HMD’s looking to family phones – and phone charging headphones – at MWC

HMD’s new phones include models built with the child-friendly HMD Fusion X1, as well as new flip phones and HMD-branded charging headphones.

While I’m not at MWC in Barcelona this year, it’s always an event I keep an eye on simply because while the era where huge flagships are launched is behind us, that’s opened up space for some even more interesting ideas in phones to emerge.

HMD Global has announced a slew of new phones at MWC in Barcelona over the weekend, some of which we’ll see in Australia this year… and there’s definitely some interesting ideas being promoted here.

HMD Fusion X1: Child-Friendly Focus

The HMD Fusion X1 is HMD’s effective MWC flagship, although running on a Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM with 128GB or 256GB of memory, it’s really playing more in the mid-range or possibly budget spaces.

The big play here is for parents with concerns over their children’s smartphone exposure and online activity, because the Fusion X1 will be part of a new “HMD Family” line of devices with inbuilt parental controls that limit (or outright block) social media and online access, as well as continuous location tracking at 20 second intervals, SOS calling and remote access features for parents.

It’ll also integrate with the Xplora platform for parental control features on a subscription basis, as well as integrating HMD’s new “SafeToNet” features that promise an AI-led approach to automatically blocking potentially harmful content before young users ever get to see it.

The HMD Fusion X1 will launch in Australia in the the first half of 2025, which really only gives HMD Global a few months to bring it to market, but local pricing hasn’t been announced as yet.

HMD 2660 Flip: Feature phones sans Nokia branding

It really wasn’t that long ago that if you got any phone through HMD Global it featured significant Nokia branding, because back when HMD Global launched onto the world stage (at MWC; I was there, even!) it did so by licensing the Nokia name.

I argued last year that HMD really didn’t need the Nokia name any more ahead of them lauching their first HMD-branded devices such as the HMD Pulse Pro and HMD Skyline, and it appears that it’s also shifting into the feature phone market with a range of new feature phones announced at MWC.

The only one confirmed phone we’ll see down under is the HMD 2660 Flip. If you’re thinking “hey, didn’t HMD do a Nokia 2660 Flip?”…

Well, you wouldn’t be wrong, though HMD’s contention is that the HMD 2660 Flip is a redesigned feature phone “built for 2025”.

The spec sheet still points to a simpler phone, however with a 2.8 inch QVGA display, 0.3MP camera and 1450mAh removable battery.

Like the HMD Fusion X1, the HMD 2660 Flip is set to arrive in Australia in the first half of the year, and while local pricing hasn’t yet been announced, it appears that it’ll sell in the UK for 69 pounds, which would point to local pricing perhaps sitting at around $140 AUD or thereabouts.

HMD Amped Buds: They’ve got THE POWER

It wasn’t just phones that HMD announced at MWC however, as it’s also got some headphones to sell. The HMD Amped Buds are ANC-enabled buds in Black, Cyan or Pink finishes, but the big selling point here is meant to be that the charging case for the Amped Buds is itself a Qi-compliant wireless charger.

It’s only packing in a 1600mAh capacity, however, so this does feel like it’s the kind of feature that you’d only want to use in an emergency given Qi’s relatively slow charging speeds, but it’s certainly an interesting idea.

The HMD Amped Buds will arrive in Australia “later this year” according to HMD Australia’s press release, though again there’s no word on local pricing.