Budget phones aren’t anything new, but budget phones you can fix yourself? That might be, and something HMD is trying.
It doesn’t take much money to find your way to a phone these days.
The democratisation of technology has seen high end hardware trickle to more price points, and you can pick up a big screen Android for under $200 all too easily, or even consider a small screen feature phone (with buttons!) if you’re bigger on the battery life and a way to replace the battery yourself.
Minor repairs like a battery replacement are something feature phones also known as “dumb phones” are much more likely to have, but in the world of smartphones, the all-encased design makes that less likely.
That’s beginning to change, though, something HMD largely kicked off back when it made a bunch of Nokia-branded smartphones. These days, the self-repairable design can be found across HMD’s own mobiles, with one set to arrive for a properly budget-focused price.
This week, HMD is releasing the Aura 2, a $169 phone sporting a 6.52 inch screen, IP54 water resistance, and WiFi, Bluetooth, and single 13 megapixel camera on the back, essentially giving the basics in a design aimed to be repairable if need be.
If you get to that point, HMD’s repairs are largely fixing a broken display or replacing a battery, or perhaps maybe changing the charging port if it gets damaged, all so you don’t need to spend another near-$200 on a phone, should it get broken.
While the price is low, some of the catches are obvious from the spec sheet: the chip is a not super fast Unisoc model (SC9863A), a likely similar chip to what we saw in the Motorola G04, and armed with 4GB RAM, barely enough for Android.
Granted, you’ll get Android 14 Go Edition on this phone, so compromises are being made, but there are other catches that may affect how you use the phone more, such as the screen resolution which is lower than HD (1280×576), plus the lack of Near-Field Communication (NFC) meaning you can’t pay for things with HMD Aura 2.
The one upside beyond the price may well be the battery, which will see a 5000mAh battery inside. Paired with the low-res screen, two days of battery life should be possible on this phone without too much effort, something HMD itself quotes, covering up to 51 hours.
Australians will see it shortly for $169, with retailers across the country getting this handset.
