Encouraged by its first year-on-year worldwide quarterly sales growth since 2019, HMD Global has been keeping busy lately, unveiling several new affordable smartphones and even cheaper feature phones under the Nokia brand.
Unfortunately, that’s probably not what we can expect to see announced on July 27, but on the decidedly bright side of things, you will apparently “never need a case again” with HMD’s “newest Nokia phone.” While we generally recommend buying a nice protective case along with almost any type of new handset, there’s a very good chance the next Nokia-branded smartphone will rock a rugged design and thus not require extra protection out of the box.
Today’s seemingly cryptic July 27 launch event teaser may in fact confirm a strong family resemblance between this upcoming device and the recently released Nokia X20. Possibly dubbed XR20, the extra-robust new phone is likely to borrow the quad rear-facing camera arrangement from its more traditional-looking cousin, as well as a middling Snapdragon 480 processor.
If the Nokia XR20 doesn’t end up changing the X20’s imaging specifications, it’s obviously unlikely to see it make our list of the best camera phones of 2021, with a 64MP primary shooter joined by a relatively modest 5MP ultra-wide-angle lens, as well as largely useless 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensors.
But if HMD’s main promise pans out and you really will not need to purchase a case to protect the XR20, this undoubtedly affordable bad boy does have a good chance of featuring on our 2021 list of the best budget 5G phones out there.
That’s right, we fully expect 5G speeds to be part of the package here, although official US availability is obviously not guaranteed. In case you’re wondering, the Nokia X20 is not up for grabs stateside, and neither is the lower-end and lower-cost X10.
