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Finnish phone brand HMD Global — best known for resurrecting the Nokia brand over the last decade with a series of feature-packed Android smartphones — has kickstarted its Black Friday sale. The critically lauded brand took the decision to move away from the Nokia name earlier this year, debuting several handsets under its own name.
And now, it's slashed prices across its smartphone lineup for Black Friday.
"Big Black Friday savings — save up to £100 on our most popular smartphones until Dec 2, or while supplies last," the Finnish manufacturer has announced on its online store. All Android devices sold via the HMD Global online store have a 30-day returns window, so you can live with the new phone for a few weeks before making a final decision.
Announced earlier this summer, the HMD Pulse is one of the handsets included in the sale. Usually £99.99, this Android phone has been cut to just £79.99 in the Black Friday sale — and at time of writing, remains in stock.
Black Friday: Pocket the HMD Pulse for £79
At £99.99, the HMD Pulse wasn't exactly over-priced at launch. But this Black Friday deal really takes things up a notch. At £79.99, it's an incredible buy — with its 6.5-inch screen, almost 60-hours of battery life between charges, contactless card payments built-in, and DIY repairs for cracked screens
HMD Pulse was designed from the ground up to be user repairable. The team behind this handset worked with iFixit to offer repair kits to carry out a series of common fixes at-home — saving you the hassle of booking a pricey appointment with an engineer in-store, or mailing the broken phone to a factory on the other side of the planet.
The HMD Pulse line-up ships with Android 14 out-of-the-box, with the manufacturer promising a minimum of two years of software upgrades — meaning these budget handsets will be able to run Android 16
HMD GLOBAL PRESS OFFICE
The DIY kits start from as little as £17.99 and should let Pulse smartphone owners repair a damaged display, bent charging port, or dead battery "without an engineering degree", the phone brand promises.
Every model in the HMD Pulse line-up ships with Android 14, with a guaranteed three years of security updates. The Pulse arrives with a 5,000mAh lithium-ion cell, which HMD Global says should equate to 59-hours of battery life between charges. When it's time to recharge, that's handled via the now-standard USB-C cable.
On the front, HMD Global has fitted the Pulse with a generous 6.5-inch HD+ touchscreen with a 90Hz refresh rate for smoother system animations. There's also support Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 5, and contactless payments via Google Pay.
You can unlock the HMD Pulse (and authenticate tap-to-pay transactions and secure banking apps) with a fingerprint, with the scanner built into the power button on the side of the handset. The device is rated IP52, which means that it's not waterproof, but can withstand making a call or two in the rain without issue.
HMD Global has only included 64GB of internal storage, although there is support microSD cards up to 256GB.
The HMD Pulse+ is also included in the Black Friday sale, dropping from its RRP of £129.99 down to just £89.99. For the extra tenner compared to the HMD Pulse, you'll unlock a 50-megapixel main rear camera capable of capturing high-resolution photo and videos.
The clever camera software has been built to optimise for different skin tones, HMD Global says.
Black Friday: Upgrade to HMD Pulse+ for just £10 more
If you're willing to spend a little more at checkout, HMD Pulse+ is also included in the Black Friday sale. At £89.99, it offers the same perks as the standard Pulse — including three years of guaranteed security updates and 59-hours of battery life — but also adds a high-resolution 50-megapixel to the back of the handset
HMD Pulse+ is almost identical to the standard HMD Pulse, except it boasts a 50MP rear camera and two new colourways
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Human Mobile Devices (HMD) has also included its most recent smartphone in the Black Friday deals.
Dubbed Skyline, this handset is focused on photography with a 108MP triple rear camera system, a 50MP front-facing selfie camera with AI enhancements to improve every selfie, 4K video calls, and gesture-activated shots for group photos with a tripod. HMD Global has also added Night Mode 3.0 to eke detail from gloomy shots without blinding everyone in the picture with an LED flash.
HMD Skyline is feature-packed Android handset with a 108MP main camera for pixel-packed shots, 50MP front-facing camera for crisp seflies and video calls, and the brand's best DIY reparability yet
HMD GLOBAL PRESS OFFICE
The Skyline lineup builds on the bolstered reparability of other devices from HMD Global, with step-by-step guides to help smartphone owners replace screens, charging ports, and batteries.
According to the Finnish team behind the device, their innovative camshaft-driven design will simplify self-repair, making it 65% easier to fix than previous models.
HMD Skyline — Expert discusses 108MP camera and DIY repair design
Rounding out the features are 48-hour battery life, Qi2 wireless charging, and support for microSD cards to bolster storage for apps, photos, and music.
Available in Neon Pink and Twisted Black, the HMD Skyline usually costs £499.99 but has benefitted from the maximum £100 price cut in the Black Friday sale — dropping that cost down to £399.99.
Black Friday: Save £100 on HMD Skyline
HMD Skyline is a top-of-the-line Android handset equipped with 12GB of RAM, 256GB of built-in storage with the ability to add more via microSD, a humongous 108MP rear camera and pixel-packed 50MP front-facing shooter for crisp selfies and 4K video calls. There's also 48-hour battery life, wireless charging, and DIY reparability so you can swap-out a cracked screen or broken charging port yourself
HMD Global isn't the only one kickstarting its Black Friday sale ahead of the day itself, which falls on November 29 this time around. iRobot, the brand behind Roomba robot vacuums, has cut prices by £700, lowest-ever Sky TV subscriptions, Ninja dropping its award-winning air fryers to below £70, Surfshark offering 4 months of its VPN for free, and Virgin Media giving away broadband and Disney+ until early 2025, to name just a few.
