Nokia G21 Review: Is this a good buy for Rs 12,999?

Nokia, the Finnish mobile company that once owned the Indian market, is still regularly making smartphones, just not many people know about it. Nokia recently launched its latest offering in India, the Nokia G21, which comes as a budget offering from the HMD global owned brand.

Nokia G21 It is priced at Rs 12,999 in India, and packs a long-lasting battery, stock Android-like experience and more interesting things. In this article, I will tell you what I like about the Nokia G21, what I do not like about the smartphone, and if you should spend your Rs 12,999 on the Nokia G21 smartphone.

The Nokia G21 comes with a 6-inch 90Hz LCD display. (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)

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Design

In terms of design, Nokia has kept things simple with the G21. The smartphone comes with a flat-edged design with a patterned back panel, with the triple camera module placed at the top-left corner of the back panel. The design of the Nokia G21 is simple and the smartphone is very light, which goes well with almost all smartphone users. There are elements that make the smartphone feel cheap, such as thick bezels, water-drop notch, and rather weak build quality, but overall the Nokia G21 is a well-designed smartphone.

The back panel of the Nokia G21 has a patterned design.  (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)
The back panel of the Nokia G21 has a patterned design. (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)

show

The display on the Nokia G21 is a 6.5-inch panel with 1,600×720 pixels resolution and 90Hz refresh rate. The display of the Nokia G21 is crisp and vivid. Color accuracy is great for this price range, and the 90Hz refresh rate is smooth. However, the resolution of the display is lower and as a result, the display is not as crisp. watch videos on youtube or Netflix Still good on the Nokia G21 as the screen is bright and color accurate, but of course, you’ll notice slight pixelation at times due to the lower resolution of the display.

The Nokia G21 has a waterdrop notch.  (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)
The Nokia G21 has a waterdrop notch. (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)

performance and battery

The Nokia G21 performs exactly as you’d expect of any mid-budget Android smartphone. It’s clearly not as slick as a flagship, but during my brief use, the smartphone showed no sign of app crashes or lag despite slow loading times and animations. The best part of the Nokia G21 in terms of smartphone performance and user experience is the software. The Nokia G21 delivers the stock Android experience without bloatware apps or unnecessary permissions. The smartphone is easy to set up and use, and it has a smooth user experience. While clean and easy to use, the software is out of date. The Nokia G21 still runs on Android 11 and it is not known how long it will take to get Android 12. The last security update has also been the April 2022 Android security patch, from the same month the smartphone was launched. ,

The Nokia G21 packs a 5,000mAh battery.  (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)
The Nokia G21 packs a 5,000mAh battery. (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)

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The battery is good, the smartphone easily lasts for more than a day as there are not many things running to take up the battery. For me, the Nokia G21 easily lasted just under 2 days on a single charge. Charging is also doable, as it takes around 2 hours for the smartphone to charge from zero to 100 percent.

camera

The rear camera of the Nokia G21 is a triple camera setup that includes a 50-megapixel primary shooter, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, and a 2-megapixel macro shooter. The camera quality of the Nokia G21 is quite disappointing. Images out of camera look very low quality and are quite blurry. The camera struggles even in low light conditions and it’s very difficult to get a good, crisp image from the Nokia G21’s camera. There’s zero to minimal post-processing on this camera, which is nice, but if only image quality doesn’t require any processing. Not a good camera. The front camera, which is an 8-megapixel shooter, is also similar in terms of image quality.

The Nokia G21 packs a triple rear camera setup that includes a 50-megapixel primary shooter.  (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)
The Nokia G21 packs a triple rear camera setup that includes a 50-megapixel primary shooter. (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)

Decision

The Nokia G21, which is priced at Rs 12,999 in India, is one smartphone that will interest a lot of people, mainly because of the nostalgic pricing offered by the brand. However, the experience of using this phone was a bit overwhelming as the display is not crisp and colours, the camera is not good, and other factors are mentioned above. Now, while it’s one of the cleanest software experiences, the Nokia G21 is bad with the update as it still runs on Android 2022 with the April 11 security patch. The design on the smartphone is good and it is super lightweight, but even there, the build quality doesn’t feel strong.

The Nokia G21 has a good design, and comes with a clean Android experience, but there are better options.  (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)
The Nokia G21 has a good design, and comes with a clean Android experience, but there are better options. (Image credit: News18 / Darab Mansoor Ali)

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So, should you spend your Rs 12,990 on the Nokia G21? Looking at the options available in the market, buying the Nokia G21 might not be a proper buying decision as there are a bunch of better, more updated smartphones to look for in this price range. Nokia, on the other hand, has a lot to offer in terms of offering a premium-like experience at a non-premium price.

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