I’ve most likely examined near 100 low-cost telephones during the last 9 years, and I’ve by no means actually needed to fear about bringing a backup in case issues go awry. Finances telephones are often sluggish however work nicely sufficient. However I nearly instantly regretted not bringing a spare smartphone after I took the HMD Fusion on a brief journey to a different state.The primary pattern of this Android telephone stored freezing and restarting itself on the best way to the airport. Then, additional fueling my panic, it could boot up the house display screen however my passcode would not work. “Passcode is inaccurate.” What? Fortunately, a pressured restart would set it again to regular. Nevertheless, for the whole thing of the weekend of my good friend’s wedding ceremony in Kentucky, the Fusion would restart itself consistently. It additionally refused to launch Slack—although that will have been a blessing as work was off my thoughts that complete time.HMD stated it couldn’t replicate my points, so the corporate despatched me one other unit. It has been completely nice. It is exhausting to instantly shift gears after being so annoyed at this black monolith, however this can be a respectable $300 telephone. It additionally has a trick up its sleeve that no different telephone has at the moment: mods.Return of the Modular PhoneHMD won’t be a reputation you are accustomed to, so to recap shortly, it is a Finnish firm that licensed the Nokia model to churn out Nokia Android smartphones and have telephones (aka dumb telephones). It started doing this in 2017, however earlier this 12 months, the corporate introduced that whereas it could nonetheless make Nokia telephones, it additionally plans to craft telephones beneath its namesake (which, by the best way, stands for Human Cell Units). Its characteristic telephone enterprise continues too, with larger collaborations like The Boring Cellphone and the Barbie Cellphone.The HMD Fusion is a kind of gadgets (there was additionally the Skyline and the Vibe). It has a deal with repairability—simply take away a handful of screws and you may substitute lots of the components, from the battery to the display screen, and the corporate plans to hold these components for 7 years. (A lot of that is wanted to stick to approaching legal guidelines within the European Union.)However what makes it actually stand out are the pogo pins on the again. In actual fact, the entire again of the telephone seems as if it is incomplete. That is as a result of you possibly can connect “Outfits,” as HMD calls them. These modular elements can change the telephone’s look with completely different colour backings. They do not magnetically stick like iPhones and MagSafe. As a substitute, these Outfits are like circumstances, and the pogo pins do not simply switch energy however information as nicely.{Photograph}: Julian Chokkattu