The smartphone market under ₹15,000 is a battlefield of compromises. Buyers are usually forced to choose between a good camera, a decent processor, or a premium build, you rarely get it all. But what if a phone arrived that didn’t just bend these rules but completely rewrote them and threw in a premium gaming subscription to seal the deal?
Meet the HMD Fusion. Originally launched at a competitive ₹17,999, it was already a strong contender. Now, with its price slashed to an unbelievable ₹12,000 on platforms like Amazon as of September 2025, it has transformed from a good deal into an absolute bargain. This isn’t just another phone; it’s a bold statement from HMD.
I rarely praise a device this much but HMD is breaking serious norms in the budget smartphone segment. As a non-Chinese brand that doesn’t bombard users with ads, HMD has delivered a rugged build, one of the coolest and most unique designs and a cloud-based gaming smartphone with a gaming kit. Seriously insane.
A Design Built for a New Generation
The moment you pick up the HMD Fusion, its unique approach to design is immediately apparent. Measuring 8.3 mm slim and weighing a solid 202.5 g, it feels substantial in the hand. While built with a glass front and a plastic frame and back, its clever design language makes it look and feel far more expensive than its price tag suggests.
But HMD’s innovation goes beyond aesthetics. The phone is IP54 certified for dust and splash resistance, providing a practical layer of durability. More impressively, it champions sustainability and user empowerment with two groundbreaking features: a “Repair-it-yourself” design that allows users to easily replace the display, back cover, battery and charging port. The HMD Fusion toolkit. This toolkit provides CAD files and API access, allowing a community of creators to design and build their own functional accessories, or “outfits,” that connect via a magnetic accessory port.
Specifications That Punch Above Their Weight
Display: The display is a 6.56-inch IPS LCD panel with a 720 x 1612 pixel resolution. While some competitors may offer higher resolution, HMD has focused on the user experience by including a fluid 90Hz refresh rate, making scrolling and navigation feel exceptionally smooth. With a typical brightness of 480 nits and a peak of 600 nits, outdoor visibility is respectable for its class.
Performance and Platform: At its heart is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset, a modern and efficient 4 nm octa-core processor. It features two high-performance 2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 cores and six 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 efficiency cores, paired with an Adreno 613 GPU.
Running on a clean Android 15 (with a promise of up to 2 major OS upgrades), this setup delivers a consistently smooth experience. Our review unit, the top-tier 8GB RAM and 256GB storage model, handled seamless navigation, app switching and light to medium gaming without a hitch. For those who need more space, storage is expandable via a microSDXC card.
Cameras: High Megapixels with Mixed Results The phone has just two cameras on the back, but the main sensor is a headline-grabber: a 108 MP wide-angle lens paired with a 2 MP depth sensor.
In practice, the 108-megapixel primary camera produces oversharpened 12-megapixel binned images in daylight. While the details are on the lower side due to this aggressive processing, the dynamic range is good. In darker conditions, it manages to capture decent low-light images, provided you use the dedicated Night mode.
The 50 MP selfie camera shoots passable 12-megapixel images, though they could be better. We found that despite using the Flashy Outfit, which is designed to enhance the phone’s aesthetic, it doesn’t offer much improvement in detail for the resulting photos.
Front Camera Sample
Rear Camera Samples
Panorama Mode
Battery and Connectivity: A large 5000 mAh battery keeps you going all day, and when you need to top up, the 33W wired charging with Power Delivery and Quick Charge support gets you back in the action quickly. In a move that champions longevity, the battery is also user-replaceable, a huge win for long-term ownership.
Connectivity is top-notch, featuring 5G, dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1 with aptX Adaptive, NFC for contactless payments, and a full suite of positioning systems (GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS). Audiophiles will also be pleased to find a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The Secret Weapon: Modularity and a Gateway to PC Gaming
This is where the HMD Fusion gets incredibly clever, leveraging modularity and the power of the cloud. The magnetic connector and HMD Fusion toolkit enable a range of “outfits”, functional accessories that enhance its capabilities.
The Blacknut Offer: Your Free Ticket to PC Gaming The true game-changer is HMD’s embrace of cloud gaming, and they are putting their money where their mouth is. To get you started, HMD is including a free two-month subscription to Blacknut, a premium cloud gaming service. With a typical monthly cost of around ₹1,349, this is a bundled bonus valued at nearly ₹2,700, significantly adding to the phone’s overall value.
This offer provides full, unrestricted access to Blacknut’s entire library of over 500 PC and console games. Because the games run on powerful remote servers and stream to your device, the phone’s processor doesn’t need to be a flagship powerhouse. All you need is a stable internet connection. This strategic inclusion means you can play graphically intensive PC titles on this budget Android phone right out of the box, an experience that would normally require a device costing five times as much.
The Verdict: An Irresistible, Unbeatable Deal
Even at its original price of ₹17,999, the HMD Fusion was a great value phone. At its current price of ₹12,000, it’s not just a good buy, it’s an irresistible, bang-for-your-buck deal that redefines what to expect from a budget device.
While the 720p display is a notable compromise and the high-megapixel cameras have their processing quirks, HMD has over-delivered in almost every other area. With its unique and repairable design, solid performance, and an innovative approach that turns it into a powerful cloud gaming machine, complete with a valuable two-month subscription—the HMD Fusion delivers a near-flagship experience for a fraction of the cost. If you’re looking for a feature-packed Android smartphone that breaks all the barriers, this is the one to beat.
