Nokia T21 review

Triple jump. Nokia’s T21 is supposed to be just as suitable for gaming as it is for working and video chats. Even with the 4G module, the Android-12 tablet is available for well under 300 Euros. Alternatively, it can also be rented. We will find out whether the mix is right in the test.

Manuel Masiero, ? Florian Schmitt, ✓ Anton Avdyushkin (translated by DeepL / Ninh Duy), Published 01/19/2023 ?? ?? …

Note: The manufacturer may use components from different suppliers including display panels, drives or memory sticks with similar specifications.

Externally, you do not notice that Nokia’s T21 has an MSRP of less than 300, because it feels quite high-quality and sturdy. The frame and the back of the 10.36-inch tablet, which is relatively light at 466 grams, are made of aluminum. A slightly lighter strip of plastic runs across the entire long side of the back cover, which helps improve the transition between materials and haptics. This gives the Nokia T21 a chic two-tone design. The lighter stripe also features the Nokia lettering and the 8 MP main camera including flash.

Nokia’s T21 is protected by resistant glass on the front, but the manufacturer does not provide more detailed information about its protective properties. The IPS screen’s 2000 x 1200 pixels resolution is just as high as that of the Nokia T20 and is framed on all sides by an approximately 1-centimeter wide bezel. The IP certification has also remained the same: Nokia’s T21 is protected against dust and splash water according to IP52, but it is not waterproof.

Nokia only offers the T21 in one color combination called “Charcoal Gray”.

      Xiaomi Redmi Pad       Teclast T40 Pro       Nokia T20       Nokia T21       Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 2022       Huawei MatePad T10S       DIN A5 250.38 mm / 9.86 inch 157.98 mm / 6.22 inch 7.05 mm / 0.2776 inch 445 g0.981 lbs248 mm / 9.76 inch 157 mm / 6.18 inch 9.2 mm / 0.3622 inch 480 g1.058 lbs247.6 mm / 9.75 inch 157.5 mm / 6.2 inch 7.8 mm / 0.3071 inch 470 g1.036 lbs247.5 mm / 9.74 inch 157.3 mm / 6.19 inch 7.5 mm / 0.2953 inch 466 g1.027 lbs246.8 mm / 9.72 inch 161.9 mm / 6.37 inch 6.9 mm / 0.2717 inch 508 g1.12 lbs240.2 mm / 9.46 inch 159 mm / 6.26 inch 7.85 mm / 0.3091 inch 450 g0.992 lbs210 mm / 8.27 inch 148 mm / 5.83 inch 1 mm / 0.03937 inch 2.9 g0.00639 lbs

Instead of buying the tablet, you can also rent it from the manufacturer. This is possible via Nokia’s Circular subscription model. In the case of the T21, it is priced at 15 Euros per month and can be canceled with a 3-month notice period. If the tablet is returned, another subscriber receives it in line with the sustainability claim. According to the manufacturer, older devices will not end up in landfills, but will either be recycled or donated to charity.

With a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a USB-C port (USB 2.0, USB-OTG compatible), and a microSD slot that can accommodate cards up to 512 GB in size, the physical interfaces of our WiFi test version are quickly listed. In the 4G variant, an additional nano-SIM card fits in the microSD slot. Thanks to the support of DRM Widevine L1, the tablet also plays HD web streams in every variant – a feature that was not available in the predecessor Nokia T20 (Widevine L3).

With our microSD reference card Angelbird AV Pro V60, the microSD reader of the Nokia T21 achieves a solid performance. The sequential read and write rates of 72.3 MByte/s and 37 MByte/s, respectively, are slightly better than in the Nokia T20 however, there are somewhat stronger performance drops in sequential reading. The Nokia is fast in the copy test and is only beaten by the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 2022.

The T21 runs a largely pure Android 12, which Nokia has only enriched with a handful of third-party apps like Amazon Shopping, Netflix, Spotify, and ExpressVPN. The tools are found in the Apps folder on the home screen and can be uninstalled when not needed.

The software repertoire also includes Nokia’s support app My Device as well as the app Kids Space, which parents can use to provide their offspring with child-friendly content. Also preloaded are two apps tailored for pen input: Sign Pro PDF (insert signatures and annotations into documents) and the note-taking and drawing app Bamboo Paper.

Nokia promises to provide its tablet with monthly security updates for 3 years. This is counted from the date of market launch (November 2022). In addition, the T21 is supposed to enjoy two Android operating system upgrades. At the time of testing in early January, the tablet received a system update that brought the Android security patches up to December 2022.

The mobile version of Nokia’s T21 supports WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 as well as NFC and 10 LTE bands. That is not enough for worldwide use, but there should not be any LTE reception problems at least in the EU region. The Wi-Fi version of the tablet lacks NFC, which leaves Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 as communication channels.

Connected to our reference router Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000, the tablet achieves a good and largely stable WLAN data throughput. With up to 360 MBit/s, it is exactly in the performance range that can also be expected from WiFi 5. Nokia’s T21 can thus hold its ground well against the competition.

Nokia’s T21 finds its current position with the help of the satellite navigation systems GPS, Glonass, and Beidou. However, it does not succeed in capturing a signal from the satellite indoors in the test. This changes outdoors, but the accuracy is not too high with a radius of 15 meters around our location.

This does not change much in the practical test. On a short bike ride, Nokia’s T21 tends to locate us beside the track rather than on it. Overall, however, it still delivers a relatively useful precision for everyday use.

Image Comparison

Choose a scene and navigate within the first image. One click changes the position on touchscreens. One click on the zoomed-in image opens the original in a new window. The first image shows the scaled photograph of the test device.

Main cameraMain cameraLowlight

We take another close look at the Nokia T21’s main camera in the test lab. It reproduces the test chart quite sharply in optimal lighting conditions. It reproduces the reference colors of the Colorchecker test chart relatively accurately except for darker greens, browns, and blues. However, the color chart and test chart disappear in the dark with 1 lux of residual light.

The Nokia T21’s scope of delivery includes a USB cable (type A to C), a SIM tool, a safety brochure, and a quick start guide. A suitable power adapter – the tablet supports a maximum of 18 watts of charging current – has to be found by the user. You can find one in Nokia’s webshop, where you can choose from power adapters, speakers, headphones, and a flip cover for the T21.

Nokia offers a 24-month warranty for the T21. The manufacturer also offers a 1-year warranty extension for its tablet for an additional charge. However, we could only select it for the LTE variant of the T21 in Nokia’s web store at the time of testing.

Nokia’s tablet can be operated quite smoothly in everyday use. However, you will notice that the hardware in the T21 chassis is not particularly fast. For example, it can sometimes take a while until apps are loaded, menus appear, or switching from one app to the next is done.

Nokia’s T21 is compatible with third-party styluses that use Wacom’s WGP or Wacom Active ES 2.0 pen technology. However, you will have to look for a suitable stylus yourself because Nokia does not include its own stylus with its tablet and does not offer one in the web store.

The T21 does not have a fingerprint sensor. Biometric authentication is only possible via the 2D face scan, which works quickly and smoothly in sufficiently bright ambient light.

Nokia’s T21 is equipped with practically the same IPS panel that was already used in the Nokia T20. The resolution of 2000 x 1200 pixels is identical, and there are only minor differences in brightness and picture quality. Only the contrast of our test device is noticeably worse than Nokia’s T20 with a weak 682:1.

The tablet screen shines with an average of 381.6 cd/m² and thus does not have too many bright reserves like its predecessor. However, the other comparison devices in this price range are hardly brighter.

The Nokia T21 is well suited for sensitive users because it does not use pulse width modulation for brightness control.

* … smaller is better

Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)

Screen flickering / PWM not detected
In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 19480 (minimum: 5 – maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured.

The IPS panel’s display is too cool in the default setting, but this can be remedied with a manual white balance in the display settings.

However, users cannot influence the other picture parameters. Thus, you have to live with the already mentioned poor contrast ratio, which makes the color reproduction look pretty pale. The accuracy of the color and grayscale reproduction could also be better, but this should not be noticed in everyday use in contrast to the low contrast.

Display Response Times

↔    Response Time Black to White
27 ms … rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined	↗ 13 ms rise
	↘ 14 ms fall
The screen shows relatively slow response rates in our tests and may be too slow for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.4 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 59 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (22.7 ms).
↔    Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey
84 ms … rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined	↗ 62 ms rise
	↘ 22 ms fall
The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.25 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 99 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (35.8 ms).

Thanks to the good viewing angles of the IPS display, Nokia’s T21 can also be used outdoors. However, due to the not exactly lush display brightness, content can only be read without problems when using the tablet in a shady place or under an overcast sky.

With the UNISOC T612 and 4 GB of RAM, Nokia’s T21 offers a typical configuration for the class. The tablet is not a speed miracle, but it can hold its own well against the competition. Websites also load quite quickly and the eMMC flash memory is a bit faster than in many competitors.

However, the Nokia T21 is only faster than its predecessor in a few places – in some synthetic benchmarks like AnTuTu and in the browser benchmarks, which is probably due to the newer Chrome version in the latter case.

In the graphics benchmarks, on the other hand, the Nokia T21 usually ends up in last place. This is due to its ARM graphics chip Mali-G52 MP1 which only has one processing core and is thus the slowest variant of the G52 series. The Nokia T20 scores better in the graphics benchmarks because it is equipped with the ARM Mali-G52 MP2. This graphics unit clocks higher than the MP1 and also has 2 cores.

* … smaller is better