Nokia C20 Plus Review

Introduction

In India's market for low-cost 4G smartphones, Nokia has been always trying to improve its market share. The business has released several smartphones with a starting price of Rs 10,000, but they have yet to make a big impression truly.

The top smartphone from Nokia's C-Series, which targets the entry-level/budget end of the smartphone market, is the C20 Plus in India. In addition to India, it has been introduced in other regions with the same target market.

This is our comprehensive evaluation of the Nokia C20 Plus, 2GB RAM + 32GB internal storage, which we have used as our daily car for over a month. If you are still on the fence about getting a Nokia C20 Plus but genuinely want one, it could help you decide.

Design

An easy-to-use and functional design can be found on the Nokia C20 Plus. Fine ridges on the back's material provide a good grip. It has a considerable footprint and is challenging to use with one hand due to its 6.5-inch display. It weighs 204g and is 9.35mm thick, making it reasonably thick. The matte surface of the plastic unibody made it seem strong and effectively deflected fingerprints. The display glass, which remained smudge-free during routine usage, may be stated to be the same.

At the top and bottom of the device, respectively, are a 3.5mm headphone connector and a Micro-USB port. The LED flash is adjacent to the round camera module, which projects outward from the already hefty body. When this phone is put on a flat surface, the speaker is hidden under a slit in the bottom right corner, and there is a little dimple to prevent sound from being silenced.

Unlike other current Nokia devices with a dedicated Google Assistant key, the volume and power buttons are the only ones on the right. The only ways to unlock this phone without a fingerprint scanner are by entering a passcode or PIN or using facial recognition. The second needed to be more active to respond and was often unreliable.

Display and Audio Output Quality

The 6.5-inch HD+ display of the Nokia C20 Plus is HD. We made the following observations after using the Nokia C20 Plus as a daily user.

• The display is bright; in most circumstances, the appropriate brightness level is between 40 and 45 percent.
• Adaptive brightness rapidly picks up on your preferences.
• The Nokia C20 Plus has decent outdoor readability as well.
• Excellent angles of view.
• Deep blacks with sound color reproduction.

On the Nokia C20 Plus, you may adjust the white balance to increase or decrease saturation. Given that it is designed to compete with more affordable smartphones, the display's real estate is suitable for both watching media and playing games.

The audio output quality of the Nokia C20 Plus is acceptable. It is astonishingly loud and maintains its volume at the speaker's maximum volume. It provides a beautiful movie viewing and gaming experience.

Specifications and Software

The Unisoc SC9863a CPU, which has a top clock speed 1.6GHz, powers the Nokia C20 Plus. Compared to many other smartphones at this price, this one only offers 32GB of storage and up to 3GB of RAM.

Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, and AGPS are available for navigation, as well as Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (only 2.4GHz). The Micro-USB connector on the Nokia C20 Plus appears antiquated because most manufacturers now include Type-C connections even on entry-level handsets.

Android Go, based on Android 11, is the operating system for the Nokia C20 Plus. It is a scaled-down version of the standard Android experience and was first intended to function on gadgets with only 512MB to 1GB of RAM. Today, that minimum has been changed to 2GB or less, according to a quick visit to the Android Go website.

You also receive Google's Go-branded applications, which are substantially smaller in size than their standard equivalents, in addition to the watered-down experience. This should help speed their launch and free up more space for media files like pictures, movies, and outside applications. Given that most Android GO handsets have minimal storage capacity, it is crucial to consider the size of these essential Go apps.

However, when we turned on the smartphone, things weren't at all as we had anticipated. The C20 Plus came with many third-party applications and games, like Moj, MyJio, MXTakaTak, and Simple Soulful, to name a few. In contrast to the Nokia G20 (Review), which only had two extra preloaded programs (Netflix and My Nokia), the C20 Plus included a ton of third-party apps and games.

Popular programs also have lightweight variations, such as Moj Lite and Facebook Lite. That's on top of Google Go and several standard apps, including Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Files. Pre Installing so many applications defies the goal of Android Go, which was designed to provide a streamlined Android experience.

Performance and Battery Life

Although the 6.5-inch HD+ display is readable outside, it cannot handle harsh sunlight. Additionally, viewing angles are poor, with the display looking visibly dull at an angle or when resting on a table. Text and graphics lacked clarity, and we saw several jagged edges surrounding widgets and icons. As Netflix and other streaming applications on the phone support Widevine L3, streamed video material did not have a crisp image. It got worse since the rear-firing speaker required me to put in headphones because it wasn't loud enough and sounded muffled.

Android Go wasn't functioning well on the review unit despite possessing 3GB of RAM. In regular use, we observed a lot of stuttering during animations and transitions.

Although Google's Go applications may save a significant amount of space, their feature sets have been drastically reduced, and they mostly rely on the Chrome browser, making for an awkward user experience.

Further, we tested the Instagram Lite app, which launched quickly but seemed sluggish while reading through feeds. The standard Android app operated more smoothly and had a lot more functionality. Most apps take a few seconds for them to open up, which is rather sluggish for app launches.

Android Go has fewer functionality than other versions of Android. For instance, the notification tray only allows for three toggles to be accessible at a time; to access the remaining three, slide to the left. You are not informed of alerts via badges or dot indications on icons. An experienced smartphone user found Android Go on the C20 Plus needed improvement.

The phone fared poorly on benchmarks, as was to be expected. AnTuTu awarded the Nokia C20 Plus 77,335 points, and the single- and multi-core Geekbench tests yielded scores of 126 and 473, respectively. This isn't very pleasant because it's an entry-level handset, and the C20 Plus competes with more competent phones for the same price.

While this phone can play simple games like Subway Surfers, it struggled with graphics-heavy games like Call of Duty: Mobile, as expected. This game was unplayable due to excessive latency and frame skips, even at Low visuals and Medium frame rate settings.

With light use, the Nokia C20 Plus lasted for 1.5 days. When recreational gaming is included, the number decreases by a few hours. For a low-cost smartphone, the phone's performance in our HD video loop battery test was surprisingly poor, lasting only 11 hours and 19 minutes. The included 10W charger took 3 hours and 30 minutes to charge the 4,950mAh battery in the Nokia C20 Plus fully.

Camera

An 8-megapixel primary camera and a 2-megapixel depth camera are both on the back of the Nokia C20 Plus. The 5-megapixel camera of the phone handles selfie-taking responsibilities. The app's design is classic Nokia, with the most crucial controls placed prominently on the screen. When changing between camera modes, I had a lot of latency to the point that the phone occasionally felt locked, which made for a terrible shooting experience.

Photos taken in daylight had moderate detail and were typically overexposed. Even with HDR, the dynamic range appeared too constrained, resulting in black spots toward the shadows having little clarity in those regions. Even in broad daylight, the camera was sluggish to focus, so we had to wait our turn when we wanted to take a close-up picture.

Only the rear camera may be used in portrait mode, although in bright light, the subject and backdrop of the pictures both had blown-out highlights and below-average edge recognition. With some unusual colors and a dreamy haze, the selfies were too dreary.

Video taken in broad daylight had very high contrast, little detail, and was quite unsteady. After dusk, image quality plummeted, and this phone generated mainly useless pictures and videos.

Call Quality and Security Settings

Exceptional call quality is provided by the Nokia C20 Plus thanks to its antenna design. Call reception is often excellent. We had no problems with phone dropouts or other problems, and it works effectively even during lengthy discussions. The Nokia C20 Plus has a particular

Face unlock feature and the option to change the color saturation of the display. Face unlock is a perfectly functional out-of-the-box feature that unlocks very quickly. When utilized, Face Unlock is controlled by three parameters.

Using the White balance option, one may enhance the display's saturation or give the colors more punch. However, it may always be reset if the user is happy with the default settings.

Final Verdict

We conducted our customary thorough and meticulous analysis of the Nokia C20 Plus. We suggest it as a dependable low-end smartphone that maintains the recognizable Nokia design and superb build after using it as our daily vehicle for over a month.

The superb display provides decent readability in direct sunlight, good viewing angles, and an excellent media-watching experience. The Nokia C20 Plus gets two years of support for security upgrades and comes pre-installed with Android 11 Go Edition.

Particularly when considering its Rs. 8,999 beginning price tag, the Nokia C20 Plus does not offer anything unique in terms of hardware, and the software experience needs to make up for it. With practically pure Android and little to no bloatware or third-party apps, Micromax's In 2b which costs Rs. 8,499., provides a noticeably improved software experience in comparison to Nokia C20 plus.

Games can also be played on the In 2b, and the camera quality is decent for the price. In 2b's, Unisoc T610 SoC is also found in Realme's C21Y, a new competitor. These phones also come equipped with extras like a USB Type-C port.