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)?

You know it's an India focused device when the top selling point is "Check the cricket results" ;)

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.

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.

Ok, this is kinda cool. In case you wanted to read the actual specs: https://www.hmd.com/en_in/hmd-touch-4g/specs?sku=1GE001CPG30... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMD_Touch_4G RTOS Touch on a Unisoc T127... that's cool. Amazed they can get the price that low.

This is a odd one. I don't think it can compete with cheap android phones.

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.

IMO, Xperia mini was the perfect phone.

https://m.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_xperia_mini-3947.php

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.

Without WhatsApp support it will not go far.

What's the point of even releasing this device? Serves no distinguishing factor.

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 ?

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.

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.

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.

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: https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-HMD-Touch-4G-is-an-all-scr...

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

https://m.gsmarena.com/nokia_lumia_920-pictures-4967.php

the good old days

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.

Do it support Wifi hotspot? I will buyit instantly.

giving 4g. they are not even trying anymore

4G? WTF..

> It’s not your old keypad phone.

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

Closes tab