{"id":11258,"date":"2024-06-01T14:20:47","date_gmt":"2024-06-01T14:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11258"},"modified":"2024-06-01T14:20:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-01T14:20:47","slug":"hmd-vibe-review-ok-performance-meh-everything-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11258","title":{"rendered":"HMD Vibe Review: OK Performance, Meh Everything Else"},"content":{"rendered":"


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HMD, the Finnish<\/span> company that has been licensing the Nokia brand name to make cheapo and midrange Android phones<\/a> for more than 7 years, is finally striking it out on its own. Now you’ll start seeing cheapo and midrange phones with the branding \u201cHMD,\u201d which stands for Human Mobile Devices. (The company says it plans on continuing its relationship with Nokia.)<\/p>\n

A few of these devices have already hit European markets\u2014the HMD Pulse series\u2014but the US is getting the HMD Vibe<\/a>. It’s a $150 smartphone, so don’t expect anything groundbreaking. It omits a few too many features, and HMD now takes the crown for the worst software policy out of all well-known Android makers. But if you want to spend very little on a mobile phone, the Vibe will do.<\/p>\n

Vibe Check<\/h2>\n

To me, the most important feature of a cheap smartphone is performance. If it’s too slow and frustrating to use, then it doesn’t matter how cheap it is. Good news then\u2014the HMD Vibe is a fairly smooth-performing smartphone considering its $150 price. My initial impression was not great, as the phone was ridiculously slow as I was setting it up and installing all my apps, but once that was sorted, it’s been fairly smooth sailing.<\/p>\n

It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 680 chipset with 6 GB of RAM. I’m not saying this is a speedy device\u2014there’s even a small delay when you swipe up on an app to go to the home screen. Apps don’t launch at lightning speed. But I’ve been using the Vibe for more than a week (on 4G LTE no less) and it’s been better than tolerable. I’ve played games like Pako Forever<\/em> and Alto’s Odyssey<\/em> with no problems, and my benchmark scores place it on par with the similarly priced Moto G Play 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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