Nokia G21 Price in India
Nokia G21 The base variant of the phone starts at Rs 12,999 with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. Its second variant comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage, which is priced at Rs 14,999. The company has introduced it in two finishes – Nordic Blue and Dusk.
Design of Nokia G21
While most smartphones in the budget segment try to come with a glossy finish, the Nokia G21 looks a bit old here. It has a textured back panel which is made of plastic like the rest of the phone. But it prevents fingerprints. The company also provides a case in the box with the phone. The back panel has a square camera module in the top left corner which does not feel too protruding.
Keeping up with the recent design trends, Nokia G21 has been given 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.
A dedicated Google Assistant button is given on the other side and the SIM tray is given space. Its 3.5mm audio jack is given at the top of the phone, while the USB Type C port and speaker are given at the bottom. Nokia G21 has a 6.5-inch display with an aspect ratio of 20: 9, and it has HD Plus resolution. It comes with a dewdrop notch which is common in phones of this price range. The display has a heavy chin at the bottom. Overall, the phone seems quite strong.
Nokia G21 Specifications and Software
The specifications of the phone are quite simple. It is equipped with the 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 has an HD+ display with a refresh rate of 90Hz and a maximum brightness of 400 nits. It also has a dedicated microSD card slot to expand the storage.
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.
The Nokia G21 runs on Android 11 and comes with the Android One program. This means you get the stock Android experience and two years of Android OS updates. The lack of Android 12 is a letdown here as most phone makers are now offering Android 12 devices. 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 in the phone which can do some tasks quickly. For example, there is a double tap to wake up the screen, the phone can be flipped to reject a call, double tapping on the power button turns on the camera. Apart from this, many other gestures are also provided. It also has stock Android features like Digital Wellbeing so that you can track your usage habits.
Nokia G21 performance and battery life
Nokia G21 performs well for its price. It handles casual games and apps without any lag. However, more heavy games and apps take time to load. Some multitasking can be done with the 6 GB RAM variant, but it does not get the RAM extension feature which can be useful in the 4 GB variant. The side mounted fingerprint scanner is fast in unlocking the phone. The quality of the HD Plus display is average. Full HD Plus displays are now 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 single and multi core tests, it scored 306 and 1221 points respectively. In GFXBench’s T-Rex and Car Chase tests, it scored 34fps and 8.8fps. These scores are comparable to budget smartphones. Redmi 10 Prime And Samsung Galaxy F22 were equal to, which fall in the same price range.
Talking about gaming, the phone performed very average in games like Call of Duty: Mobile. By default it was on low and medium frame rate settings. The game took a little time to load and I also noticed some problems in the rendering of things inside the game. I played the game for 15 minutes in which the battery went down by only 2 percent, which is quite good. By the time the game session was over, the phone got slightly warm.
Nokia G21 came out way ahead in terms of battery level. Thanks to the economical processor and the big battery, the phone lasted two days in my normal usage. In the HD video loop test, the phone lasted 20 hours and 4 minutes which is a good time. It charges very slowly with a 10W charger and only 23 percent was charged in half an hour. It was charged 45 percent in an hour. It took 2 hours to fully charge. Getting an 18W charger would be beneficial here.
Nokia G21 Cameras
The Nokia G21 has a triple rear camera setup. It has a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth camera. For selfies, there is an 8-megapixel shooter. The camera app is pretty basic and there are different shooting modes to choose from. The 50-megapixel primary camera clicks photos in 12.5-megapixels by default.
The primary camera takes good photos in daylight which look good on the phone’s display. Details get reduced when zoomed in. In landscape mode, a watercolor-like effect was visible on the photo. When the brightness is high, the phone quickly enables HDR mode, which improves the dynamic range.
The closeup shots of the phone camera were quite good. The photos in portrait mode were not good. Here the camera was taking 5 seconds for each photo, so it was difficult to take photos of pets. Its macro camera gave photos with average details.
The camera performs average in low light. Objects are recognizable but details are missing in the dark parts of the frame. Night mode improves things a bit but it takes 6 seconds to capture a photo, requiring me to stand absolutely still to prevent blur.
Selfies taken with the selfie camera in daylight and low-light came out well. Edge detection in portrait mode was good and background blur was also managed well.
Talking about video recording, Nokia G21 can capture 1080p video from the rear camera. There is no stabilization in it, due to which the footage is recorded shaking. Overall its camera performance is average. If there was a wide-angle camera, a lot could have been done with it.
Our verdict
Nokia G21 is an Android One smartphone that offers a stock Android experience, promising software updates for two years. Both its build quality and battery life are good. It will appeal to ordinary users who want a simple and clean Android interface. Power users may not be impressed by its low power. Camera performance was also low according to me.
If you ignore some of its flaws, then Nokia G21 is a reliable device for normal 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 You can see. If you are going for its 6GB variant then 5G You can also see.