark battery test on the Fusion, which lasted almost sixteen hours. It is a respectable number but not enough to dwarf the Redmi A4, which outlasted it by an additional five hours despite being priced relatively less.
The 33W fast charger took an hour and 28 minutes to charge the phone from null to 100%.
Verdict
Should you buy the HMD Fusion?
The HMD Fusion should be your pick if you have become jaded by a sea of phones that look like ordinary slabs and want something thrilling. Its design is not just exciting; it has a hidden purpose: you can repair the phone at home without any hindrance from the brand. Its UI is fairly clean, with almost zero bloatware. On top of this, you get a long-lasting battery, capable enough to last a moderate day of usage with some left for the next day. And easily, the cherry on top is its camera which shines brightly when you want to preserve your precious memories beautifully in photographs.
That said, you need to take note of its letdowns: Its display lacks the quality you would need to have a great multimedia experience. Moreover, its performance isn’t quite at par with what we come to expect from smartphones at a similar price point. The iQOO Z9x is a better option if you want a performance-centric phone.
When big companies have repeatedly stepped in and made it harder for consumers to repair their phones on their terms without any fuss, it feels assuring to see companies like HMD take charge against such practices and integrate easy repairability as one of many essential features in smartphones like the HMD Fusion itself.
