HMD Aura

The HMD Aura has a standard, non-folding form factor with a height of 163.86 mm and a width of 75.51 mm, making it a fairly tall handset. It weighs 175 g and measures 8.9 mm in thickness, with an overall volume of around 110.12 cm³. The device does not feature a rugged build and carries no water resistance rating, so it offers no certified protection against moisture or physical stress.

The HMD Aura features a 6.56″ IPS LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 900 x 1600 pixels and a pixel density of 280 ppi, running at a standard 60Hz refresh rate. Typical brightness is rated at 480 nits, providing a reasonably lit panel for everyday use. The display does not include branded damage-resistant glass, and it lacks support for HDR10, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision, nor does it offer an Always-On Display mode or a secondary screen.

The HMD Aura is built around the Unisoc SC9863A chipset, fabricated on a 28 nm process with an octa-core CPU configuration running four cores at 1.6 GHz and four at 1.2 GHz, totalling 8 threads and employing big.LITTLE technology. It comes with 4GB of DDR4 RAM running at 933 MHz across two memory channels, with a maximum supported memory amount of 6GB, and 64GB of eMMC 5.1 internal storage expandable up to 1TB. Graphics are handled by the integrated PowerVR GE8322 GPU, which has 4 execution units, 128 shading units, a base clock of 550 MHz boosting up to 800 MHz, and supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL ES 3.2, alongside OpenCL 2. The chipset also integrates LTE and supports 64-bit processing, with a TDP of 3W and a maximum memory bandwidth of 7.464 GB/s. In benchmarks, the device scores 725 in Geekbench 6 multi-core and 164 single-core, 2956 and 901 respectively in Geekbench 5, a PassMark score of 1327 overall with 478 in the single-core test, and carries 0.512 MB of L3 cache.

The HMD Aura has a single-lens 13 MP rear camera with a CMOS sensor, capable of recording video at 1080p 30fps, along with slow-motion video support. It does not include optical image stabilization, a BSI sensor, laser autofocus, or optical zoom, and RAW shooting is not supported. Autofocus options include phase-detection autofocus for photos, continuous autofocus during video recording, and touch autofocus, while manual controls cover ISO, exposure, focus, and white balance, though manual shutter speed is absent. The camera also supports HDR mode, burst shooting, and in-camera panoramas, but does not shoot 360° panoramas, and HDR10 or Dolby Vision recording are not available. A single LED flash is present on the rear, while the 5 MP front camera is a single-lens unit with no front-facing flash and is not positioned under the display.

The HMD Aura runs Android 13, a free and open-source platform that supports multi-user operation, split-screen multitasking, picture-in-picture, widgets, sharing intents, and the ability to play games while they are still downloading. On the privacy side, it offers clipboard warnings, location privacy options, camera and microphone access controls, and the ability to block app tracking, though cross-site tracking blocking and Mail Privacy Protection are not included. Customization options include theme customization, dynamic theming, dark mode, and an extra dim mode, while notification controls and customizable notifications provide flexibility in managing alerts. Additional features include a media picker, full-page screenshots, Live Text, on-device machine learning, offline voice recognition, voice commands, a child lock, and device position tracking. Wi-Fi password sharing, focus modes, battery health check, app offloading, Quick Start, and the ability to function as a PC are not available, and the device does not receive direct OS updates from the vendor.

The HMD Aura is equipped with a 5000 mAh rechargeable battery that is non-removable. It supports fast charging at 10W, though wireless charging is not available. A battery level indicator is present, keeping the user informed of remaining charge at a glance.

The HMD Aura includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack for wired audio output, though it does not feature stereo speakers. On the wireless audio side, none of the advanced Bluetooth codec standards are supported, including aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, and LDAC.

The HMD Aura supports dual SIM cards and connects via Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) and Bluetooth 4.2, with download speeds of up to 300 MBits/s and upload speeds of up to 150 MBits/s, though 5G is not supported. The device includes a USB Type-C port, a fingerprint scanner, an external memory slot, GPS with Galileo support, an accelerometer, and a cellular module, while NFC, HDMI output, and DLNA certification are absent. On the sensor side, there is no gyroscope, compass, barometer, infrared sensor, heart rate monitor, or motion and optical tracking. Security biometrics are limited to the fingerprint scanner, as 3D facial recognition and an iris scanner are not present, and no stylus is included. Emergency SOS via satellite, crash detection, ANT+ support, and a built-in projector are also not available.

The HMD Aura features a video light for illumination during video recording. The display is flat rather than curved and uses neither sapphire glass nor an e-paper panel.