HMD listened closely to the needs of the Indian users out there, demanding for better hardware at lower price point. And this led to the birth of HMD Crest and Crest Max, designed and produced in India. This is unlike any other devices made by HMD in the past as the device is solely under the purview of the Indian team. And, it turns out to be a textbook example on how to create a device that fulfils the need of the market.
HMD Crest
The original Crest was launched last year in India alongside the Crest Max. Roughly 7 months later, the world gets a chance to experience the ultimate budget device. Till the creation of Crest series, the Pulse series was HMD’s budget offering and while that was a good device in many aspects, it is no where close to what the Crest has to offer, as the Crest is priced similarly to the Pulse Pro.
The global version of the popular Crest differs from the Indian oriented Crest by having more ram and storage, at 8GB of physical RAM and 256GB of expandable storage. The packaging lacks a brick charger and its made in China instead of India.
The Crest comes with an unusual hue of blue which glitters under direct sunlight, and its ever so slippery. Thankfully , it comes bundled with a protective case, but sadly, no screen protector included.
The device looks quite similar to the Pulse series, but looks more premium thanks to choice of material used. The silver lining along the camera highlights the camera of the device. The 50MP f 1.8 camera alongside a 2MP depth camera on the rear and a 50MP fixed focus camera completes the imaging experience. The device is powered by a 6nm, T760 Unisoc processor, with a 5000mAh battery with 33w charging speed. It has dual microphone with OZO audio recording onboard and a 3.5mm head-jack. The finger print scanner works well and the audio output is loud and clear with audio boost and OZO playback onboard.
The biggest highlight to the Crest, apart of being selfie oriented device has to be its OLED display capable of HDR playback with 90Hz refresh rate. It also features SDR to HDR conversion and luminous eye protection. It is capable of 4K 60FPS HDR playback in YouTube which bests even HMD’s own premium offering!
And what needs to be stressed further is that the Crest is also self repairable!
You can catch more on my experience with the Crest here, and if you are wondering if you should get one, I hope this video answers your questions!
Follow me on X for more updates on upcoming HMD devices https://x.com/theoriginal086
