Here’s what repairability pros have to say about HMD Skyline
HMD Skyline is here, bringing our Gen2 repairability design with it. Here’s what you can expect.
HMD Skyline has landed. It’s the fourth repairable HMD smartphone, hot on the heels of HMD Pulse, HMD Pulse+ and HMD Pulse Pro. But HMD Skyline steps it up a notch, introducing our Gen2 repairability. It basically makes repairing-it-yourself even easier. How? Removing the back cover of our earlier repairable devices relies entirely on the use of a prying tool. It’s not that tricky, but we saw room for improvement nevertheless. So, with HMD Skyline, there’s a built-in screw that gets that started for you.
iFixit have been our partners for spare parts and tools since the start of our repairability journey – the Repair Hub for HMD devices currently offers spare parts, tools, and repair guides in Great Britain, the US, Australia, and throughout the EU.¹
Keen to see if HMD Skyline can walk the walk as well as talk the talk, the team at iFixit got hands-on with our latest repairable device. Here’s what they found.
1: Opening the HMD Skyline back cover
HMD Skyline has what is called a screw-driven camshaft. What that means in practice is that there is a discreet screw in the corner of the device. It won’t loosen by accident as it actually can’t come out entirely. Using a readily available Torx screwdriver, giving this a turn will pop open a corner of the back cover. Right away, you’ve got the space you need to slip a prying tool in and run it around the edge.
This stood out for the iFixit team as something quite unique. “In a world of flush-mounted, glued-down smartphone surfaces that stubbornly resist disassembly and may or may not go back together depending on how skilled you are at cleaning and reapplying adhesives, this is truly a better experience.”
2: Replacing the HMD Skyline screen
Keen to move forward, the iFixit techies got the back cover off and were faced with a number of screws. But the screws you need to remove in order to replace the screen are color-coded, so they’re not hard to find. Undo those and the screen will fall out of the front – and that’s just what happened.
“We’ve seen this sort of screw-mounted display construction before […] We love seeing a mainstream smartphone take inspiration from the most repairable products on the market,” notes the iFixit team.
The iFixit team commended another “repairability win” with HMD Skyline, and that’s the fact that there is no adhesive to remove. The eagle-eyed and tech-minded among you might be wondering how HMD Skyline maintains its IP54 ingress protection rating without glue holding the screen in place. Well, that’s achieved by a foam gasket that runs around the whole edge of the screen. Neat, right?
"Human Mobile Devices has set a new bar for repairable design. This is what happens when a design team considers repair from the start. Human Mobile Devices’ approach to disassembly is a quantum leap forward."
3: Replacing the HMD Skyline battery
When replacing the battery in HMD Skyline, the iFixit team noted that the process is similar to that of Nokia G22. “That’s mostly a good thing,” the team pointed out. “The battery remains adhered in place, but comes with a built-in plastic liner that you can pull apart by hand to quickly separate the battery from the chassis.” A detail that the iFixit folks didn’t miss is the fact that we’ve carefully considered the strength of the adhesive so that a gentle pull is enough to get it free.
The iFixit team cleaned off the adhesive residue left behind by the old battery and installed fresh adhesive strips for the new one. These steps mean that a battery replacement is perhaps fiddlier than a screen replacement. “But if you must rely on adhesive,” the iFixit team noted, “this is among the better designs we’ve seen.”
What’s the verdict?
The results are in, and the iFixit team awards HMD Skyline an overall repairability score of 9/10! “A clever entry, a repair-friendly screen, and a straightforward battery replacement process,” the iFixit team summarizes, “all help land HMD Skyline near the top of the leaderboard.” If you want to read the whole HMD Skyline review from the iFixit team, just head over to their blog.
There you have it. Gen2 repair-at-home design takes it up a notch. HMD Skyline is fast and easy to repair at home. But that’s just a slice of the pie. Take a look at HMD Skyline and find out more about its stunning camera capabilities and its built-in Detox Mode.
