Nokia XR20 Review
Verdict
A successful go at making 5G rugged phones more accessible, although you do have to put up with some predictable compromises in camera and CPU performance.
Pros
- Wide operating temperature
- Good IP68 water resistance
- Gorilla Drinking glass Victus screen
- Has 5G
Cons
- Weak processor for the money
- Only passable camera quality
- Large and heavy
- Annoying Google Assistant button
Availability
- UK RRP: £399.99
- USA RRP: $549
- Europe unavailable
- Canada unavailable
- Australia RRP: AU$879
Key Features
- Very rugged Has both MIL-STD 810H standard and an IP68 rating, forth with a tough casing
- 5G Even though it's a rugged device it nevertheless has 5G support
Introduction
The Nokia XR20 is a rugged phone that sells at a mid-range cost, and in that location are no extremely jarring compromises made to accommodate the rugged pattern.
You lot get an unusually strong Gorilla Glass Victus screen and a military-spec tested casing, only the Nokia XR20 also has 5G and can play enervating games moderately well. Battery life is adept also, although claims of two 24-hour interval use may exist a stretch for nearly scenarios.
It is significantly more than expensive, and larger, than the Motorola Defy. I enjoyed using the Moto telephone marginally better, just merely considering its smaller stature is a lilliputian easier to handle.
I wouldn't recommend a phone like this to someone who doesn't really need rugged toughness every bit virtually of the best Android phones are far superior in many areas.
But just like Motorola, Nokia has managed to make a phone with a more accessible price and design than you'd usually meet from specialist manufacturers.
Pattern and Screen
- Durable expect and feel
- Big and heavy
- 6.67-inch display is a proficient size
The Nokia XR20 is this company's "most durable" phone to engagement, but I retrieve it suits the Nokia brand well. If you have 20 twelvemonth-old memories of classic Nokia phones from the pre-smartphone era, you may call back them every bit virtually indestructible bricks that could exist, and sometimes were, thrown against a wall.
This is non a feature phone, though, and making a smartphone rugged comes with a new set of challenges. It nevertheless has a large glass screen layer, 1 at run a risk of shattering. Nokia uses Corning's strongest Gorilla Glass to avoid this. It'southward Victus-series glass, as used in Samsung's summit-stop Milky way S21 phones.
The Nokia XR20's sides likewise deed as stupor absorbers. Press at the corners and you'll experience the slight "give" of rubbery plastic, likely similar to the materials used in some ultra-tough cases.
By baking it into the design, Nokia has managed to make a telephone that is tough just not ridiculously thick or large. The Nokia XR20 is even so very big, though. Its thickened sides add together a millimetre or two to the dimensions in each management, and the phone already has an Xl-size 6.67-inch screen. I'd propose checking out the Motorola Defy if you lot'd rather have something smaller.
The 2 phones have pretty similar rugged credentials. They have been drop-tested from a meridian of 1.8m onto a hard surface, have the IP68 water resistance that lets y'all submerge them in h2o at a depth of ane.5m for at least half an hr. And, merely as of import, the Nokia XR20 has a wider operating temperature range than near, at -21 degrees centigrade to 55 degrees.
Dissimilar the Motorola Defy, Nokia does not seem to have teamed up with a veteran of this area similar Bullitt for the telephone's design. Simply all the essential elements are in place. The screen environs extends but slightly beyond the display to keep it safe when sabbatum face down on a rough surface. The camera lens gets the same treatment. And in that location'south a lilliputian loop on ane corner to let you adhere the Nokia XR20 securely to your belt or… whatever else you might want to hook it onto.
Nokia has tried to add a touch of class to accompany the tough stuff. The parts of the sides yous grip are aluminium, not rubberised plastic. I don't think this gets shut to making the Nokia XR20 feel like an ordinary fashion-led phone, only information technology is an actress stride Nokia did not demand to brand, a sign of attention to detail.
I am not a fan of the Google Assistant button Nokia seems to put on all its phones, also seen hither. This sits on the left side and I guarantee you'll press it accidentally more ofttimes than deliberately, well-nigh probable by a gene of ten or more. The last thing a rough and tumble phone like this needs is a button you'll press accidentally that stops your music/podcasts.
I expect Nokia has to put this button here every bit part of the same Google understanding that saw the visitor become the chief maker of Android One phones — where you go vanilla Android software and guaranteed software updates. Nokia says the XR20 volition get three years of cadre software updates and four years of security updates. It also comes with a three-year warranty in the UK, although I'd recommend looking upwardly the terms of this if y'all're planning on giving the Nokia XR20 a particularly perilous life.
Other parts to note: the Nokia XR20 has an always-so-slightly sluggish side fingerprint scanner. And it has stereo speakers.
These speakers aren't specially pretty-sounding. They lack the lower-stop presence that smoothes-out phone speaker audio at higher volumes. Simply they do have respectable top volume and enough mid-range presence to cut through a decent amount of ambient noise.
The telephone also has a headphone jack and a second SIM slot, which seems doubly of import in a rugged Android like this. However, you lot practice take to choose between a microSD or a 2d SIM, as this is a combi slot.
The Nokia XR20 screen offers some of the top reasons to purchase over the cheaper Motorola Defy. It's larger at 6.67 inches, i of the largest screens found in mid-size phones. Information technology is sharper besides, with the 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution matching the "normal" phones you're able to buy for similar money.
Yet, it'south the added brightness I capeesh virtually. The Nokia XR20 screen gets reasonably brilliant indoors merely reserves its truthful peak brightness for when you lot go outdoors on a bright day.
This screen's outdoor visibility is significantly better than the Motorola Defy's. Nokia says its peak brightness is 550 nits, which is a solid consequence for a telephone without a top-end OLED screen, some of which tin can top 1000 nits (although well-nigh only actually practice in very specific scenarios).
This is an LCD screen, and aside from adept tiptop brightness and the high inch count, it is unremarkable. There's obvious brightness loss from an bending, colour depth/calibration does non look that great to my eyes and at that place'south clear brightness variance around the punch hole photographic camera at the top. This is also a 60Hz screen, one that lacks the added scrolling smoothness of a 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate.
Nearly non-rugged £400 Androids accept meliorate displays. But then they are more probable to get scratched. Counterbalance up your priorities on this one, although if you don't care near toughness why are you even reading this review?
Performance
- Android One software
- 5G support is good at this price
- Mid-range Snapdragon 480 chipset
The Nokia XR20 is an Android One telephone. This is a Google initiative that acts as a sort of Android quality mark, although the vast majority of the best Android phones are not office of Android I.
It means the Nokia XR20 has a near-untouched version of Android eleven and you get an assurance the phone will receive, as mentioned earlier, three years of standard software updates and four years of security updates.
Android Ane also means at that place'south no software gunk in the Nokia XR20 at all, and the 128GB storage offers a expert amount of room for apps and photos.
The Nokia XR20 has one of the weaker CPUs you'll find in a phone at this price. It'south Snapdragon 480 5G, the aforementioned chipset used by the half-the-toll Motorola Moto G50.
However, I find its real-world operation to be solid enough given this is office of Qualcomm'southward traditionally low-finish iv-series family. There's a big gap between this and the Snapdragon 460, for example.
Android eleven runs with no obvious lag and the Snapdragon 480 does a serviceable job of playing games like Fortnite at lower graphics settings. The game looks soft, simply runs OK at default graphics and major drops below 30fps are non besides common.
Low-end chipsets like this benefit from a general up-rating of Qualcomm graphics chipsets this year, while somewhat affordable SoCs like the Snapdragon 860 and 870 provide flagship-level performance at a bang-up toll.
The Snapdragon 480 doesn't offer this, of course, but it ways the Nokia XR20's operation deficits won't be obvious to most people near of the time.
It'south some other area where you take to only take you become a fleck less in some areas because of the phone'southward rugged design. The processor is bad for a phone of this price. But in a rugged phone of this price? It doesn't seem and so bad.
Camera
- 2 rear cameras
- 48MP principal photographic camera
- 13MP ultra wide secondary sensor
I am a fan of Nokia'southward XR20 camera approach. You get just two lenses on the back, each has a specific purpose and there are zero "filler" cameras here to brand up the numbers. Such cameras are very mutual in fifty-fifty the all-time mid-range phones. The similarly-priced OnePlus Nord ii'south 2MP blackness and white camera is a proficient example. Where filler cameras would normally sit, you get a dual-LED flash and a second unmarried LED wink.
The Nokia XR20 has a 48-megapixel primary camera, which uses a Samsung GM1 sensor. And a 13-megapixel ultra-wide with a Samsung S5K3L6 sensor.
Its ultra-wide is the more notable piece of hardware hither, as I'd look a phone like this to utilize a bottom-rung viii-megapixel photographic camera. This one is no masterpiece merely can at least compete with some of the ameliorate 5G phones in the price range.
These cameras are sound enough considering they are role of a rugged phone, but unsurprisingly tin't nearly compete with a price course leader like Google's Pixel 4a 5G. The Nokia XR20'southward images are frequently too absurd-looking and their colour tone is often a chip off, leaving muddy tracks looking purple rather than brown. Sometimes whites look too bluish.
Fine detail is adept in daylight only the representations of the mid-tones and shadows aren't in the same league as the OnePlus Nord 2'due south, which I used before the Nokia XR20. Some photos cease upwardly looking a little dull, if non terribly and then.
Typical of a phone with a lower-end Snapdragon processor, in that location'due south also a slight await before you tin can preview or share an image, while the brains of the phone construct the terminal picture. These waits gets worse in lower-light scenes or ones where a lot of HDR processing is required.
Even so, shutter lag is much less noticeable than it is in the Sony Xperia x Iii, which sells at the same cost.
As you can see in the to a higher place images, the ultra-wide camera is not miserable. But its images exercise accept lower dynamic range, tend to flatten out textures and in that location'southward the usual corner distortion seen in every entry-level wide camera.
Dark photography is poor. The Nokia XR20 does take a dedicated low-light mode that takes a couple of seconds to capture an image, simply its effects are not also dramatic. Night scenes still expect dark, dynamic range is poor and there's minimal detail, although noise reduction means they don't tend to wait flat-out ugly.
The Nokia XR20's video is very express. There's no 4K capture mode. 1080p is the maximum resolution, and if you cull to shoot at 60fps rather than 30fps yous lose out on the all-important software stabilisation. This is a pretty barebones video camera.
Nokia has put "Ozo" sound tech into the telephone. In the past, this indicated the utilise of college-quality microphones able to deal with very loud sound without baloney. Here, it seems to chronicle to a current of air racket reduction feature, using two mics to reduce unwanted sound. I tried information technology outdoors. The clip withal came out pretty windy-sounding, suggesting this is a case of milking/diluting a once quite notable piece of Nokia tech terminology.
Bombardment life
- 4630mAh bombardment offers good endurance
- 18w charging is fast enough
The Nokia XR20 has a 4630 mAh battery, which is really a slightly lower capacity than I'd ordinarily expect from such a large telephone. This suggests the rugged shell leaves less space inside than you might assume.
Existent-earth stamina is good, although I think you are only probable to reach Nokia's "two twenty-four hours" claimed employ if yous apply the XR20 adequately lightly. All the same, I observe information technology reaches my own personal standard for satisfaction, that of regularly ending up with around thirty% charge past bed time without trying to conserve battery during the day.
I'd put this largely downwards to the Snapdragon 480 5G processor, which also produced great battery life results in the Motorola Moto G50.
Tin can y'all hammer it hard and be certain information technology volition always last a total day? No. On 1 24-hour interval of testing I had to travel one-half-way beyond the country, and managed to bleed it past the evening.
Battery charging is besides not super-fast. The Nokia XR20 supports 18W charging, and takes 46 minutes to reach 50% from a flat battery. Information technology also supports 15W wireless charging, which seems mildly surprising in a rugged telephone.
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Should you buy it?
You want a rugged 5G phone:
The Nokia XR20 has similar rugged specs to specialist brands, simply costs less than some and also has 5G mobile cyberspace.
Y'all don't demand a actually rugged Android:
The Nokia XR20 falls behind other non-rugged £400 phones in primal areas, and even some £200 ones, so don't go thinking you go an ultra-tough outside for gratis.
Terminal Thoughts
The Nokia XR20 is a tough phone, ane made to appear non to throw as well much away in favour of ruggedisation. You notwithstanding get 5G. Yous yet become stereo speakers. And while the XR20 may non be a work of fine art, information technology is non comically larger than some of the other half-dozen.67-inch screen Androids.
If you're weighing this phone up against the Motorola Defy, its best upgrade as an outdoors phone is screen brightness. On brilliant days, the Nokia XR20'due south display is much, much clearer.
Its cipher-filler camera fashion is refreshing too. All the same, information technology near goes without maxim, you shouldn't buy this phone unless you need real ruggedisation. It has the same power every bit phones one-half the price, the cameras are not hugely impressive, video modes are poor and the stereo speakers audio a picayune unrefined.
Still, if you do care about extras like 5G and are willing to put upward with a pocket-filling telephone, it's a sensible stride up from the Motorola Defy.
How we examination
We thoroughly test every mobile phone we review. We utilize industry standard testing to compare features properly and we employ the phone equally our main device over the review menstruation. We'll always tell you what we detect and we never, e'er, accept money to review a product.
FAQs
How water resistant is the Nokia XR20?
It's rated at IP68 h2o resistance, fit for submersion in water at a depth of 1.5m. Don't take it pond, though, every bit this involved extra pressure caused past motion.
Does the Nokia XR20 have 5G?
Yes, the Nokia XR20 is i of the new rugged phones with 5G mobile internet.
What does the Nokia XR20'south MIL-STD 810H standard mean?
Information technology is a series of ruggedisation tests including temperature, vibration, exposure to water and shock.
Trusted Reviews Test Data
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Geekbench 5 single cadre
Geekbench 5 multi core
1 hr video playback (Netflix, HDR)
Fourth dimension from 0-50% charge
3D Mark – Wild Life
3D Mark – Sling Shot Farthermost
3D Mark – Sling Shot
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Specs
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Jargon buster
mAh
An abbreviation for milliampere-hour and a way to limited the capacity of batteries, especially smaller ones in phones. In most cases the higher the mAh, the longer the bombardment volition concluding merely this isn't always the case.
IP rating
An abbreviation for 'Ingress Protection Code', which lets you know to what extent a device might be waterproof or dustproof.
LCD
The type of display unremarkably used on cheaper and mid-range devices. Lacks the punch on an OLED panel.
Source: https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/nokia-xr20
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