HMD has been launching Android phones under its own brand recently – the HMD Pulse trio, the HMD Aura and more recently the HMD Skyline, but none of those are available in India. The HMD Crest the first HMD smartphone available in India. Even better, it’s the first HMD smartphone that is made in India too. The phone is joined by the slightly more capable HMD Crest Max, which has more memory and an upgraded camera. In short, the HMD Crest is an entry-level 5G phone based on the Unisoc T760 chipset. It’s a 6nm chip with four Cortex-A76 and four A55 cores (2.2GHz), plus a Mali-G57 GPU and, of course, a 5G modem.
On the Crest, the T760 is paired with 6GB
of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is expandable via microSD. The HMD Crest Max
has more memory – 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage – along with one more
improvement. The phones are equipped with the same 6.67” FHD+ OLED displays.
The display is protected by strengthened glass, the back is also made out of
glass. The phones are rated IP52 for basic splash resistance.
The Crest has a 50MP camera on the back
and a depth sensor. It looks like half of the camera budget went to the selfie
module, which also has a 50MP sensor. The hands-free selfie feature is a focus
in the marketing materials, you can trigger it with one of several gestures
(peace sign, thumbs up or heart sign, for example).
The HMD Crest Max upgrades to a 64MP main
camera, adds a 5MP ultra wide and switches the helper module for a 2MP macro.
The front-facing camera is still at 50MP. Both models use the same 5,000mAh
battery, which is rated for 800 charge cycles. It's charged using the 33W
adapter that is included in the package. Besides the USB-C port, there is also
a 3.5mm headphone jack. Wireless connectivity includes 5G (dual-SIM), Wi-Fi 5
(ac) and Bluetooth 5.0.
The duo is coming out with Android 14 out
of the box (and it is free of bloatware, promises HMD). The company is only
committing to 2 years of security patches, which isn’t much and doesn’t say
anything about OS updates. The Crest models are built with what HMD calls “Gen
1 repairability” in mind. This means that several components are easy to
self-replace at home: screen, battery, charging port and the back panel – all
you need is a toolkit and a quick tutorial.
The HMD Crest and Crest Max will go on
sale on Amazon India during the retailer’s Great Freedom Sale in August. The
Crest (6/128GB) costs ₹ 14,500 (US$ 175/€ 160), while the Crest Max (8/256GB) is
₹ 16,500 (US$ 195/€ 180). That’s their MSRP, anyway, Amazon’s sale will see their
prices drop to ₹ 13,000 and ₹ 15,000, respectively.
