The Nokia XR20: A Rugged Smartphone For The Toughest Jobs And Lives
It’s not every day that you come across a smartphone built to withstand the rigors of a demanding lifestyle. While many premium smartphones boast sleek designs and impressive camera arrays, few are truly designed for resilience. That’s where the Nokia XR20 steps in, a phone that HMD Global proudly touts as "designed for the long run." But does its tough exterior translate into a phone that can truly handle anything you throw at it, even the relentless curiosity of a toddler? We put the Nokia XR20 through its paces to find out.
Nokia XR20 Price In India
The Nokia XR20 is currently priced at Rs. 46,999 in India. It’s available in a single configuration: 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. You can choose between two eye-catching finishes: Ultra Blue and Granite. We reviewed the Ultra Blue model.
Nokia XR20 Design: Built For The Unpredictable
The Nokia XR20’s design immediately signals that this is no ordinary smartphone. It’s significantly larger than most, measuring 171.64mm (H) x 81.5mm (W). The thickness of 10.64mm adds to its robust feel. Surprisingly, it’s not as heavy as its imposing presence suggests. Despite the rugged exterior, the Nokia XR20 weighs only 240g, comparable to an iPhone 13 Pro Max. While heavy by typical smartphone standards, it’s a respectable weight for a rugged device.
A Design That’s Both Durable and Stylish
While most rugged smartphones lean towards bulky and somewhat military-inspired, the Nokia XR20 stands out with modern and unique styling. The exterior is crafted from a robust polymer composite and aluminum, with an aluminum frame providing further structural integrity. The display is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus—the company’s strongest material for smartphones, offering exceptional scratch resistance.
The polymer composite provides a secure grip and exceptional durability. We put it to the test, dropping the phone from a height of 1.8m (5.9 feet) several times. To our relief, it emerged with only a tiny dent on the ring around the camera module.
Waterproof, Dustproof, And Ready For Action
With an IP68 rating, this phone is fearless when it comes to water and dust. We took it for a spin in the shower and even attempted a call under running water. While the call quality suffered due to the flooded receiver, the display surprisingly responded to touch input even with water droplets present.
Beyond the IP68 rating, the Nokia XR20 boasts MIL-STD-810 certification, signifying its capability to withstand extreme temperature changes, high altitude, vibration, and even sand and dust.
Ergonomics and Features
The Nokia XR20 features a comfortable and grippy design that makes it easy to handle, despite its size.
On the left side, you’ll find a dedicated Google Assistant key, which is unfortunately a bit too low and prone to accidental activation. Fortunately, you can deactivate this function in the settings.
The power button on the right side incorporates a fingerprint reader for quick and secure unlocking. Just above the power button lies the volume rocker.
And then there’s the special, red Emergency key, which can be programmed to open apps or perform preset actions. We assigned it to change the phone’s sound profile with a short press and launch the calculator with a longer press. The options are numerous, and you can even use it to open apps of your choice.
A Large Display with Thick Bezels
The Nokia XR20 is equipped with a 6.67-inch full-HD+ LCD panel. While the display gets bright enough to handle direct sunlight, ensuring good outdoor visibility, it features noticeably thick bezels on all sides.
The added protection from the phone’s body accentuates the thickness, making the display appear even larger. You’ll find stereo speakers at the bottom, and a 3.5mm headphone jack adds to the phone’s versatility.
Nokia XR20 Specifications and Software: Power and Performance
Processor and Performance
The Nokia XR20 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 processor, a chipset that’s been used in various smartphones released over the past year. While these phones haven’t made it to India, the XR20 marks the first foray of this processor into the Indian market.
The Snapdragon 480 offers solid performance for everyday tasks, but it’s not the most powerful chipset available in this price range. We found that the XR20 performed more like a budget phone rather than a truly premium device, especially when it comes to demanding gaming experiences.
Memory and Storage
The Nokia XR20 comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. While 6GB of RAM is sufficient for smooth multitasking, for a phone at this price point, a higher RAM configuration would have been welcome.
With a hybrid slot in the dual-SIM tray, you can expand the storage capacity further with external microSD cards, supporting up to 512GB.
Connectivity Features
The Nokia XR20 supports multiple 5G bands and offers dual 5G standby. Other connectivity features include Wi-Fi ac/ax, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, and the standard satellite navigation systems.
Battery and Charging
The Nokia XR20 boasts a 4630mAh battery, capable of easily lasting a day and a half with casual use. This includes a mix of gaming, photography, messaging, social media browsing, and video streaming.
While the battery life is impressive, the included 18W charger is relatively slow, taking 2 hours and 30 minutes to fully charge the phone. The fact that the XR20 supports 15W wireless charging partially mitigates this, but a faster wired charging solution would have been advantageous.
Software: Android One and Three Years of Software Updates
The Nokia XR20 runs Android 11 out of the box, with the promise of three years of software updates, thanks to its inclusion in the Android One program. The software is near stock, making it fast and responsive. It comes with minor Nokia customizations, adding a custom camera app with Pro photo and Cinema video modes. There’s also a customizable color temperature setting in the Settings app for the display, which can be manually adjusted for a warmer or cooler tone.
Nokia XR20 Performance: Smooth Software and Decent Performance, But Gaming is Challenged
Display Performance: Bright Enough for Outdoor Use
The 6.67-inch full-HD+ LCD panel on the Nokia XR20 is a decent display, reaching high levels of brightness for comfortable outdoor use. Viewing angles are also commendable, making it enjoyable for watching movies and playing games. While the default color temperature is a bit too cool, the phone allows you to adjust it to a warmer tone using the white balance setting.
Gaming Performance: Struggling to Keep Up –
The absence of a high-refresh rate display might not be immediately noticeable due to the smooth software, but the Snapdragon 480’s limitations become evident during gaming sessions.
We tried out Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends. While Call of Duty: Mobile was playable at the default high graphics and frame rate settings, it experienced occasional lag and stuttering. Lowering the graphics to Medium didn’t seem to improve the performance. Asphalt 9: Legends, on the other hand, ran smoothly at the default graphics setting.
Overall, the Nokia XR20 can handle basic to mid-intensive gaming, but don’t expect it to deliver the smooth performance seen on premium phones with more powerful processors.
Battery Life: Above Average Endurance
The Nokia XR20 managed 11 hours and 42 minutes in our HD video loop battery test, which is slightly below average for a phone in this price range. However, its 4,630mAh battery consistently provided over a day and a half of battery life with moderate usage. We found that the battery performance is more than adequate for everyday tasks and usage scenarios.
Nokia XR20 Cameras: Solid Daylight Performance, But Low-Light Struggles
Camera Setup: Dual Rear Cameras and an 8MP Front Camera
The Nokia XR20 features a dual rear camera setup: a 48MP primary camera and a 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera. Selfie duties are handled by an 8MP front-facing camera.
The camera interface is typical Nokia, with a straightforward design. You’ll find Pro mode for manual adjustments and Cinema mode for shooting videos in H-Log format with high dynamic range, requiring post-processing.
Daylight Photography: Solid Detail, but Noise is Present
In daylight, the primary camera produces photos with decent detail and dynamic range. Colors are a bit saturated, and sharpness is on the higher side. However, the overall results are only satisfactory due to the presence of luminance noise, which is visible in many of the daylight photos.
Ultra-Wide-Angle Camera: Unimpressive Performance
We were less impressed with the ultra-wide-angle camera. Images lacked sharpness and exhibited random blurred patches and ghosting, making them unusable.
Portrait Mode: Mixed Results
The Portrait mode on the primary camera delivered mixed results. While photos of people emerged sharp and clear with good edge detection, the same wasn’t true for object portraits. Additionally, taking Portrait mode photos of objects proved to be a bit tedious.
Selfies: Sharp and Clear
Surprisingly, selfies looked sharp and clear with good contrast, although edge detection in Portrait mode left much to be desired.
Low-Light Performance: Needs Improvement
After sunset, noise levels increased significantly, and the phone’s noise reduction algorithms often resulted in murky images. We’ve seen better low-light performance from more affordable devices. While enabling Night Mode did clear up the murkiness and reveal some detail with enhanced contrast, it introduced a noticeable watercolor-like effect and flat textures.
Video Recording: Average Quality, but Decent Stabilization
Daylight video recording quality was only average, with low detail. The camera struggled to focus quickly while panning. While stabilization was decent when shooting 1080p video at 30fps, 60fps video showed significant shakiness with minimal stabilization.
The ultra-wide-angle camera produced below-average video quality as well. Surprisingly, the front-facing camera provided better video quality and stabilization. Low-light video lacked detail, making it unsuitable for nighttime recording.
One highlight is the OZO audio recording technology, which impressed us with its immersive and high-quality sound.
Nokia XR20 Verdict: A Niche Phone for Specific Needs
At Rs. 46,999, the Nokia XR20 faces tough competition from premium smartphones offering significantly better performance and features, such as the Realme GT (from Rs. 37,999), OnePlus 9R (from Rs. 39,999), and Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G (from Rs. 39,999).
Even within the premium segment, the Nokia XR20 struggles to compete in terms of performance and camera quality. While some users might be tempted to slap a rugged case onto these other premium devices, the Nokia XR20 offers the peace of mind that comes with a phone designed to withstand the toughest conditions.
The Nokia XR20 is not for everyone. It only appeals to a very specific set of buyers: those who demand a durable phone, are frequently outdoors, work in challenging environments, or are particularly clumsy.
The choice to purchase a Nokia XR20 ultimately depends on your individual needs and priorities. If you’re looking for a phone that can survive drops, spills, and the occasional accidental dunk, the Nokia XR20 is a compelling option. If you prioritize performance and camera quality, you’ll find more compelling options elsewhere.
