Nokia G20

What is it?

An entry-level smartphone from Nokia. To keep the price down the manufacturer has skimped on some features; it doesn’t have 5G connectivity or 5GHz Wi-Fi and the 6.5-inch LCD screen has quite low 1,600 x 720-pixel resolution.

It’s powered by the relatively slow MediaTek Helio G35 processor and only has 4GB of Ram. There is, however, a decent 64GB of on-board storage, which can be expanded using the micro-SD card slot.

Additionally, near-field communication (NFC) for mobile payment services is supported, plus there’s a conventional 3.5mm headphone jack.

On the rear, there’s a four-camera array – a main 48Mp main lens, a 5Mp wide-angle, plus 2Mp depth and macro cameras. The front-facing selfie camera has 8Mp resolution.

At 199g and 9.3mm thick, it’s not particularly light or slim, but it’s in line with similar budget models. It has both fingerprint and face scanning for logging in, however the latter is rather slow to react.

What’s it like to use?

It’s easy to set up and use, with a logical menu structure that’s intuitive to navigate. However, its rather underpowered processor means that it’s slow and this is quite noticeable when performing some everyday tasks.

The touchscreen is responsive, but the low resolution of the LCD display is noticeable and the screen has an overall bluish tone. Brightness levels are good, however, and it’s easy to read, even in bright sunlight. However, the viewing angle is narrow, so it darkens rapidly if you aren’t looking at the screen straight on.

Call quality is good under normal circumstances, but it suffers when background noise levels rise, so the person you’re speaking to may have a little difficulty hearing what you’re saying. Sound quality from the single mono speaker isn’t great as it’s rather thin, harsh and lacking in bass.

How long does the battery last?

Battery life is excellent, lasting 42 hours at maximum screen brightness, although making the screen a little darker doesn’t extend this by more than an hour.

Its 10W supplied charger takes a lengthy three hours to fully replenish the battery, which is fairly sluggish compared with some rivals. It also only gets to a 10% charge after 15 minutes.

How good are the cameras?

OK, but nothing more. In well-lit daylight scenes the rear cameras produce images that are detailed with vivid colours, but they are rather over sharpened and slightly artificial looking.

Quality drops off as the light dims, with images becoming flat, pale and slightly milky looking. Switching to flash mode improves the colours a little, but pictures still come across as rather cold and noisy, which means the colours and brightness can vary randomly. Rear-camera videos are acceptable, but rather jittery and with colours that aren’t entirely natural.

The front-facing selfie camera is disappointing. In bright light, there’s a reasonable level of detail, although colours are a bit cold and pale. However, as the conditions dim the quality deteriorates, with a loss of detail and increasing levels of noise. Switching to flash helps, but the pictures are still over bright with odd colouration. Videos are similarly poor – noisy and dark with fluctuating brightness levels throughout film clips.

Is there anything I should know?

There’s no formal IP water and dust-protection certification on this smartphone, but it passed our durability and screen scratch tests without damage.

Should I buy it?

No. This smartphone disappoints in many ways and, even at this price point there are much better options than this, see our Best Buys for more suggestions.