Rugged phones have a tendency to be created by professional handset makers, and are made for use in environments the place they’re probable to get bashed about, dropped or if not mistreated. They may perhaps be difficult, but the specifications can be disappointing. Some of us want a mobile phone which is sound adequate to cope with complicated use circumstances, without the need of hunting also ‘industrial’ and also packing great specifications.
Nokia’s option is the XR20, which also will come with four decades of stability updates and a few decades of OS updates. The entry-degree variant, with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of inside storage, charges £399.ninety nine. Pay back £50 much more and you get 6GB of RAM, while one more £50 provides 128GB of storage. My overview device was the prime-conclusion 6GB/128GB model, which charges £499.ninety nine. In the US, the value for the prime-conclusion model is $549.
The 6.67-inch rugged Nokia XR20 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 480 5G chipset with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of inside storage (expandable through MicroSD card at the cost of 1 of the two SIM slots).
Graphic: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet
The Nokia XR20 appears fairly oversized, even for a 6.67-inch mobile phone. It measures eighty one.5mm broad by 171.64mm deep by ten.64mm thick and weighs 248g. This added bulk and heft is down to a thick all-all over bumper, which may perhaps not seem significantly stylish but is 1 of the causes the handset satisfies the MIL-STD 810H ruggedness normal. The display enjoys protection from Gorilla Glass Victus — the toughest presently obtainable from Corning. Must it crack within a calendar year of order, Nokia will present a substitution for free of charge.
The handset is also IP68 certified, which means that it is ‘dust tight’ and can manage immersion in one-3 metres of h2o. In actuality, Nokia statements on its Nokia XR20 web sites that “If it gets soiled, you can just cleanse it with cleaning soap and h2o”.
Rear cameras: 48MP f/one.8 broad-angle and 13MP f/two.4 ultra-broad-angle (123˚).
Graphic: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet
The rubbery backplate has a alternatively sensible stippled complete that makes the mobile phone quite tactile and should really enable people today with smaller sized, cold or moist, or gloved hands.
The aesthetics may not be good, but Nokia has surely experimented with. The handset will come with possibly blue (Extremely Blue) or gray (Granite) sides and back again. The prime edge carries the SIM caddy and a pink button referred to as the Emergency Crucial which can be programmed to contact specified contacts. It has short- and extended-push features, and if 1 of these is not essential for an emergency call then possibilities consist of launching programs, toggling the torch, activating points like Bluetooth or the wireless hotspot, pause/play new music and much more. It’s a helpful attribute — much more phones should really have 1.
The pink Emergency Crucial can be programmed to contact specified contacts.
Graphic: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet
There is a lanyard slot on the bottom edge of the mobile phone, just in situation you really feel the have to have to tether it, together with a 3.5mm headset jack. On the ideal edge the ability button incorporates a fingerprint sensor and the volume rocker protrudes so it is uncomplicated to find in a pocket or with gloved hands. The Google Assistant button sits happy on the still left edge for the exact same purpose.
The digicam lozenge on the back again of the chassis protrudes noticeably, and much more than is strictly needed. That’s since there is a lip all all over its edge, presumably to enable guard the lenses from scratching as the mobile phone tumbles all over in pockets, bags or anywhere else it will have to are living. The lozenge is centrally situated, resulting in minimum motion as the display is prodded when the mobile phone is sitting on a desk.
Rugged phones slide short on overall performance, and the Nokia XR20 is no exception.
I mentioned earlier that the base 4GB/64GB model is priced at £399.ninety nine. That’s a quite low specification, and my £499.ninety nine 6GB/128GB overview device is much more in line with today’s anticipations. Out of the box, 18GB was already used, leaving 110GB free of charge. The handset supports two SIMs or 1 SIM and a MicroSD card, so storage enlargement is obtainable so extended as you you should not have to have to set up two SIMs.
The Snapdragon 480 5G chipset is the exact same as observed in the Nokia X20, a non-rugged and much more inexpensive handset. Even though it provides 5G, the comparatively low-conclusion Snapdragon 480 won’t shine as a performer. The Nokia XR20 returned average Geekbench 5 CPU scores of 507 (one main) and 1675 (multi main). This is almost equivalent to the 8GB/128GB Nokia X20 (510 and 1689), and well adrift of flagship-class phones, which approximately double these scores.
The Nokia XR20 runs on Android 11 and you will find barely something included to that. The My Applications folder includes just four applications: My Cellphone Nokia (a assist app), Amazon, Spotify and a thirty-working day demo of ExpressVPN. Nokia offers a few decades of OS updates and four decades of stability updates.
The twenty:9 IPS display presents 550 nits of brightness and sits within comparatively significant bezels.
Graphic: Nokia
The display is a significant 6.67-inch IPS panel with a resolution of one,080 by two,400 pixels (twenty:9, 395ppi). It’s significantly less vibrant than an AMOLED, but presents 550 nits of brightness, which should really enable with out of doors viewing. There is a smaller central punch-gap for the entrance digicam and major bezels surrounding the display, which final results in a moderate screen-to-physique ratio of seventy six.seven%.
Nokia says the pair of speakers are ‘extra loud’ and they surely can make a racket. The quality is just not all that good, even though: if you depend on your handset to supply directions while cycling you may perhaps find the large volume practical, but if you happen to be looking for wealthy tonality you will be unhappy.
Whilst you will find a pretty near affinity between the Nokia X20 and the Nokia XR20, the digicam setup is unique. The X20 has a 32MP broad-angle entrance digicam, while on the back again the digicam combine is a 64MP broad-angle, 5MP ultra-broad angle, 2MP depth-sensing, and 2MP macro.
In this article we have an 8MP f/two.two entrance digicam and just two rear cameras — a 48MP f/one.seventy nine broad-angle digicam and a 13MP f/two.4 ultra-broad-angle (123˚) digicam. The digicam lozenge is bulked out with a pair of LED flashes. Pictures are completely satisfactory, but not remarkable in any way. The setup looks to get the job done well for general snaps, which is all a lot of people today want from their mobile phone digicam. Evening shooting is a bit of a washout.
A person factor rugged handset customers require is great battery lifestyle — hunting all over for mains ability or exploring for a ability pack when you happen to be on a extended stroll, bike experience, or are if not lively is a soreness. The Nokia XR20 is geared up with a 4,630mAh battery which is just not added-capacious — five,000mAh is pretty prevalent these days. The PCMark for Android Work 3. battery life test ran for 17 hrs and 9 minutes before providing up the ghost in my take a look at, the handset missing 28% from a whole cost when streaming a few hrs of YouTube video clip, which indicates battery lifestyle of just below 11 hrs.
The Nokia XR20 supports 15W wireless charging, but Nokia won’t present an adapter for wired charging. This is normal for the company these days — most of us will already have USB-C bricks, Nokia argues, so why result in environmental injury by supporting the manufacture of nonetheless one more 1? It’s a good issue. Working with a random charger from my desk drawer, the handset rose to thirty% from twenty% soon after fifteen minutes, achieving 41% soon after thirty minutes and 51% soon after 45 minutes.
Graphic: Nokia
Conclusions
Nokia has come up with a respectable rugged handset below: the XR20 should really be ready to face up to knocks, splashes and drops, and is even provided with a free of charge display substitution for a calendar year soon after order. The cameras, overall performance and display may perhaps be unremarkable, but the XR20 does present 5G connectivity, four decades of stability updates and virtually no computer software bloat.
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