Nokia, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, is back with its first offering: the Nokia T20 tablet. This affordable device was optimized for basic tasks as well as being commercial-ready. We like its long-lasting battery and Nokia’s commitment to several years of software updates. We would like to recommend the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus but can’t due to its lackluster display. Our Editors’ Choice winner for affordable tablets, the $259.99 Lenovo Tab P11 Plus, has a much better screen and top-notch speakers for nearly the same price.
It Looks Like a Big Nokia Phone
Nokia’s lineup of smartphones is known for its pragmatic design language, and the T20 maintains this tradition, albeit in tablet form. From its bezels to its matte blue aluminum back panel, everything about this device looks and feels like a stand-out.
This laptop is small, with a sleek design and an aluminum back. It’s easy to carry around and its weight is evenly distributed.
The 2018 model of the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus has a sleek, modern design that you’ll love. It’s 10.4-inch LCD display provides 2,000 by 1,200 pixel resolution for crisp and clear viewing of your favorite apps. It’s important that you know a few things about the cell phone you’re considering buying. Nokia is a Finnish company and has been around since 1865. It was once one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers in the world until they began outsourcing their work to Chinese companies in 2015. The blue-leaning color tone is likely coming from an underglow feature on the device and viewing.
White balance settings can be adjusted in the settings, but this doesn’t actually help too much. This is because adaptive brightness mode is overly sensitive and changes drastically as you tilt your camera. We turned off this mode after differentiating between the low and high values was impossible. Eye Comfort mode doesn’t work in conjunction with custom white balance settings, and gives the display a custom color profile that can best be described as tobacco-stained. The only positive thing we can say about the T20’s display is that it is fairly bright.
There is a small oval camera module that sits in the upper left corner of the back of the tablet. It eventually leads to a Nokia logo. The top edge includes a power button and a small speaker grille. Like the similarly priced Lenovo Tab P11 Plus, Nokia doesn’t integrate a Fingerprint Sensor into the power button, so you have to rely on a PIN, a passcode, or Android’s iffy Face Unloc
The left edge of the tablet is bare, while the right side houses a volume rocker, a microSD slot, and a few tiny holes we can only guess are for specialized accessories,though none are offered on Nokia’s site. The microSD tray looks like it has room for a SIM, but the US version of the T20 doesn’t support cellular connectivity.
The bottom edge is home to a USB-C charging port and an additional speaker grille, while a 3.5mm headphone jack sits on the curved bottom left corner. We think this is the perfect spot for a headphone jack because it’s less conducive to water damage than top-mounted alternatives, and far enough away from the USB-C port to prevent your headphone cord from tangling with the charging cable.
The Lenovo Tab P11 Plus is a big, beautiful device that delivers great audio quality. Unfortunately, its speakers are no match for the T20’s superior ones. Although it can’t fill a room as loudly as the latter tablet, both machines have a maximum volume of 92dB and an even sound quality setup. The speakers produce a limited soundstage and tend to push the mids slightly forward, but the lower and upper frequencies never come across muffled or thin. Bluetooth 5.0 is also onboard for wireless audio.
Capable Performance, Long Battery Life
Powered by a 7nm Intel Core i5 processor and with 4GB RAM, the T20 is one of the best laptops in its class. It starts with 64GB of storage and can be supplemented up to 512GB using a microSD card slot.
You may not have heard of Qualcomm or MediaTek, but Unisoc is a company that you should definitely know about. It has been successful in the budget market for a long time and has significant influence around the world. The chipsets from different companies are difficult to compare since, for instance, the core configuration of several different chips all have the same speed and most of their technologies are similar. While processors for AI and machine learning tasks can be a good way to try and tell what kind of system you might be getting, it’s hard to say whether one is better or worse. If we compare the Unisoc T610 to other chips in its class, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 is pretty comparable in terms of performance.
In any case, apps open quickly on the T20 and we didn’t notice any lag when swiping between screens. We also didn’t experience any slowdown with over a dozen apps running in the background. You might notice some caching, however, once you open more than a dozen Chrome tabs.
There is a lot of skepticism in regards to whether the all-new T20, Lenovo’s newest gaming tablet, would be capable or not for gaming. However, our time gave us an opportunity to give it a try and we were pleasantly surprised with how well it ran. We were able to play Alto’s Odyssey straight through without experiencing any lag or frame. Genshin Impact, a game with less hardware requirements than most released in recent years, was slow to start and had dropped frames.
While benchmarks aren’t indicative of everyday performance, they’re useful for quantifying differences between devices. On Geekbench 5, a suite of tests that measures raw power, the T20 earned a score of 347 for single-core performance (SC) and 1,542 for multi-core performance (MC). Apple iPads are the best in regards to playing games. If you’re on a budget, they will most likely be the tablet you need and own.
The T20’s 8MP camera won’t compete with any other smartphone in the market, but it can be a great accessory for scanning documents or QR codes and for taking quick reference shots. Even when it’s not ideal for low light levels, the sensor still works well enough to provide you with high quality pictures. The 5MP front-facing camera is capable of handling conference calls in good lighting conditions, but stutters when outdoors or in low lighting situations. Daylight performance was a bit on the dull side, but not an issue for most popular social apps.
The tablet supports dual-band Wi-Fi with a 5GHz connection and transmitted calls through the Verizon 5G Home Internet router. This is the first one of its kind in tablets, according to XDA Developers. Average speeds from 10ft away are 135Mbps down and 24.1Mbps up. From 25ft away, speeds averaged 77.4 Mbps down and 16.8 Mbps up. The iPhone 13 Pro Max was able to transfer data faster via Wifi than the Ethernet cable and faster when connected just 10 feet away. The fastest speed, however, was achieved from 25 feet away when the Ethernet cable managed a speed of 424Mbps/20.1Mbps.
A hearty 8,200mAh battery inside the T20 can easily get you through a day of heavy use. In our battery drain test, in which we stream HD video over Wi-Fi at full brightness, the T20 lasted for 10 hours and 6 minutes before shutting down. Recharging, however, is a slow affair if you use the 10W adapter that comes in the box; you can speed the process up a little with an optional 15W power adapter.
Updates to Android 13
HMD is currently working on an Android 12L update for their product that is said to be available in the very near future. We do not know the release date for this update, but the company mentioned it briefly.
The new T20 tablet is one of a few tablets that are part of the Android Enterprise program. Businesses can use the device with additional management tools like One-Touch enrollment, and they can compartmentalize work.
Expect a minimum of two years of OS upgrades and three years of monthly security updates. While the OS upgrade policy isn’t quite as generous as what Samsung promises for its newer tablets (not to mention any Apple tablet), it’s better than the current upgrade roadmap for the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus.
Display
The Nokia T20 is a solid budget phone with great performance by price point. Unfortunately, it runs into problems with its LCD screen which may be too difficult to justify the use of this phone. Our top pick for affordable Android tablets would be the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus, which offers a superior 11 inch display, immersive speakers and optional stylus accessories. It costs about the same as most other options on the market as well. If you have decided against Android but still want a tablet for quick, effortless browsing and content creation, the Apple iPad might be the best option for you.