Nokia C21 Plus review

 

Nokia phone business within its Indian marketplace is a tale to be told in a future day. However, for the moment it appears that the company has stopped making flagships and has shifted its focus to affordable and budget segments in the market. After launching a brand new smartphone in the G-series' budget-friendly lineup the brand owned by HMD Global has unveiled it as the Nokia C21 Plus in India. The handset is priced at a low cost that comes featuring Android Go taking care of the software aspects of the. It promises solid design and durable battery life. Is it really Nokia C21 Plus perform as claimed? To find out I decided to put the phone through its test. Let's take a look at how it did:Its Nokia C21 Plus offers a simple design that may not look attractive, but is solid and provides a good grip. It is built with a plastic case with a fingerprint-like pattern on the back and round edges. Volume and power buttons are located on the right side of the phone, while the micro-USB port for charging is on the bottom and microphone. Its 3.5mm headphone jack sits above the phone. The speaker is located on the back panel , which has a scanner with a centred finger as well as a rectangular camera module at the top left. It is IP52 certified for tiny dust and splashes water, so it's able to withstand a drizzle should you ever get trapped in a puddle of rain. Also, unlike the other models that have glass backs, the Nokia phone doesn't show any dirt or marks, and keeps a neat appearance.Moving on, the Nokia C21 Plus sports a 6.5-inch HD+ IPS display with 1,600 x 720p resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, a waterdrop notch atop, and noticeable bezels. It is a standard run-of-the-mill display, which produces decent colours and offers respectable viewing angles. That said, I found the screen’s brightness a bit on the lower side and content less legible under direct sunlight. The phone is Widevine L3 certified, which means it can stream only SD content from streaming platforms.In terms of performance, the phone is powered by the Unisoc SC9863A processor. It's a simple chipset that can get users through basic tasks like texting, calling and social media scrolling as well as with a bit of effort. Although it was running a less-expensive version of Android it only took a few seconds to launch apps. If you're one who is a fan of multi-tasking and gaming on your phone, we'd advise you to consider a different phone. However the phone is available with two storage and RAM options 3GB + 32GB, and 4GB plus 64GB. The storage can be further expanded by 256GB via microSD cards.The Nokia C21 Plus sports dual rear cameras with HDR, a 13MP primary sensor, and a 2MP secondary sensor. The latter is a depth sensor for portrait images with blurred backgrounds. Up front, there is a 5MP snapper for selfies and video calling. The cameras offer decent results outdoors when the sun is out. The colours looked good in the images, but the details were a bit shabby. I also noticed little to no dynamic range in landscapes, while the portraits lacked proper edge detection. The indoor performance of the cameras is nothing to write home about. The cameras were slow to focus and took time to process images, which often looked slightly washed out and overexposed with inaccurate colours. It also didn’t help that the phone lacked night mode, but then again it is a budget device.It is said that the Nokia C21 Plus is rated to last for days and I don't doubt it. Because the phone isn't able to play a lot of games the phone will easily last for a couple of days, if it wasn't the advertised three days between charges. I actually got almost 9.5 hours of screen-on time with this phone, which is quite impressive. But what's not as amazing is the phone's 10-watt charger. It took nearly 2.5 hours to charge the phone from 0 to 100.

The handset runs a slightly dated Android 11 (Go edition) out of the box. It is an OS for budget smartphones, with basic specifications. The UI is mostly clean, minimalistic, and easy to manoeuvre; however, there is some bloatware, which is surprising to see in a Nokia smartphone. Additionally, the notification shade would only show three quick settings options, which means you will have to swipe around a bunch of times to get other tiles. That being said, the bloatware can be uninstalled and the company will be providing up to two years of security updates.Authentication on this phone via fingerprint scanner is slow and unreliable, to an extent that I stopped using it after a while and unlocked the phone using a PIN. For the uninitiated, the Nokia C21 Plus also comes with a pattern, password, and face unlock options. As for the handset’s mono speaker, it isn’t that loud and gets muffled due to its placement.Nokia C21 Plus Nokia C21 Plus is priced in India at just Rs 10,299 to buy the 3GB RAM model and the 4GB version is priced at Rs 11,299. It's quite expensive for a phone which runs an outdated version of Android Go and offers choppy performance. In addition that the Nokia C21 Plus is competing against many other smartphones in this category which include Infinix Hot 12 Pro, Tecno Pova 3 as well as Moto G22, which are not just better in performance, but also have better camera capabilities as well. But Nokia C21 Plus is a different story. Nokia C21 Plus deserves a second look due to its long battery life, as well as its IP-rated design and well-maintained software.

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