Two-minute overview
The Nokia G21 is an reasonably priced 4G Android telephone, the sort that will make loads of sense if you wish to purchase SIM-free, placing an finish to the times of paying large cell payments every month.
We’re all the time recreation for this sort of Android, however the Nokia G21 isn’t among the finest. The display screen is simply too uninteresting to maintain up with rival headsets. It’s one thing you’ll probably discover each time you employ the telephone outside.
Show colour is barely weak, too, though could not show off-putting should you like a laidback look. The Nokia G21 additionally has an uncommon Unisoc processor meaning you miss out on 5G. Dealing with demanding video games isn’t this telephone’s forte, and on this regard the speaker doesn’t assist both; it isn’t loud and it’s somewhat skinny sounding.
The Nokia G21’s digital camera could possibly be worse. It takes satisfactory photographs in daylight, with pictures displaying first rate sufficient colours. Nonetheless, the rear digital camera is much less attention-grabbing than it first seems, providing just one subject of view, one ‘zoom type’, making the G21 really feel extra like a single-camera telephone. Its predecessor, the Nokia G20, included an ultra-wide digital camera; this telephone comes with out.
Battery life is the one true Nokia G21 big-hitting characteristic. HMD International (the corporate behind fashionable Nokia telephones) says this handset can last as long as three days from a single cost. Primarily based on our expertise, we’d say shut to 2 days is a extra life like expectation to cling to. However, that’s nonetheless fairly nice.
Nokia G21 worth and availability
- Out now within the UK and Australia
- Prices £149.99 / AU$299 (round $200)
The Nokia G21 was introduced in February 2022, together with the even cheaper Nokia G11. The latter system is comparable, however incorporates a lower-end digital camera, and could also be price contemplating should you’re on the lookout for a telephone only for the fundamentals.
For the G21, you’ll be able to count on to pay £149.99 / AU$299 (roughly $200), nevertheless it’s not at present accessible within the US.
Design
- Plastic casing with a grippy, ridged end
- A realistic strategy comes off nicely at this finances stage
- Aspect-mounted fingerprint scanner
You’re by no means going to confuse an affordable telephone just like the Nokia G21 with a high-end one, however there’s a sure admirable honesty in Nokia’s entry-level designs.
The Nokia G21 has a frivolously ridged plastic rear, one that doesn’t attempt to move itself off as glass or steel from a distance. There’s no light-reactive layer, so its look is pretty low-key. And the textured rear impact provides some grip.
Within the earlier technology system, Nokia opted for a spherical digital camera housing. The Nokia G21 comes with a extra unassuming rounded rectangle that sits in a single nook of the system.
You’re not getting something too dynamic with the G21, however there are some options to notice. The Nokia G21 has a teardrop notch somewhat than a punch-hole unit. Its side-mounted fingerprint scanner is dependable, and whereas a beat off the pace of a mid-range Android, it type of matches the tempo of the telephone basically.
Alongside the underside fringe of the Nokia G21 you’ll discover a single speaker. It isn’t significantly loud; in reality, it sounds somewhat skinny, and clearly delivers a poorer sound subject than a stereo pair. At the moment, you’re seeing finances gadgets embody some fairly spectacular audio system; the unit right here is mediocre.
Show
- Restricted peak brightness reduces outside visibility
- 90Hz refresh price
- 720p decision, decrease than that of some rivals
The Nokia G21 has a 6.5-inch LCD display screen, and on paper it’s precisely what we’d count on to see in a finances system. It’s a 720p panel, not the 1080p one you’d see included in a telephone from a category up.
Nonetheless, in 2022 even pretty low cost show panels may be remarkably good. Sadly, this isn’t the case right here. The Nokia G21’s panel is under common, regardless of having a 90Hz refresh price that makes menus seem to scroll extra easily – once they’re not stricken by delicate UI judder, which occurs pretty frequently.
The colour depth may be very a lot “sRGB”, missing the vibrancy of OLED telephones and even loads of LCD-based models that value just a bit extra. We don’t thoughts this less-saturated have a look at all – years of reviewing telephones and their cameras tends to make you extra delicate to over saturation than the other – however you might really feel otherwise.
Word, too, that the panel’s native colour temperature is cool, leaning in direction of blueish whites. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to tweak this within the Settings menu. We expect it appears to be like higher with the slider nudged over to “heat”.
Nonetheless, it’s brightness that’s the Nokia G21’s main subject. On taking the telephone outside to take some images, we might barely see what was within the preview window. The telephone simply doesn’t provide the height brightness required to ship respectable readability in excessive ranges of ambient mild.
To be honest to Nokia, it instructed us as a lot. The display screen is rated for 400-nits of brightness, not the 600-plus seen in finances telephones with excessive brightness modes that have interaction when there’s loads of mild. The 400-nits right here is extra what you’d count on from an honest laptop computer display screen; it doesn’t lower it in a telephone.
If you need a greater show, look to Realme and Xiaomi telephones. The Xiaomi Redmi 10 delivers superior colours, the next decision and higher most brightness. Nonetheless, you might have to spend barely extra to get the 600-plus nits of brightness that we expect is the minimal for a very versatile telephone show.
Software program and efficiency
- Tastefully plain interface
- Some primary navigational lag
- Poor gaming efficiency
The Nokia G21 runs Android 11, now the older model of the working system. The newer Android 12 makes some neat surface-level modifications – comparable to extra colour within the menu system – that might probably improve a telephone comparable to this one.
Why would possibly the Nokia G21 profit, particularly? It runs an unusually clear model of the software program. No superfluous apps, and no contentious further interface components.
That is basic Nokia, which has for years been the first proponent of “bare Android” initiatives comparable to Android Go and Android One. A clear and clear interface is all the time welcome, though lately we discover ourselves fairly completely happy utilizing most producers’ third-party skins.
Like different Nokia telephones, you’ll be able to select to navigate the system utilizing swipe gestures or basic delicate keys.
The attraction of the Nokia G21’s clear software program is dimmed a bit of by the telephone’s efficiency. Whereas not a laggy mess, there may be noticeable judder within the interface at instances, video games take a short while to load, and also you’ll discover the beat earlier than extra difficult web sites populate. There’s usually a lag of some seconds whenever you deliver the telephone out of sleep, too.
This doesn’t break the general expertise of utilizing a Nokia G21, however telephones costing not rather more have managed to make the real-world efficiency variations between low cost Android gadgets and costlier fashions begin to disappear.
The Nokia G21 has a barely uncommon Unisoc processor, the T606. This entry-level SoC is barely utilized in low cost telephones such because the Samsung Galaxy A03 and the step-down Nokia G11.
It scores 1165 in Geekbench 5, which is way decrease than the ~1640 achievable in a telephone that includes the Snapdragon 480. That’s considered one of Qualcomm’s entry-level 5G processors.
It’s this humble energy, together with inside storage that may solely learn/write at speeds of round 120MB/second, which can trigger slight slow-down when navigating by apps that haven’t been cached within the telephone’s RAM. And since our mannequin of Nokia G21 comes with solely 4GB of RAM, it will probably’t afford to maintain many processes in this sort of “quick recall” reminiscence.
The Nokia G21’s efficiency is uninspiring stuff, however nothing out of line with our expectations of a handset at this finish of the market.
It’s best to contemplate its real-world influence on gaming, although. Fortnite wouldn’t set up in any respect, itemizing the telephone as unsupported, regardless that the 4GB of RAM ought to have meant the Nokia G21 met the minimal necessities.
Ark: Survival Developed had a slideshow-like high quality with the graphics maxed-out. To get it to a properly easy playable pace we needed to set the graphics to “low” and convey down the decision, making it look extra like a PS2 recreation.
Gameloft’s Asphalt 9 ran significantly better. The body price wasn’t good, nevertheless it was utterly playable at “excessive” graphics settings. We’ve seen theoretically extra highly effective telephones run the sport far worse, suggesting that both Gameloft has made some optimizations, or that the model of the sport 720p telephones run is much less taxing than the one 1080p Androids get.
Cameras
- Restricted nice element and a delicate character to photographs
- Good HDR for each regular photographs and selfies
- Video may be very unhealthy
The digital camera is the principle motive to purchase the Nokia G21 over the Nokia G11. The telephone comes with a 50-megapixel major sensor, which appears to be this week’s sizzling decision, seen in flagship telephones such because the Samsung Galaxy S22.
The model of sensor right here can’t compete with these included in high-end telephones, in fact. In basic Samsung trend, the corporate takes what’s in style and has made a bargain-bucket model of it for the lots.
That stated, the Nokia G21 presents sound digital camera efficiency for a close to bottom-tier telephone. Shoot in daylight and it captures images with a barely warm-leaning colour temperature, stable HDR processing and colour that, whereas maybe a bit of “one be aware”, appears pure sufficient on account of an virtually full lack of oversaturation.
Having usually struggled to compose photographs correctly on account of the Nokia G21’s dim display screen, we have been principally happy with the outcomes.
Nonetheless, what you shouldn’t count on is what the high-res sensor seems to vow: element. The Nokia G21’s pictures don’t maintain up as anticipated when zoomed-in. They’re a tad delicate down at pixel stage, and dense textures such because the leaves of distant timber simply don’t look all that life like up-close.
It is a basic instance of what you get in a small pixel-binning sensor, designed to make use of a number of pixels of the sensor to create one within the last picture. Issues don’t considerably enhance whenever you use the 50-megapixel mode, both. Word, too, that we discovered the HDR mode a bit inconsistent.
Shoot the identical scene a second aside and the Nokia G21 would possibly depart highlights overexposed in a single picture, solely to accurately deal with them within the subsequent. It makes us marvel if the picture processing stage is lower brief or simplified whenever you shoot a number of pictures in succession, with a purpose to keep away from you having to attend for the digital camera to do its factor.
Night time-time pictures are pretty poor; however we truly anticipated them to be worse given the Nokia G21’s small sensor. There’s a devoted Night time mode, which takes someplace between one and two seconds to seize a picture, with important enhancements to element – each within the darkest areas, and to the sharpness of element within the brighter elements.
We’re nonetheless miles off the standard of an incredible night-time shooter, however “mediocre” is healthier than “terrible”.
We don’t advocate utilizing the Nokia G2’s 2x zoom mode. This telephone doesn’t have a zoom lens, and the poor close-up high quality of normal pics is barely emphasised whenever you digitally zoom into them.
So, if there’s no zoom, then what are the opposite two cameras on the again? There’s a poor 2-megapixel macro digital camera and a primary depth sensor for background-blurred portrait photos.
Selfies are sometimes surprisingly good, for a similar motive that customary pics are: HDR. The Nokia G21 could have an excellent stab at managing the brightness stage of pictures even should you shoot a selfie indoors with a background of a shiny window. High-quality element isn’t outstanding – the software program is the star – nevertheless it isn’t a foul outcome.
Video high quality is terrible, nonetheless. You may solely shoot at resolutions as much as 1080p, there’s no software program stabilization in any respect, and the precise picture appears to be like extra 360p decision than 1080p.
A number of ups and downs imply the Nokia G21 digital camera finally ends up being merely “OK”. Should you don’t count on miracles from the tantalizing 50-megapixel sensor you then would possibly come away happy – so long as you don’t plan to shoot video.
Digital camera samples
Battery life
- Battery life is nice, appropriate for charging each different day
- Charging is sluggish utilizing the bundled charger
- Helps as much as 18W charging
The Nokia G21 has a high-capacity 5,050mAh battery that Nokia claims can last as long as three days between expenses. Given two-day use is the everyday optimistic declare we hear, this can be a large one.
Most individuals are unlikely to see that type of longevity, however real-world stamina stays glorious. Charging each different day is a practical proposition with a Nokia G21, even should you use it for frequent messaging and photo-taking.
Thirty minutes of high-end gaming consumes 7% off the battery, suggesting {that a} full cost will final you a bit of over seven hours. Once more, that is glorious.
The Nokia G21’s charging pace is a let-down, nonetheless. Whereas the telephone helps respectable 18W charging, the telephone features a sluggish 10W charger. That is going to take the most effective a part of three hours to recharge the telephone. That’s nice for in a single day charging, however fast top-ups received’t be attainable except you pay money for a extra highly effective charger.
Do you have to purchase the Nokia G21?
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
First reviewed: April 2022