Best Nokia phones 2022: find the right Nokia smartphone for you

The best Nokia phones tend to focus on providing consumers with affordable and mid-range options. Nokia doesn’t release as many phones each year as some of its rivals, but it still has lots worth checking out.

We’re still waiting to see if Nokia will branch out into high-end phones as there continue to be rumors about the penta-lens Nokia X50 along with the Nokia 10.

For now though, this list includes the best Nokia phones you can buy right now. This includes the likes of the ageing but consistently excellent Nokia 9 PureView as well as the newer, mid-range Nokia 8.3 5G. 

In recent times, we’ve seen a new number one too in the form of the Nokia XR 20 5G, plus there’s room for the Nokia G50, G11 and G21 too. 

Keep reading to see where they all rank, along with an overview, pros and cons, plus links to their full review.

Don’t forget to check our guides to the best phone, best Android phone, best iPhone, and best cheap phones, if nothing takes your fancy here. 

Best Nokia phones 2022

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The Nokia XR20 5G is rugged yet packs in a good-looking design. It’s a remarkably thin phone for a rugged design with the front offering Corning Gorilla Glass Victus for extra safety. 

Besides its military grade level of protection, it offers some reasonable power with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 chipset powering the 6.67-inch display. The display offers a resolution of 2400 x 1080 and it looks reasonably sharp. 

Elsewhere, you get a rear camera of 48MP+13MP with a front camera of 8MP for selfie-taking. The true highlight though is its use of Android One so you get a super clean interface, just how Google wants you to see it. It’s the purest way of enjoying Android right now and it’s perfect if you want simplicity backed up with fast 5G speeds, a hardy build, without worrying about extra features. 

Read our in-depth Nokia XR20 5G review.

The Nokia 8.3 5G offers some strong specs for the price with a large 6.81-inch display that’s ideal for watching movies while on the move or playing games. With a chunky battery lfe, it’ll last you all day too, even if you are enjoying that extra screen space to its fullest. 

There’s a dedicated Google Assistant button that invariably gets in the way and proves annoying, but otherwise, the Nokia 8.3 5G is reasonably well designed if unremarkable looking. Similarly, while the camera setup sounds impressive on paper, the macro sensor is rather mediocre so we wouldn’t recommend this one for avid photographers.

Still, the Nokia 8.3 5G is an ideal Nokia-flavored option if you’re desperate to try out 5G. With its strong battery life and large display, it should keep most people happy, despite its flaws. 

Read our in-depth Nokia 8.3 5G review

The Nokia 7.2 is a solid mid-range phone, but it struggles to stand out in the sea of Nokia Android devices. That said, it has smooth performance, a premium design and good quality main cameras. 

Unfortunately the wide-angle camera is not up to scratch, which is disappointing when that can be a fun shooter to use. It is also a very slow phone to charge up and isn’t waterproof.

But the Android One version of Android 9 Pie is a godsend, with attractive stock design and a guaranteed two years of OS updates and three years of security updates, which is as good as the Google Pixel line.

Read our in-depth Nokia 7.2 review

The Nokia G50 is a cheap way of enjoying 5G while still offering you up to two days of battery life. Like with other Nokia phones, it has a a clean Android build so it’s a delight to use even if it isn’t the fastest of phones. A Snapdragon 480 chipset is competent but not much more.

Similarly, the 6.82-inch LCD is large and bright but offers only a functional 720p resolution with 60Hz refresh rate so it’s hardly thrilling. 

Camera performance is similarly adequate with the 48MP main sensor working well with solid images quality, but the moment you step into low-light scenarios, it suffers.

At this price though, everything works well even if nothing truly excels. 

Read our in-depth Nokia G50 review

Considering it only costs £149 the Nokia 5.3 performs well with a Snapdragon 665 and Android One, the bloatware-free, clean version of Android that guarantees you two years of updates. 

The screen isn’t great though at only 720p, and you won’t want to go anywhere near high-end mobile games as the phone will likely struggle. But the cameras are surprisingly decent and the clean, simple design is a perk.

With a rear mounted fingerprint sensor, headphone jack, and decent battery life, this is by no means a bad phone, but be aware that while it handles the basics well you won’t want to push it too hard. 

Read our in-depth Nokia 5.3 review

The Nokia 9 PureView is Nokia’s most recent flagship phone, even though it’s years old – the company just hasn’t made a newer one since. The handset comes with cutting-edge features to match. In particular, it comes with one important feature (or five depending on how you count it) in the form of its five-sensor rear camera, which is the most we’ve seen in a smartphone.

We found this great fun to test out – even though it’s not the best camera phone in the world, it’s a novel attempt to take that trophy nonetheless.

It’s not exactly an expensive phone either, compared to some of the flagships you can buy today, so if you want a photographic smartphone powerhouse without taking a chunk out of your bank account, this may be the phone for you.

The Nokia 9 PureView has problems, as most phones do, and we had issues with the way it sits in the hand, as well as with its middling features outside of the camera department. But with several years of price cuts, we’re sure you can look past that.

Read our in-depth Nokia 9 PureView review

The Nokia G11 is pretty slow when it comes to anything other than basic tasks but it has a surprisingly nice 6.5-inch screen with a smooth 90Hz refresh rate. That’s the highlight of the show but the Nokia G11 still works well enough.

It comes with a clean install of Android 11, avoiding the risk of bloat and it simply works. Simple being the key word here, right down to its functional triple-lens setup of a 13MP wide lens, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth sensor.

However, if you’re looking for a cheap yet effective phone that is light on bloat yet surprisingly robust in design, the Nokia G11 does the job without any fuss. 

Read our in-depth Nokia G11 review

The Nokia G21 is a good choice if battery life and low costs are essential. It’s pretty slow if you expect to game on it but you do get up to three days of battery life in exchange. 

If you simply want a functional phone, the Nokia G21 does the job. It has a camera that takes passable shots in daylight albeit in a somewhat limited fashion, but HDR helps out here.

However, on the plus side, despite a somewhat dim screen, it also offers a 90Hz refresh rate and a functional design that’s reliably robust and offers up a side-mounted fingerprint scanner. 

At this price, you can’t expect too much but the Nokia G21 works well enough as a basic smartphone. 

Read our in-depth Nokia G21 review

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Tom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.

He graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist.