Nokia C21 and C21 Plus announced with metal frames and 6.5" displays

2022-02-28

HMD introduced its first Nokia C-series phone in 2020 and in the short time since the affordable Android Go Edition phones have become quite popular. They already account for 16% of the company’s total smartphone sales in the last 5 years. Here come a couple of new units to strengthen the company’s portfolio.

Nokia C21 Plus

The Nokia C21 Plus is pretty upscale as C-phones go with a metal chassis and an IP52 rating, a first for the series. It also has a toughened glass over the display (brand unknown).

Nokia C21 Plus in Warm Grey and Dark Cyan

Speaking of the display, it is a large 6.5” panel with 720 x 1,600 px resolution (20:9). The phone runs a clean Android 11 Go Edition and will receive quarterly security patches for two years.

The phone is powered by the Unisoc SC9863A chipset (28 nm, eight Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.6 GHz and a PowerVR GE8322 GPU). It is paired with 2GB, 3GB or 4GB of RAM plus 32GB or 64GB storage and there is a microSD slot available (it’s a dedicated slot on the dual-SIM version).

Nokia C21 Plus with a 6.5" 720 x 1,600 px display (20:9) with toughened glass

The 5MP selfie camera can be used for face unlocking. Alternatively, there is a fingerprint reader on the back. Also here is a 13 MP main camera (with AF) plus a 2MP depth sensor and an LED flash.

Nokia C21 Plus with a 13+2 MP camera on the back and 5 MP selfie cam on the front

Interestingly, there are two versions of the C21 Plus. One has a 5,050 mAh battery for three day battery life, the other is lighter with a 4,000 mAh battery capacity for two day battery life. In either case you get a 10W charger (that works over microUSB) in the retail package.

Nokia C21

The Nokia C21 is a more affordable version of the plus. It has the same 6.5” display (720 x 1,600 px) and the metal frame plus toughened glass. There’s no official IP rating on this one, however.

The phone is powered by the same Unisoc chipset, except this time the choices for RAM capacity are limited to 2GB or 3GB, storage is again either 32GB or 64GB. The dedicated microSD slot remains as does the commitment for 2 years of security patches.

One of the major differences here is the battery – it has only 3,000 mAh capacity, 25% less than even the lower capacity version of the C21 Plus. Also, it only supports charging at 5W (and comes with a 5W charger and microUSB cable).

Nokia C21 in Warm Grey and Dark Blue