Nokia G21 review: Good budget phone for general use
Nokia G21 price in India
Nokia G21 The base variant with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage starts at Rs 12,999. Its second variant comes with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage, which is priced at Rs 14,999. The company has introduced it in two finishes – Nordic Blue and Dusk.
Nokia G21 design
While most smartphones in the budget segment try to come with a glossy finish, the Nokia G21 looks a bit dated here. It has a textured back panel which is made of plastic like other phones. But it prevents fingerprints. Along with the phone, the company also provides a case in the box. There is a square camera module in the top left corner of the back panel, which does not feel too protruding.
Keeping in line with recent design trends, the Nokia G21 has flat sides. The corners are curved, so it does not prick the hand while holding it. The phone has a side mounted fingerprint scanner which is given in the power button. There is a volume button slightly above on this side.
On the other side, a dedicated Google Assistant button is provided and space has been given for the SIM tray. Its 3.5mm audio jack is given at the top of the phone, while USB Type C port and speaker are given at the bottom. The Nokia G21 features a 6.5-inch display with a 20:9 aspect ratio and HD+ resolution. It comes with a dewdrop notch which is common in phones in this price range. The display has a heavy chin at the bottom. Overall the phone seems quite sturdy.
Specifications and software of Nokia G21
The specifications of the phone are quite simple. It is equipped with Unisoc T606 SoC which is an entry level octacore chipset. It has two ARM Cortex-A75 performance cores and 6 ARM Cortex-A55 efficiency cores. All are clocked at 1.6GHz. The Nokia G21 features an HD+ display with a refresh rate of 90Hz and a peak brightness of 400 nits. To increase storage, it also has a dedicated microSD card slot.
For connectivity, this smartphone has Bluetooth 5, dual band Wi-Fi ac, NFC and three satellite navigation systems. The battery capacity is 5,050mAh with support for 18W fast charging. The company provides a 10W charger with the phone.
Nokia G21 runs on Android 11 and comes with the Android One program. This means you’ll get the stock Android experience and two years of Android OS updates. The absence of Android 12 hurts here because most phone manufacturers are now offering Android 12 devices only. My unit had the May 2022 Android security patch. The UI is clean but I still found apps like ExpressVPN, LinkedIn, Netflix and Spotify pre-installed. These can also be removed.
There are many gesture features available in the phone which help in getting some work done quickly. For example, there is a double tap to wake up the screen, the phone can be flipped to reject a call, a double tap on the power button turns on the camera. Apart from this, many other gestures have also been given. It also has stock Android features like Digital Wellbeing that lets you track your usage habits.
Performance and battery life of Nokia G21
Nokia G21 performs well for the price. It handles casual games and apps without any hiccups. However, heavy games and apps take time to load. Some multitasking can be done with the 6 GB RAM variant, but it does not have the RAM extension feature which can be useful in the 4 GB variant. The side mounted fingerprint scanner is quick to unlock the phone. The quality of the HD+ display is average. Now FullHD Plus displays have started coming in this segment, so some people may be disappointed.
The benchmark scores of the phone will give you an indication of the usage experience. The phone scored 198,068 points on AnTuTu. In Geekbench 5’s single and multi-core tests, it scored 306 and 1221 points respectively. It scored 34fps and 8.8fps in GFXBench’s T-Rex and Car Chase tests. These scores are for budget smartphones like redmi 10 prime And Samsung Galaxy F22 Which comes in the same price range.
Talking about gaming, the phone performed very average in games like Call of Duty: Mobile. By default it was at low and medium frame rate settings. The game took a while to load and I also noticed some issues with the rendering of things inside the game. I played the game for 15 minutes and the battery only went down by 2 percent, which is quite good. By the time the game session was over the phone had become slightly warm.
Nokia G21 comes a long way in terms of battery level. Thanks to the economical processor and large battery, the phone lasts for two days in my normal use. The phone lasted 20 hours and 4 minutes in the HD video loop test, which is a good time. It charges very slowly with a 10W charger and could only charge 23 percent in half an hour. It got charged 45 percent in an hour. It took 2 hours to charge completely. Getting an 18W charger would be beneficial here.
Nokia G21 camera
Nokia G21 has a triple rear camera setup. It has a 50-megapixel primary camera, 2-megapixel macro camera and 2-megapixel depth camera. It has an 8-megapixel shooter for selfies. The camera app is quite basic and you can choose from different shooting modes. The 50-megapixel primary camera clicks photos at 12.5-megapixel by default.
The primary camera takes good photos in daylight which look good on the phone’s display. Details are reduced when zoomed. In landscape mode, a watercolor like effect was visible on the photo. When there is high brightness, the phone quickly enables HDR mode, which improves the dynamic range.
The close-up shots of the phone camera were quite good. Photos were not good in portrait mode. Here the camera was taking 5 seconds for each photo, so it was becoming difficult to capture photos of the pets. Its macro camera produced photos with average details.
The camera performs average in low-light. Objects were recognizable but details were missing in dark parts of the frame. Night mode brought some improvement but it was taking 6 seconds to capture a photo, requiring me to stand still to prevent blur.
Selfies taken with the selfie camera in day-light and low-light were good. Edge detection in portrait mode was good and blur in the background was also managed well.
Talking about video recording, Nokia G21 can capture 1080p video from the rear camera. It does not have stabilization due to which the footage is recorded shaking. Overall its camera performance is average. Had there been a wideangle camera, a lot could have been done with it.
our decision
The Nokia G21 is an Android One smartphone that offers a stock Android experience, with the promise of two years of software updates. Its build quality and battery life, both are good. It will be liked by ordinary users who want simple and clean Android interface. Power users probably won’t be affected by its low power. Camera performance was also less than I expected.
If you ignore some of its shortcomings, the Nokia G21 is a reliable device for general use, which is not seen much in this price range. If you want more performance at the same price then Realme 9i Or Moto G51 Can see. If you are going towards its 6GB variant then Redmi Note 10T 5G Can also see.
