HMD’s latest offerings are a duo of low-priced handsets for those who prefer the simpler phone life in the HMD Key and HMD 110.
HMD’s bread and butter ever since it launched – albeit at that time under a Nokia licence that meant its early phones available here were all “Nokia” branded – has been in the affordable space, and it’s just announced two new models available in Australia from today.
How much do the HMD Key and HMD 110 cost?
The HMD Key retails in Australia for $129.
The HMD 110 meanwhile costs just $79… or in other words, less than many mobile phone plans.
When can I buy the HMD Key and HMD 110 in Australia?
They’re available from today, with the HMD Key available through Big W and Officeworks, while the HMD 110 will be available officially through JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman and Officeworks. This is 2025, though, so you can probably expect them both to also pop up at a number of online retailers as well.
Hey, can I have a specifications table?
Your wish is my command:
HMD Key / HMD 110: Alex’s Thoughts
These are both very cheap phones that target a very specific kind of phone buyer.
Tackling the HMD 110 first, it’s absolutely HMD’s play for the kinds of buyers who were looking at devices like HMD’s own Nokia 2660 Flip in the past, because it’s your classic basic feature phone with a very basic feature set.
As it’s done with prior models, Wi-Fi is notably absent, so anything you might want to or need to do with data will have to come from your mobile data provider in every case, though I do expect those use cases might be limited.
Speaking of limited, I’m not expecting much out of its camera, though that’s typically a restriction based on the processor running the whole show, in this case the Unisoc T127, rather than a truly cheap sensor just for the sake of it. I mean, it’s low-cost to keep the cost down for sure, but it’s unlikely to be able to run much more than this anyway.
One nice inclusion here is that it’s a feature phone that uses USB-C charging rather than the older microUSB standard, though it’s notable that you just get a USB-A to USB-C cable in the box, not a charger.
The HMD Key is a slightly more powerful critter, because it’s a full Android phone, albeit an Android Go one.
If you’re not familiar with Android Go, it’s the Android variant specifically tuned for lower-power Android devices, with a small allotment of Go-optimised Android apps on board to make the most of its meagre power. You can try to run any Android app at all on an Android Go phone… but don’t expect much in performance terms.
Being low cost does bring with it lower expectations around updates… and that is part of the story here with no announced OS updates, though HMD is promising two years of security updates for the HMD Key, delivered quarterly.
Ultimately this isn’t a phone for those who demand blazing fast speeds, because what do you expect for $129?
If you just need the smartphone basics – calling, texting and a little light web browsing – this could be a highly suitable budget candidate. I’ve asked HMD for reviews models of both, so hopefully I should be able to provide in-depth reviews shortly.
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