solid budget device with a good price

Nokia has changed the naming of its devices this year. For example, the company has released the G10 and the X20. In addition to these devices, Nokia has also released the G20. In this review you can read everything about the Nokia G20.

Nokia G20 review

Nokia is known for releasing budget-friendly and solid devices. This year it wants to bring a little more overview in the model lines, and therefore comes with the G-series and X-series. We previously published the Nokia X20 review of the latter series. Now it’s time for the Nokia G20. With the G20, Nokia has released a budget device with a battery life of, according to Nokia itself, no less than three days. We have extensively tested whether the battery lasts for three days and how the device performs further in the Nokia G20 review.

Sales package

In the past, Nokia devices were delivered in a square box. This is not the case with the G20, it comes in a rectangular box. The contents of the box are quite minimalistic, it contains in addition to the device, the usual paperwork, a sim needle and a charger plus USB cable. No superfluous luxury, but everything you need.

Design and interface

Nokia has sent us the G20 in the color “Night”. This is a kind of purplish blue, a nice color. In addition to this color, the G20 is also available in the color “Glacier”. The device has an HD + 6.52 inch screen and has a resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels. This screen is of excellent quality. At first glance, you wouldn’t realize it’s just an HD+ screen. The type of screen is an IPS LCD by the way. Unfortunately, the screen is less legible in bright sunlight. The auto-brightness was a bit slow to respond to a change in lighting conditions. On the other hand, the screen can be dimmed sufficiently.

Nokia has placed the sim tray and a special button on the left to open the Google assistant. This button is unfortunately not customizable. On the right we find the power button with the volume button above it. The power button also doubles as a fingerprint scanner. The top has room for the 3.5 millimeter connection and the bottom for the USB-C connection and the speaker.

Interface

We can actually be brief about the interface, Nokia supplies its devices with Android One. This is a clean, bare-bones Android version with no unnecessary fuss. On the home screen, you can find the Google Discover feed by swiping to the right on the screen. By swiping down on the notification bar and quick settings. Swiping up opens the app drawer.

Communication: calling, chatting and surfing the internet

The Nokia G20 has dual SIM functionality. So you have the option to put two SIM cards in the device. The great thing is that this space doesn’t come at the expense of an SD card. This can be placed next to the two SIM cards in the device. You can call and send messages with the Google app. You can also type messages with the Google keyboard. These apps are fine to use.

Google Chrome is installed to use the internet. A great app for surfing the internet. The device does not have 5G and WiFi 5GHz, but we see that more in this price range. So we only see 4G and WiFi 2.4GHz on this Nokia. Furthermore, GPS, Bluetooth and NFC are supported. The device also has an FM radio.

Multimedia: music and film

Although the screen is not the highest resolution, watching movies is fine. The only downside is that the screen is not sufficiently bright in direct sunlight. To listen to music, Nokia has provided the G20 with a 3.5 millimeter connection. There is also an FM radio. To listen to the radio you need a wired headset, which serves as an antenna. The quality of the sound is okay, although the low tones are a bit meager. The volume is also okay.

Camera: photo and video

On the back of the device we find the round camera module. In this module, Nokia has placed 4 lenses, the 48MP main camera, a 5MP wide-angle lens, a 2MP macro lens and a 2MP depth sensor. The LED flash is placed slightly below the module.

When opening the camera app, we experience a small delay. The app itself looks neat and tidy. Above the shutter button we find a few options, so that you can quickly switch to video or to night mode. Next to it is a menu button that allows you to quickly switch to panorama mode or macro mode. There is also a special button next to the shutter button with which you can beautify photos.

Photos we take with the Nokia G20 are generally fine. At least, photos taken with the main camera and the wide-angle lens. Macro photos are nothing to write home about. This also applies to photos taken in the dark. You can view the photos we took with the Nokia G20 in the online photo album.

Selfie and video

With the selfie camera of the Nokia G20, you can take selfies of up to 8MP. The quality of these photos is decent, but no more than that. You shoot videos in Full HD. The quality of these videos is reasonable, as is the recorded sound. While filming, you don’t have the option to switch between the main lens and the wide-angle lens. You do have the option to zoom in while filming, but the quality deteriorates sharply when you zoom in while recording.

Performance: battery, speed and memory

Nokia has equipped the G20 with a MediaTek processor, the Helio G35. This processor is not the fastest, but does its job properly. You don’t have to expect a fast processor for a budget device. We have not experienced this as disturbing, apps open almost immediately, but it occasionally takes a while before an app is loaded. The advantage of a less fast processor is that it is kinder to the battery than a high-end processor. Nokia claims that the battery of no less than 5050 mAh could last three days. We didn’t manage to do this in our test period, but we did manage to do two days with a screen-on-time of more than 8 hours, which is a great achievement. We should mention that this was with fairly intensive use. You can charge the battery with the included 10 Watt charger.

The device has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage from Nokia. If the storage space is not enough, you have the option to expand it with an SD card of up to 512GB.

Update Policy

The Nokia G20 comes with Android One. This means that the device will receive software updates for two years. The device will therefore be equipped with Android 12 and Android 13. In addition, you are assured of 3 years of security updates. These security updates will be offered every month.

Judgement

As we are used to from Nokia, the G20 is again a solid device. So a real Nokia. For a price of about 170 euros you get a lot for your money. When you come from a faster device, you will have to get used to the fact that the device is not the fastest. However, this is not really disturbing. Photos taken during the day with the main lens look decent for this price. With the large battery of 5050 mAh, the device lasts for two days on one battery charge.

The storage memory of 64GB may be a bit on the lean side, but the memory can be expanded with an SD card. In addition to the SD card, you can also store two SIM cards in the device. We actually see very few downsides. If we have to mention a downside, it is that the screen cannot be bright enough in direct sunlight, but this is not unusual for a budget device.

You can get the Nokia G20 at Coolblue, Belsimpel, Bol.com, Amazon, Mobiel and MediaMarkt.