HMD Fusion: A budget repairable smartphone with modular flair HMD's Fusion smartphone has a pogo-pin port on the back, allowing some nifty peripherals, including gaming controls, and its specs are open. The HMD Fusion is a budget smartphone with a couple of appealing twists. The first is that the device is modular and repairable – iFixit already has guides on how to swap its battery and …
The issue I have with HMD's output is its approach to what it thinks should be running on your phone/tablet.
I have an HMD tablet, and SWMBO has a phone, and Signal, and media apps get closed/suspended in the background, so messages don't arrive reliably for her, and I can't set an album playing without it cutting out after 10 minutes or so.
And yes, I have changed the battery management setting to the least restrictive mode for all apps mentioned; but HMD [thinks it] knows better.
HMD's not alone in this. Realme and Motorola also do the same on some apps. (Facebook Messenger in particular for me.) I suspect there's an underlying background service that handles the messaging etc and it gets killed. Since it doesn't appear as an app in the exceptions list, no way to fix it.
See dontkillmyapp.com but I think the info may be a little out of date now.
I have a Motorola phone running Lineage, and it still seems to kill background apps wihout reason, meaning I often miss Signal messages (for example) until I next "open" the phone. So maybe it's not a manufacturer thing, it's likely some function of the underlying Android, along with the pitiful excuse for a battery monitor they foisted on us a couple of updates ago, nowhere near as useful as the old one.
M.
I've got the HMD T21 tablet, picked it up earlier last year as the price to performance was pretty hard to ignore.
I can't say I've noticed any of that happening, but I don't really use a huge amount of apps on them, it's used as a kindle type of device most of the time, occasionally for some netflix if away from home.
I mainly liked that it had a 10" screen and storage expansion, all for less than £200
I have a Nokia (by HMD) in a drawer somewhere. Nice phone unless you want to use if for WiFi calling. Calls dropped after a random period of between 20 seconds and 20 minutes. As we have very poor mobile signal, this is a killer.
The N21 tablet on the other hand is a nice piece of kit. However, I don't use any messaging apps, so unaffected. We're only playing music from a Moto Defy (actually Bullitt) and Samsung so no problems there.
Check dontkillmyapp.com it has Nokia section and also explains who put that lame software in the Nokia. I am using Nokia 5.1 plus and it runs
setting.duraspeed.enabled 2
every freaking boot or it will randomly kill things. This device also carries "Google one" certification. How did Google allow this?
Can't remember exactly which handset it was (could have been one of the early Fairphone models?) - when the back cover was removed, there were a couple of contacts on the circuit board that were labelled I2C. The idea was a different /accessory back cover could be used that provided some extra function.
The European store is attempting to be a more retail experience, with additional post-sales support*, whereas the global one is selling at lower prices with no support included. You can get a more thorough explanation in the blog post when they announced these two stores. You can buy at the lower price from the global store in Europe, though.
* I'm not sure to what extent the support will help with software issues. Pine64 is well-known for providing hardware and letting you figure out software. Consider that before buying their products.
This post has been deleted by its author
Having looked at the guide, it's easily within my capabilities or I suspect 99% of Reg readers - no more challenging than replacing the battery in a non-waterproof tablet for anybody that's tried that. But it's still not something most people are going to want to do - they'll need a T3 torx driver, a pick, a spudger, have to remove the casing without splitting it at the very vulnerable points around the speaker, and the sockets, to be comfortable peeling tape and battery adhesives and then refixing them, and then hoping that they can still find the sixteen screws.
Interestingly, this does look like it meets the forthcoming EU regulations for user-replaceable batteries. Yet, given the harsh life that many mobiles endure, and the declining prevalence of basic mechanical skills and aptitude, I'm can't see many people splashing £200 smackers on a phone, and then replacing the battery after three years, and for those who would, they'd have had it done anyway by the multitude of mobile phone repair shops. I also wonder if the EU have properly thought through the consequences of encouraging the unskilled to play around fitting and disposing of naked lithium batteries? I wouldn't trust the public to even buy a safe replacement battery, never mind fit one.
Unfortunately it's exceptionally easy to dispose of batteries for the uneducated or irresponsible: Hoof it in the bin, and anything bad is most likely to happen in municipal waste handling.
You've probably seen some of the news coverage of vape-battery fires causing tens of thousands of pounds of damage to bin trucks and recycling plants, and mostly that's down to tiddly 500 mAh batteries in disposable vapes. The forthcoming ban on disposable vapes will help a lot, but we've already had bin truck fires caused by rechargeable vapes. If people start throwing out naked phone batteries with ten times the capacity of a vape battery then the problem could get worse because as although the numbers of phone batteries will be far lower, as naked batteries they are far more likely to be damaged than a hard-shelled disposable vape.
Yeah. I note that all the local supermarkets are pretty good about recycling - particularly for beer and coke bottles! - but the battery section just says 'batteries'. No guidance about particular types, and in particular no mention for lithium types. No point even asking the minions; they're less well trained in battery handling than I am.
So yes, I'm waiting for the inevitable surprising fire in a supermarket...
Tesco say they'll take almost anything other than lead-acid batteries - so disposable AA and other sizes, but also rechargeables from phone batteries, shavers, cordless power tools, hearing aids, hand held vacuum cleaners etc. I'd imagine the other supermarkets will be similar as the schemes are outsourced to specialist contractors. Whilst there is a small risk from collecting old lithium batteries, it's normally crushing or impact inn bulk handling that causes problems, so once they're in the supermarket collection bucket the risks are very modest.
This post has been deleted by its author
The cyber security survey asks "In which of the following aspects of cyber security provision do you see AI playing a positive role?" and says "Choose as many as you like". I selected none and pressed submit (or whatever the button was called), but then it said "Oops! Please make a selection".
Duh! I would expect el Reg to know that zero is a number! :( And to respect the opinions of an ignoramus like me who doesn't trust AI to do anything properly.
Well, because I got the FLIR one infrared camera accessory that puts a 64-pixel sensor on it.
Got it cheap because iPhone SE is WAY out of date, nevertheless the phone and the infrared both work perfectly well.
(Also the FLIR adapter makes a decent enough bump cover).
I need two new technologies to "upgrade" from the iPhone and that's infrared and 3d scanning.
This HMD device doesn't offer that. Also, I'm not accustomed to paying "retail" for any kind of tech. In fact, I usually pay scrap prices, if that much. No deal.
I say buy a device which Lineage guys support, if it is possible, also check for Linux compatibility.
The vendor should also promise at least 3 Android major updates with security updates for 5 years. HMD is tricking people that they are just ex Nokia, there is also a giant Chinese in the room.
I bought one recently and the HMD Fusion was unusable. When migrating from a Nokia X20 the new HND Fusion glitched with the "HMD Keeping Stopping" message. HMD support were not at all helpful and they recommended retuning the phone and buying a replacement. The replacement brand new HMD Fusion did exactly the same with the HMD Launcher stopping working meaning the home screen flashes on and off. Has anyone else had an issue like this with the 8GB / 256 GB HMD Fusion?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
