Nokia T20 Tablet Review: Can It Beat Samsung?

Nokia is making tablets again? Yes, they are indeed, at least their name is used for it. The Nokia T20 is an entry-level tablet that costs around 230 Dollars and for that, we get a 10-inch full HD screen, a metal body, as well as vanilla Android 11. This price class has lots of competitors, however, so how does it compete against the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7, A8, and others? That’s what you’ll learn in this review.

Design & Built Quality

We start with the design and that’s certainly one of the plus points of the Nokia T20. We’re getting a metal body that is premium-feeling and has a nice metallic blue color. On the top, there’s a plastic part for the antennas and that’s where the volume rockers and microSD card slot are placed.

There’s a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the right side, as well as a USB C port. It’s 7.8mm thin and weighs 465g.

No, we don’t get a fingerprint scanner. But you can unlock it using the webcam and facial recognition which works fine but is not that secure. The front-facing camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels and the main camera has 8 megapixels and an LED flash. Considering its price, both are pretty good.

Display & Speakers

The Nokia T20 tablet has a 10.4-inch display with a resolution of 2000 x 1200 pixels. It’s an IPS screen with good viewing angles and the resolution is high enough so that texts and icons look sharp. There are no higher-resolution screens in this price class anyways.

I think the contrast is fine. But I noticed that the screen has a bit of a blue tint to it. In the settings, you can adjust the white balance a bit. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 has a very similar blue tint and it could be that both screens are the same ones.

Active pens are not supported. And it’s a bit disappointing that the T20 has a Widevine Level of L3. That means you cannot watch Netflix with HD resolution. You’re stuck in SD quality.

On its sides, the Nokia T20 has two speakers in total and you can hear a real stereo separation. The sound quality is fine for its price but it could be better. In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 is noticeably louder.

Hardware & Performance

Inside the Nokia T20 tablet sits a pretty rare UNISOC Tiger T610 processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage. There’s a version with integrated LTE as well.

You can see in my benchmark comparison that the graphics performance of the Nokia T20 in Geekbench 5 is above the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7. However, that competitor has a better CPU multi-core performance. In the 3D Mark Wild Life Test, the graphics performance from Nokia is better again. The new Samsung Galaxy Tab A8, which I just started to review, is a tiny bit faster though.

My gaming test confirms those benchmark results. I was able to play PUBG Mobile with HD graphics and that game runs great and looks great with those settings. On the Samsung A7, you can select balanced settings only, so one setting below the Nokia. With that being said, the Samsung A8 can handle HD graphics too.

Read: The Best Tablets For Under 200 USD

The operating system itself runs surprisingly smooth. I think that’s due to the solid chipset but also because we get standard vanilla Android for the most part. Sure, it’s not as smooth as a premium tablet. But it does run very well for its price class and multitasking is possible too.

Software: Android 11

Let’s get to the software. The Nokia T20 tablet ships with Android 11 without a custom UI. It’s vanilla Android including tons of pre-installed Google apps and the Google Entertainment Space. With that one, you get an overview of your entertainment content from Netflix, Prime Video, Kindle books, YouTube, and others. The Google Kids Space is included too which is a kids mode.

Some other apps are pre-installed like ExpressVPN, Netflix, Spotify, and the Amazon Shopping App. Those are ads, of course, which are free anyway and you can just uninstall them.

Read: The Best Android Tablets Tested

How is Nokia going to handle updates? We don’t have any reference here, so it’s unclear if it’ll ever get Android 12 or 13. Samsung is very good with updates and usually releases two or three. And if you get a Lenovo tablet, you often get one as well. But I have no idea how Nokia will handle this.

Battery Life

In my standard battery test the Nokia T20 got a runtime of 6 hours. For this, I’m always looping an HD YouTube video with maximum brightness.

Nokia T20 Review: Final Verdict

So, is the Nokia T20 a good tablet? Well, it’s at least a solid one. The built quality is great for its price, the graphics performance is good, and I love that we get pretty pure vanilla Android. Other aspects like its screen and speakers are fine for its price but could be better.

I do think it’s very disappointing that you can’t watch Netflix in HD quality. And I doubt that it’ll get many software updates. Usually, smaller brands like this don’t care much about it. I could be wrong though.

As I said, the Nokia T20 is a solid tablet. But it’s lacking a unique selling point, like why would you get it? I think the competition especially from Samsung is a bit better at a similar price. Let’s check out those alternatives.

Depending on the sales you can find, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 and the newer Galaxy Tab A8 can be great alternatives. While the Galaxy Tab A7 has a weaker graphics performance, the A8 is a bit faster. Other aspects like their screens and built quality are very similar but the speakers are a bit better. And you can watch HD Netflix on both Samsung and I’m pretty sure they’ll get much longer updates. On a negative note, the Samsung tablets start with 32GB storage only.

If you want another affordable tablet with 64GB of storage you can check out the Lenovo Tab P11 which is a bit pricier. The performance is on a similar level as the Samsung A7. It has a good and a bit bigger 11-inch screen, almost pure Android too, as well as a metal body. Here you can get an official keyboard cover and even an active pen if you like. While it’s been released with Android 10, it got an update to Android 11 already but I don’t think it’ll get Android 12.

Cheaper alternatives are the Amazon Fire HD 10 and Fire HD 10 Plus. Here we get Amazon’s Android without the Google Play Store and cheaper-feeling plastic body. However, the 10-inch screens are good, HD Netflix is supported, and the performance is on a similar level as the Nokia. They are a great alternative if you want to save some money and are using all of Amazon’s services anyways. They’re deeply integrated into the software.