HMD Pulse Plus

The HMD Pulse Plus has a straightforward, non-folding design with dimensions of 163.2 x 75 x 8.5 mm and a total volume of 104.04 cm³, weighing in at 187 g. It does not feature a rugged build and carries no water resistance rating, so it offers no certified protection against moisture or dust. On the repairability side, it earns a notable French Repairability Index score of 8, indicating it is relatively serviceable compared to many devices in its class.

The HMD Pulse Plus features a 6.65″ IPS LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1612 px and a pixel density of 265 ppi, paired with a 90Hz refresh rate for moderately smooth on-screen motion. Typical brightness is rated at 480 nits, and the display does not include branded damage-resistant glass, an Always-On Display mode, or a secondary screen. HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision are all absent, so the panel is limited to standard dynamic range content.

The HMD Pulse Plus is powered by the Unisoc T606 chipset, built on a 12 nm process with an 8-thread CPU running at 1.6 GHz across all cores using big.LITTLE and HMP architecture, alongside a Mali G57 MP1 GPU clocked at 650 MHz with 64 shading units and one execution unit. The SoC integrates LTE, supports 64-bit processing, TrustZone security, DirectX 12, OpenGL ES 3.2, and OpenCL 2.0, with a thermal design power of 10W. It comes with 8GB of DDR4 RAM at 1600 MHz, a maximum supported memory of 14GB, and a maximum memory bandwidth of 12.8 GB/s, backed by 128GB of eMMC 5.1 internal storage and cache layers comprising 128 KB L1, 2 MB L2, and 1 MB L3. Benchmark results include a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 1391 and single-core of 371, Geekbench 5 multi of 1175 and single of 313, a PCMark Work 3.0 score of 7950, and PassMark results of 2663 overall and 988 single-core.

The HMD Pulse Plus carries a single-lens 50 MP rear camera with a CMOS sensor, phase-detection autofocus, touch autofocus, continuous autofocus during video, and a dual-LED flash, though it lacks a BSI sensor, laser autofocus, and optical image stabilization. Manual controls cover exposure, focus, and white balance, and the camera supports HDR mode, burst shooting, and in-camera panoramas, while slow-motion recording, timelapse, manual shutter speed, RAW capture, and 360° panorama are not available. Video recording tops out at 1080p at 30 fps with no HDR10 or Dolby Vision recording support, and there is no optical zoom. On the front, an 8 MP single-lens camera handles selfies without a front-facing flash or an under-display placement.

The HMD Pulse Plus ships with Android 14, a free and open-source platform that supports multi-user profiles, split-screen multitasking, Picture-in-Picture, widgets, sharing intents, and the ability to play games while they download. Privacy options are fairly broad, covering clipboard warnings, location controls, camera and microphone access management, and app tracking blocking, though cross-site tracking blocking and Mail Privacy Protection are not included. Personalization features include dark mode, dynamic theming, theme customization, and customizable notifications, while practical tools such as full-page screenshots, a media picker, Live Text, battery health check, extra dim mode, child lock, offline voice recognition, voice commands, and device tracking are all on board. Wi-Fi password sharing, focus modes, app offloading, Quick Start, and the ability to use the device as a PC are absent, and the phone does not receive direct OS updates from the vendor.

The HMD Pulse Plus is equipped with a 5000 mAh rechargeable, non-removable battery that supports 10W fast charging, and a charger is included in the box. A battery level indicator is present, giving users a clear read on remaining charge at a glance. Wireless charging is not supported, so the device relies solely on wired charging.

The HMD Pulse Plus includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack for wired audio and a single microphone, but the speaker setup is mono rather than stereo. On the wireless audio side, none of the high-quality Bluetooth codec options — aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, or LDAC — are supported, and there is no built-in radio tuner.

The HMD Pulse Plus supports a single SIM and connects via Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), Bluetooth 5.0, and NFC, while 5G is not available, leaving the device limited to LTE cellular speeds of up to 300 Mbits/s download and 100 Mbits/s upload. It features a USB Type-C port running USB 2.0, an external memory slot for storage expansion, and a fingerprint scanner for biometric authentication, though 3D facial recognition and an iris scanner are both absent. Navigation is covered by GPS with Galileo support, a compass, and an accelerometer, while a gyroscope, barometer, infrared sensor, heart rate monitor, and ANT+ are not present. Additional features such as HDMI output, a built-in projector, motion tracking, optical tracking, crash detection, satellite SOS, and DLNA certification are also not included.

The HMD Pulse Plus includes a video light for illuminating footage during recording, while the display is flat rather than curved and uses neither sapphire glass nor an e-paper panel.