What’s one brand name in the mobile industry that very few people are unfamiliar with? We are talking about the handsets that literally ruled the world until a few years back. Nokia’s rugged smartphone's early dominance goes back to the time when people didn't talk about what brand, it was just about the number, 3210, or other series released.

Nokia became a household name, be it the snake game, the heavy bulky handsets, or the Nokia rugged smartphone, chances are that if you ask your parents about their first handset, it would be a Nokia. Synonymous with mobile phones around the world, Do you know that Nokia’s history goes all the way back to the 1850s? The company helped make cellular phones popular and was for decades the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer.

Nokia smartphones still paddling

The brand has time and again proved themselves to be game-changers in terms of innovation and technology. They aren't leaving any stones unturned to gain back their market dominance and win the love and attention of their customers. While most of Nokia’s products were game-changers in themselves, Nokia 9000 Communicator was a wonder launched in 1992.

They followed it up with the spectacular Nokia 6100 series (with the world's first Snake game pre-installed) was launched. This resulted in knocking-down the then competition, Motorola, and becoming the world’s top cellular phone maker. There hasn’t been any looking back for the company since then. Nokia made sure to stay in constant touch with its audience. It stayed true to its first motto- Connecting People. The Nokia 2100 series, which featured Nokia ringtone making it one of the most recognizable models of all time.

Nokia XR 20 - The upcoming nokia’s rugged smartphone

Nokia is trying to make an impressive comeback with Nokia XR20 as an all-new Nokia smartphone with a rugged build that is designed to withstand drops and can resist water. Nokia XR20 price starts at $879 for the 6GB RAM + 128 GB storage configuration. The users have the option to choose from eccentric colours Granite and Ultra Blue shades that ups the style game for the brand.

To reveal some of the more insights and give you a glimpse on the features:

• The phone comes with a 6.67-inch full-HD+ display and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection. That’s not all. Here is the surprise, the display is also designed to work with wet hands and gloves.
• Nokia XR 20 has a dual rear camera setup that houses a 48-megapixel primary sensor and a 13-megapixel ultra-wide shooter.
• The Nokia XR20 includes up to 128GB of onboard storage.
• Sensors on board include an accelerometer, ambient light, barometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, and a proximity sensor.

Nokia 800 - The previous rugged attempt

This isn't the first time that the brand has tried to recapture the market share with the launch of rugged smartphones. Nokia 800, a rugged feature phone was launched in 2019 with dust and water resistance. It is claimed to be 'dust tight' and can handle submersion in up to 1.5 meters of water for up to half an hour. It can survive being dropped -- onto concrete from up to 1.8 metres.
However, there were many downsides that were highlighted after the launch. Users started highlighting that typing out texts seemed excruciatingly slow. The brand defends the large buttons by saying that these were large in order to accommodate glove-wearing users, but they are closely spaced, which makes it a challenge to type out any message at speed.The battery life measured in weeks not days was a saviour but it definitely fell short of user expectations of being just a rugged, solid handset.

Strong competitors for nokia’s new one

Nokia Mobile entered the niche of rugged smartphones which is not yet explored by many known brands. It is dominated by known brands like CAT, Nokia, ulefone or lesser-known brands like Dogee. While there are some heavily engineered smartphones for incredibly rough environments, such as the CAT phones from Caterpillar. CAT S61 64GB 4G LTE available on BuyMobile is the tough and rugged smartphone with the perfect durability features is a very strong competitor to Nokia’s XR20.Whereas ulefone armour 10 and dooge s96 pro are other popular tough phones that nokia has to beat.

From the same brand, Nokia G20 which is a new 2021-released smartphone features seamless design and elegant yet stylish look and Nokia X10 - Nokia X10 (Dual SIM 6GB RAM 128GB 5G) features seamless design and offers tough competition.