The relevance of a tablet in the tech marketplace has been so enormous. In existence of Apple has changed the narrative around iPads in the past few years. But the pandemic put the spotlight back on “affordable” tablets and created a strong use case in the online education space.
The new Nokia T20 makes the most impact, while still keeping the price affordable for the masses to afford a device like this.
Here are basic perceptions on Nokia T20 and what the device tends to fits more in the affordable end of the tablet mark.
Design and Aesthetics:
- HMD Global has given a modern look to the Nokia T20, making the design relevant at least for a few more years.
- The tablet is soft to touch, has curved edges, and is constructed out of aluminum.
- If you use a tablet as a consumption device – to read books, browse the web or watch Netflix.
- It’s quite thin, so I can easily slide this into my bag.
- The power button is placed on the top and the volume rocker right next to it on the top of the right edge.
- This type of button placement works both in horizontal and landscape usage.
- The gesture navigation works beautifully on the Nokia T20, as I felt the experience is similar to what you get on Android smartphones.
Display and Speakers:
- The 10.4-inch screen has a pixel resolution of 2000 x 1200, with a maximum brightness rate of 400 nits.
- The display is certainly good for the price range.
- It’s not suitable for creative tasks such as photo editing but I had no trouble watching movies and reading e-Books on the Nokia T20’s screen.
- My only issue with the display is the inconsistent auto-brightness feature.
- The tablet’s display keeps dimming even when the auto-brightness is turned off.
- I hope this can be fixed via a software update.
- The Nokia T20 has two speakers that sound loud and clear.
- They aren’t as good as the ones on the iPad Air (2020).
- To most people, this isn’t much of a big deal since they can always plug in their regular headphones or wireless earbuds for superior sound quality.
Performance and Battery:
- The Nokia T20 is powered by the Unisoc T610 system-on-chip, which is equivalent to something like the Snapdragon 600 series.
- Performance-wise, I don’t see a huge difference between the Nokia T20 and other tablets running on a Snapdragon processor, which is impressive.
- The Nokia T20 has enough power to run anything you want to do on a tablet, be it emailing, running kids-focused apps, playing light games, or just browsing the web.
- Clearly, the tablet is not made for multitasking; rather it is a media consumption-only device.
- The tablet is available in two configurations, one with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage and the other with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage.
- The latter variant, which costs a little more than the base version, comes with 4G support. Both variants have a microSD card slot for memory expansion.
- The battery lasted roughly about 7 hours on a single charge.
- This is nowhere close to 15 hours claimed by the company.
- I think the battery will last slightly longer depending on the usage which varies from person to person.
- The tablet takes over 3 hours to fully charge with the included 15W USB-C power adapter.
Android is not the most fluid operating system for tablets, and Google knows it well. With the Nokia T20, you are getting Android 11 with no customized touch added to improve the user experience. The software is essentially the same as that on other Android smartphones.
I wish HMD Global had thought of tweaking the interface aimed at kids, which made a lot of sense. However, the tablet does come preloaded with Google Kids Space, which opens a new way to experience content tailored for kids. As HMD Global always promises with its devices, you get 2 OS updates and 3 years of security updates included.
Nokia T20 review: Should you buy it?
Nokia T20 has been purposefully designed, and it reflects on the current landscape of e-learning, thanks to the global pandemic. The Nokia T20 may be a budget tablet but it feels right for the price. After a long time, I have seen a device from HMD Global that performs the way it has been advertised.
