What is special about this? Does it cost $20? Is it a cheap smart phone (why do they call it a hybrid phone?) targetting India (mentioning of cricket)?
The little print at the end says "Currently only available in India."<p>Reminds me a bit of HMD's KaiOS feature phones but this is apparently Android?
> The little print at the end says "Currently only available in India."<p>I think that was made obvious by the big thing on the marketing website scroll about checking cricket scores.
No, it uses RTOS Touch. Looks like HMD/Nokia gave up on KaiOS a few years ago.
It says "Small phone".<p>And it is indeed smaller than most smartphones. Apple never made a small smartphone, presumably because they need the big screen for their vending-machine-in-your-pocket to sell more content.
> And it is indeed smaller than most smartphones. Apple never made a small smartphone<p>I couldn't find specs for this thing but from the picture it looks to be about the same size as the original iPhone.
A bit smaller.<p>Touch 4G: 102 x 62 x 11<p>iPhone: 115 x 61 x 12<p>The Samsung Z Flip is probably your best bet if small size is the most important factor - though, er, slightly more expensive than the HMD!<p>Z Flip 7: 86 x 75 x 13
Ikko MindOne Pro is small phone, could be a usable device if it had better software
Apple struggles to sell budget models of their phones, everyone wants at least the standard version. Why would they try to sell an even tinier phone than the SE? No one will buy it. The Apple Watch is a tiny device with its own SIM but that's not a phone, it's a smartwatch so its really an accessory to your phone.
I mean, depending on what you mean by "small smartphone", the early models definitely count (3.5"-4" diagonal). They were <i>huge</i> screens for their time, but nowadays everything's a phablet so they look tiny by comparison.
many people await the return of the iphone mini...
3.2" display. Weighs 100g. Cheap (presumably)
₹4,199 it seems, which is about $45.
There is a severe lack of compact smartphones in the market. Are there any devices available with regular OS updates, that fit into normal sized pocket?
I have found a very usable phone (for what I do, which is not much) in low cost Chinese "mini rugged phones" namely I had (until I broke the screen and battery was not in very good condition) a "king kong mini" and then I got the (slightly larger) "king kong mini 3" (the 4 is the latest model, I believe). They are slightly heavier than you would expect, but have very long autonomy and fit nicely in a shirt's pocket.
You know it's an India focused device when the top selling point is "Check the cricket results" ;)
Could do alright in Australia and the UK for about 6 months of the year as well. ;)
You know it's an India focused device when the top selling point is "I've been looking for a burner phone for when I'm in Guayaquil. Something I wouldn't mind losing in a robbery." ;)
But smartphones especially Chinese ones are so abundant in India, literally no one wants to buy this slop device. They socialize, watch TV, share through other internet medium to get cricket scores.
Ok, this is kinda cool. In case you wanted to read the actual specs:
<a href="https://www.hmd.com/en_in/hmd-touch-4g/specs?sku=1GE001CPG30C1" rel="nofollow">https://www.hmd.com/en_in/hmd-touch-4g/specs?sku=1GE001CPG30...</a>
and
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMD_Touch_4G" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMD_Touch_4G</a>
RTOS Touch on a Unisoc T127... that's cool.
Amazed they can get the price that low.
CPU: single A7, 1GHz<p>RAM: 64MB LP-DDR2<p>Flash: 128MB NAND<p>I think the OS is an update of the Mocor RTOS by the SoC vendor Unisoc.<p>I am curious if there are 3rd party apps on this device. If nothing else, it would be a fun challenge to write apps for something constrained like this.
This doesn't seem very competitive: it's priced at ₹4,199 (€38,08) on HMDs store.<p>On Amazon France, you can buy an "Energizer U506S" for €40.19 with free shipping. And that one has:<p>CPU: 1.5Ghz 4-core (MT6739 from 2017)<p>RAM: 2GB<p>Flash: 32GB<p>(and has card slot, dual sim)<p>And it runs Android 13 Go edition (probably not well, but enough to run Whatsapp and such).<p>So this device is facing some competition at that price point. Probably in India you can get an android device with higher spec at that €40 price point than you can in Europe.
It's a nice attempt. Dumbphone, with 2 MP camera and wifi hotspot. Sadly they shoot themselves in the foot by only offering it in india.<p>Now, if they would only remove the gimmicky touch screen, and replace it with buttons, the phone would be a perfect for those who do not like to have a surveillance device in their pocket. Or at least a "lesser" surveillance device.
This is a odd one. I don't think it can compete with cheap android phones.<p>But I would love an android in small form factor like this. Can live without hi-res display and multiple cameras, if they can get the phone down to this size.<p>IMO, Xperia mini was the perfect phone.<p><a href="https://m.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_xperia_mini-3947.php" rel="nofollow">https://m.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_xperia_mini-3947.php</a>
Without WhatsApp support it will not go far.
> Without WhatsApp support it will not go far.<p>Speaking of which, it is bizarre how the tables have turned. Whatsapp used to support everything under the sun... But now it is all Android and iPhone
They could do Telegram at least, which has a non-zero user base (not sure about India, though, which seems to be their target market), <i>and</i> supports third party clients. Rolling their own chat app is... well, good luck with that.
Saar we need only near no far
I really liked to buy these HMD phones for my kids. Unfortunately the camera quality is not very good enough . Sometimes kids need decent image quality for printig and home work, and I couldn't think a few MBs are nice to have nowadays.
This is an odd little device. It seems you can only call other express chat users? it's reminiscent of cellphone systems from the old old days like Nextel walkie talkies. Also I see its available in India only and given the feature restrictions perhaps it's meant as an ultra low end device ?<p>If HMD came out with something that was optimized to the nth degree for whatsapp calls, that might be interesting, but even then I wonder how cheap it would need to be to compete with budget androids.
What's the point of even releasing this device? Serves no distinguishing factor.
This is nothing new. It's a dumb-phone with a touchscreen. There were quite a few examples back in the day in the late 00s.
Even now, there's been a market for them. I know a few older people who have them
It seems particularly similar to the short lived Microsoft Kin phones from 2010.
Why to put front and center that chat app? I mean, is not something that makes it unique, if the app itself can run in android and iOS then it is just a chat app, with far less users than i.e. whatsapp.<p>At first I thought that it was an AI app, and reading more could find why that would be innovative, but no, just a chat app targeting the same phone users and the ones willing to install the app in other phone brands.
I recently found my old Nokia Lumia 800.it behaved rather smoothly with the metro ui, ofcourse nothing worked aside phone calls
The device came out about a year ago: <a href="https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-HMD-Touch-4G-is-an-all-screen-feature-phone-with-a-compact-design-and-an-affordable-price-tag.1133294.0.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-HMD-Touch-4G-is-an-all-scr...</a><p>It looks like it's still India-exclusive. I haven't heard much about it online, and with a dedicated chat app I would've expected to if it was a success. Did it bomb?
the hardware design reminds me of the Nokia Lumias, a black rounded display glass within a straight squared colored unibody<p><a href="https://m.gsmarena.com/nokia_lumia_920-pictures-4967.php" rel="nofollow">https://m.gsmarena.com/nokia_lumia_920-pictures-4967.php</a><p>the good old days
Do it support Wifi hotspot? I will buyit instantly.
The front of the device in the illustrations looks like the LG Fireweb from 2013, that ran Firefox OS. Good old times.
Ideal hardware, garbage software (can't unlock HMD bootloaders)
Something like this could do without the selfie cam, or bezels in general.
It's sluggish.
giving 4g. they are not even trying anymore
4G? WTF..
After GSM and UMTS shutdown, LTE is the foundation for IoT and entry level mobile connectivity. 5G RedCap coverage is not widespread enough and the chipset is not cheap enough.
Do you live in a 5G-only region? If not, what's the problem?
There isn't many (if any) countries with only 5G, although most countries have shutdown both 2G and 3G networks, with the 4G shutdown likely within the next decade.<p>Not supporting 5G limits this devices longevity, although at the price point and Indian market focus, I think its acceptable.
> It’s not your old keypad phone.<p>It's not your phone at all if you don't control the software.. even old keypad phones were often flashable, but HMD is working hard to make sure you have no say what software is running on your smartphone.
They couldn't find a stock photo for the selfie cam instead of using AI slop?
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These fucking cookie settings I swear lmao
4G? In 2026? Good luck having no tower reception. 4G barely works anymore.
> Currently only available in India<p><i>Closes tab</i>
now you know how it feels to browse this site as a non-American
I suspected as much after their first use case for cloud services was cricket results.<p>Perhaps the limitation to whatever express chat is isn’t a dealbreaker in India.
This phone cost about one-fifth of India's minimum monthly wage, while proper new Android cost one-third of monthly wage. My country's economy is somewhat in the same ballpark as India and I doubt anyone I know would buy this. In an r/dumbphones reviews, comments by Indians shows nobody cares about these devices aside from those buying weird devices for curiosity sake.