Nokia XR21 review

Safety first! The Nokia XR21 aims to be a smartphone that emphasizes sustainability and a long battery life. Not only is it water, dust, and shock proof, but it is also provided with updates for a long time and even gets an expanded warranty. Find out in our test, whether the XR21 keeps its promises.

Daniel Schmidt, 👁 Daniel Schmidt (translated by Mark Riege), Published 06/22/2023 🇩🇪

Note: The manufacturer may use components from different suppliers including display panels, drives or memory sticks with similar specifications.

The Nokia XR21 is available in the colors Midnight Black and Pine Green. At a thickness of 10.45 mm (~0.41 in), it definitely is not a slim smartphone, but it is still slimmer than a classic rugged phone such as the CAT S75 and especially also noticeably lighter. However, the design still looks a bit aged, with the rather mediocre display-to-surface ratio of 77% also contributing to this impression.

The rubberized smartphone corners aren’t very visible, but you can still feel them. HMD Global calls them dampening TPU shocks. The back is made of shock resistant polycarbonate, and the front is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. The Nokia XR21 leaves a high-quality and particularly robust impression, presenting itself with clean workmanship.

The smartphone is not only dust and waterproof according to IP68 but also offers an IP69K certification, allowing it to withstand a water stream with a pressure of 100 bars. Drops from a height of 1.8 meters (~5.9 ft) won’t create any problems for the XR21. According to the MIL-STD-810H standard, it is certified against drops from a height of 1.5 meters (~4.9 ft) and can be used in temperatures between -20 and +55 °C (-4 to 131 °F).  It can also be operated with wet hands or gloves.

The case of the Nokia XR21 is made of 100% recycled aluminum, and HMD Global also makes a short environment impact profile of the smartphone available.

      CAT S75       Gigaset GX6       Nokia XR20       Samsung Galaxy XCover 6 Pro       Nokia XR21       Google Pixel 7       DIN A6 171 mm / 6.73 inch 80 mm / 3.15 inch 11.9 mm / 0.4685 inch 268 g0.591 lbs170.7 mm / 6.72 inch 82.2 mm / 3.24 inch 11.9 mm / 0.4685 inch 278 g0.613 lbs171.6 mm / 6.76 inch 81.5 mm / 3.21 inch 10.6 mm / 0.4173 inch 248 g0.547 lbs168.8 mm / 6.65 inch 79.9 mm / 3.15 inch 9.9 mm / 0.3898 inch 235 g0.518 lbs168 mm / 6.61 inch 78.58 mm / 3.09 inch 10.45 mm / 0.4114 inch 231 g0.509 lbs155.6 mm / 6.13 inch 73.2 mm / 2.88 inch 8.7 mm / 0.3425 inch 197 g0.4343 lbs148 mm / 5.83 inch 105 mm / 4.13 inch 1 mm / 0.03937 inch 1.5 g0.00331 lbs

In contrast to the XR20, the Nokia XR21 only offers a USB-2.0 port without giving the option for storage expansion via microSD card.

But at least, the audio port remains. Since connected headphones also serve as an antenna, the port is also necessary to operate the analog radio receiver. In addition, Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, and two quick access keys are also available.

The Nokia XR21 is still delivered with Google Android 12, which is kept very purely. But there are also several third-party apps preinstalled, which can all be uninstalled. HMD Global promises three large updates for the XR21 and monthly security patches for four years, starting from the global market introduction. While this initially sounds good, unfortunately the XR21 isn’t delivered directly with Android 13, although version 14 is already in the starting blocks and the predecessor has even received the update already last year. In addition, the plan to distribute the security patches monthly is already not working, since at the time of this test, our test unit is still at the level of March 5, 2023.

The Nokia XR21 supports all the current mobile communication standards including 5G-Sub6, offering an extensive amount of frequency bands, so that it should be able to create a connection without any trouble in most parts of the world. The communication characteristics are good in the city environment during our test.

Nominally, the XR21 supports Wi-Fi 6 just like last year’s model. However, in the test with our Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 reference router, the transfer speeds turn out surprisingly low, even though they remain stable. The speeds are at the level of a rather mediocre ac WLAN. Although the speed was already not outstanding in the XR20, it was still significantly higher. Probably HMD Global will still make some improvements in this regard.

The Nokia XR21 is able to use all global satellite networks and can even create a connection indoors. Even though the latter takes more time, it still finds a fairly accurate location within several seconds. As expected, this works much faster and is more accurate outdoors.

We compare the smartphone with a Garmin Venu 2 on a short bike ride. The difference in the recorded route is 60 meters (~197 ft) over an almost 10 km (~6,2 miles) total route, but XR21 reported a significantly higher amount of altitude traversed. The route recording is fairly accurate in the detail view, allowing us to attest the Nokia smartphone with good locating capabilities.

The Nokia XR21 offers full dual-SIM support, either with two physical Nano-SIM cards or alternatively, you can also replace one of them with an eSIM. Other functions such as VoLTE and WLAN calls are also supported.

The voice quality is decent. In quiet surroundings, both conversation partners are easy to understand, sounding natural with a low amount of noise. Minor noise interference is filtered out. In speaker mode, we hear some slight accompanying crackling noise, and the microphones record spoken words only quietly.

Image Comparison

Choose a scene and navigate within the first image. One click changes the position on touchscreens. One click on the zoomed-in image opens the original in a new window. The first image shows the scaled photograph of the test device.

HauptkameraHauptkameraUltraweitwinkel5-facher ZoomLow-Light

The box of the Nokia XR21 only includes a USB cable and a SIM tool. A corresponding charger is not included, but HMD Global optionally offers one for around 35 Euros (~$38).

The XR21 has a 36-month warranty and a one-year warranty for replacing a defective display.

The capacitive touchscreen of the Nokia XR21 recognizes up to ten touch points simultaneously, implementing the commands quickly and accurately. The sliding characteristics of the glass surface are very good. The ERM vibration motor is powerful enough to be easily noticeable, but it has a rather spongy feedback.

The XR21 offers two quick access keys: one on top and another on the left side of the frame. Both can be configured individually and occupied with either system elements, apps, or an emergency function. The keys can distinguish a short or long press, allowing you to assign two functions to each of the keys.

A fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button is available for biometric security. While its speed is fairly decent, the recognition rates are rather average. Additionally or alternatively, you can also configure less secure face recognition using the front camera, which works very quickly and reliably. The user’s face is still recognized in the dark, since the smartphone increases the brightness of the panel for this purpose.

* … smaller is better

Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)

The color reproduction of the display cannot be adjusted by the user, so we were very surprised that the white balance is at a very good level. Even though the color calibration isn’t quite as exact and successful, it is still at a good level.

Display Response Times

The brightness sensor responds a bit sluggishly to changing light conditions, but this can be tolerated. Unfortunately, the maximum brightness isn’t particularly high, so that you can hardly see anything on the display in bright sunlight.

In terms of the colors, the viewing angle stability of the LCD is very good. Even from very steep viewing angles, there are hardly any color inversions, but the brightness drops sharply. In the dark, there are neither any noticeable ghosting effects nor halos. 

The Nokia XR21 is run by a Snapdragon 695 5G with 6 GB of working memory. In terms of its performance, the SoC is positioned in the lower midrange, enabling an attractive system performance.

In the benchmarks, the SoC performs at the expected level, placing almost at the same level as the Dimensity 900 in the Gigaset GX6 in terms of the CPU speed. But it has no chance against the Snapdragon 778G from the XCover 6 Pro.

The Adreno 619 is already an old hat, and unfortunately this is also noticeable in the benchmarks, with the Nokia XR21 placing more at the lower end of the comparison field in the GPU benchmarks.

Surfing the web works without any problems with the Nokia XR21, but more complex websites tend to take a bit more time, which is also reflected in the benchmarks. 

* … smaller is better

The Nokia XR21 offers 128 GB of UFS 2.2 storage, which turns out slower than we might expect from the specifications. However, this can be traced back to the SoC, since we have been observing the same behavior in all the smartphones with the SD695.