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If you’re reading this, you’re either curious about who Nothing is and what the Phone 1 has to offer compared to better-known phones, or you already know about the London-based startup and the Phone 1, and you’re wondering how the company’s quick growth of talent and hype shows up in a phone. The Phone 1 is Nothing’s second physical product, after the Ear 1 true wireless earbuds, which came out in 2021.
Should it come as a surprise that Nokia has finally released its first smartphone that can handle rough use? Actually, no. Years after Samsung released its Galaxy Active line and only a few weeks after Motorola relaunched its Defy line, the company that now owns the Nokia brand, HMD Global, finally saw the potential of the small but growing outdoor market. The end result is the XR20, a smartphone that is powered by Qualcomm, can connect to 5G, is shockproof and water resistant, and wants to be more than just a ruggedized device.
Nokia XR20 vs Nothing Phone 1 Comparison Table
Specification | Nokia XR20 | Nothing Phone 1 |
---|---|---|
Display | 6.67-inch Full HD+ | 6.55in |
Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G | Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ |
RAM | 6GB | 8GB or 12GB |
Storage | 128GB internal storage, expandable up to 1TB | 128 GB |
Rear Camera | 48-megapixel primary sensor and a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens | 50 MP f/1.88 (Wide Angle) |
Front Camera | 8-megapixel camera for selfies and video calls | Punch Hole 16 MP f/2.45 (Wide Angle) with Screen Flash |
Battery | 4,630mAh with 18W fast charging | N/A |
Nokia XR20 vs Nothing Phone 1: Design
The XR20 doesn’t look as sturdy as some other smartphones we’ve seen in the past few months. It is the thinnest in its category at 10.6mm and has a footprint of 171.6 x 81.5mm. It only weighs 248g. Compared to, say, the Oukitel WP10, which is also a rugged 5G smartphone but is 50% heavier and 70% thicker, and has a thickness of 70% more, that is a big difference. The device’s front is made of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, which Nokia says is the toughest screen it has ever put on a smartphone. Near the top edge, where the red emergency button and SIM slot are, there is a tiny pinhole camera.
Even though we could look at Nothing’s official press photos of the Phone 1 before it came out, getting our hands on the device is a much better experience. Overall, the design looks a lot like Apple’s iPhone 12. This is because the Phone 1 has a metal frame with straight sides, rounded corners, a flat front and back, and two cameras on the back. Just make it bigger and put it through an X-ray machine, and you’ll see what we mean. You can buy this smartphone from its official website.
Nokia XR20 vs Nothing Phone 1: Display
The diagonal size of the Nokia XR20’s FHD+ IPS screen is 6.67 inches. If you have small hands, you probably won’t be able to use it with one hand, and the quality isn’t that great either. First of all, it only supports a maximum refresh rate of 60Hz, which is a shame since cheaper phones now support higher refresh rates for a lot less money. The color accuracy is also not great, with an average Delta E of 3.82 (lower is better) and only 85.9% of the sRGB color gamut covered, for a total volume of 102%.
The screen has a not-insignificant bezel around it, but it makes up for it by being the same thickness all the way around. This isn’t always the case and isn’t easy to do from an engineering standpoint, but Nothing was able to do it by using a flexible OLED instead of a cheaper rigid panel. The punch-hole front-facing camera of the phone is in the top-left corner of the screen, and an optical fingerprint sensor is near the bottom edge of the panel, low down.
Nokia XR20 vs Nothing Phone 1: Battery Life
During the course of our review, the Nokia XR20 5G demonstrated an amazing battery life. In everyday situations, we have been able to get approximately 40–44 hours of battery life out of the device, even with heavy “blogger” usage. This requires a significant amount of browsing, streaming, gaming, testing the application.
As well as attending to calls and completing everyday duties. It might be somewhere between 44 and 48 hours in a scenario of somewhat intensive usage, and that is actually quite a remarkable amount of time. The amount of time spent with the screen illuminated normally ranges anywhere from 9 hours to 11 hours depending on the usage scenario.
The Phone (1) comes with a 4500mAh battery, which is another feature that is pretty standard. But the battery life is definitely below average, so we think it was not optimized well. This phone lasts just about a full day, but we wouldn’t want to push it too far, and it’s happened to me once that it ran out early. Like everything else about phones, this will only get worse over time.
Which one should you buy?
Here, we compared two smartphones: the 6.55-inch Nothing Phone (1), which came out on July 12, 2022, and the Nokia XR20, which came out 12 months earlier and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 480. On this page, you can read about each device’s tests, full specs, strengths, and weaknesses.
Nokia XR20: THE GOOD AND THE BAD
The Good
- Android One
- Free one-year screen replacement
The Bad
- Can’t use a microSD card and two SIM cards at the same time
Nothing Phone 1: THE GOOD AND THE BAD
The Good
- 120Hz Smooth OLED Display
- Solid Build Quality
The Bad
- No SD-Card Slot
FAQS
What are the advantages of Nokia XR20?
Other unique features of the Nokia XR20 include a 128GB internal memory that can be expanded up to 512GB with a micro SD card, a 6GB RAM, a powerful 4630 mAh battery with a 2-day battery life and 18W wired fast charging and 15W wireless charging, resistance to dust and water, and USB Type-C connectivity.
How long will Nokia XR20 be supported?
The Nokia XR20 is made to last, and that goes for the inside as well. So, even though it comes with AndroidTM 11, which is the latest, fastest, and safest version, it also comes with up to 3 years of OS updates and 4 years of monthly security updates5.
How strong is Nokia XR20?
It’s clear right away that the Nokia XR20’s most appealing feature is how tough it is. Most modern phones are small and delicate compared to the Nokia XR20. It has a MIL-STD-810H rating, is waterproof to IP68 standards, and has a thick bumper around its aluminum frame to protect it.