HMD Global today unveiled the new Nokia XR21, a rugged phone that follows in the footsteps of the Nokia XR20, with improved performance and durability. The phone will be available in the UK on May 3 for £499.99 (currently about RMB 4,315).
The Nokia XR21 features an aluminum frame and polycarbonate back cover, MIL-STD-810H military standard certification and IP69K water and dust resistance rating. The latter means the phone can withstand high-pressure hot water jets and even high-pressure water guns. In contrast, the Nokia XR20 has only an IP68 rating, which is also excellent but not as tough as the XR21.
The screen of the Nokia XR21 is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, which can resist drops of up to 1.8 m. HMD also offers a free one-year screen replacement guarantee for this phone, which is available to users who purchase in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
The Nokia XR21 is more modestly equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G chip, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 6.49-inch 120Hz refresh rate LCD screen with FHD+ resolution and 500 nits of brightness. The battery capacity is 4800mAh, supports 33W wired fast charging, unfortunately, there is no wireless charging, and there is no charger included in the box. However, HMD says the battery life is 60 percent longer than the Nokia XR20 and can withstand 800 charges and discharges and still maintain 80 percent capacity.
In terms of cameras, the Nokia XR21 has a 64-megapixel primary camera on the rear (with an f/1.79 aperture and 0.7-micron pixel size), an 8-megapixel super wide-angle lens on the secondary, and a 16-megapixel front-facing selfie camera.
Nokia XR21 has some other noteworthy features like a 3.5 mm headphone jack, dual stereo speakers, two physical shortcut keys, side fingerprint recognition, NFC functionality, dual SIM slots, eSIM support and more. The phone also comes with Android 12 pre-installed and promises a major Android update and four years of monthly security patches.
The Nokia XR21 is currently available for sale on Nokia’s UK website and is only available in Midnight Black, with a Pine Green version due out in June.
