HMD Skyline panned as Worst Smartphone of 2024 by influential YouTuber

HMD Global now trades as Human Mobile Devices worldwide; however, according to Arun 'Mrwhosetheboss' Maini, it should stand for "Horrendously...Mediocre...Devices" on the strength of having released the Skyline in 2024.

The smartphone might have a proper name rather than a series of buzzwords and numbers to go with its glowing praise from iFixit, yet has been found to be lacking in terms of design (clearly failing to hit the mark with its Nokia Lumia throwback aspirations), performance and software support in the veteran tech YouTuber's eyes.

Maini did nominate the CMF Phone 1 as his Best Budget Smartphone of the year, even though its own supposed modularity and reparability have been called into question by other vloggers.

The Xiaomi 14 was Best Compact Smartphone of 2024, while the OEM's 14T beat the Pixel 8a to win the title of the best mid-range handset.

OnePlus won honorable mentions for its Nord 4 in the same category, and also for the Open Apex Edition in the course of consideration for Best Foldable Smartphone of 2024, although that prize ultimately went to the Honor Magic V3.

The OnePlus 12 was also acknowledged as a contender for Best Flagship Phone of 2024 - although its successor the Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered 13 is technically now also on the market this year (as is the Xiaomi 15).

On that note, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra missed out on the video's main trophy in favor of the Vivo X200 Pro, even though its availability is limited in some regions to channels such as TradingShenzhen in Europe - and the fact that the very similar Oppo Find X8 Pro has beaten it to a global launch.

Nevertheless, the current X200-series flagship (until its Ultra sibling turns up) was lauded for its "shockingly" good Zeiss-branded cameras, "so fast, so smooth" OriginOS 15 UI (not likely to feature in official international units, it must be said) and upgraded 6,000mAh battery. 

The X200 Pro and its siblings also benefit from a revamped design that gives them that clearly in-demand look of the latest iPhones (which got remarkably less of the spotlight in this annual online 'award show' than usual), set off with flattened, slim-bezel, super-bright LTPO OLED displays driven by MediaTek's latest and greatest Dimensity 9400 chipset.