D.Designed to allow the back to be removed and the battery replaced in a matter of minutes, Nokia’s new G22 isn’t the first DIY-repairable smartphone. But the Android phone is the first to come at a cheap price.
Costing less than £170, the new phone has replacement parts already available starting at just £19. The repairable design falls somewhere between the £449 truly modular Fairphone 4 and the £849 iPhone 14, which It has been built to facilitate professional repairs.
At first glance, the G22 is a normal-looking smartphone without any real hint of its repairable nature. But unclip the back of the frame with a simple guitar pick tool and you’ll find that everything is secured with small screws and tabs on the inside. Everything can be taken apart with a little care without the need for things like heating pads, knives, and alcohol, like you would with most other phones.
Finnish firm HMD Global, which makes the phone, has partnered with repair specialists iFixit to produce comprehensive, easy-to-follow guides and sell replacement parts for the G22. Hopefully you’ll never need them, but if you break your screen or drain your battery, you can repair it yourself or access inexpensive professional repair options.
On the outside, the G22 has a simple design. The large 6.5-inch LCD screen on the front isn’t very sharp, but it does have a 90Hz refresh rate, so scrolling and animations are pretty smooth. It was bright enough inside, but it struggled a bit outside in the sunlight. It’s covered in Gorilla Glass 3, which is a much older version of scratch-resistant glass than what’s available on higher-end phones, but it gets the job done if you treat it carefully.
The frame is plastic on the outside and clips seamlessly into the 100% recycled plastic back. It feels a lot better in the hand than you’d expect for the money – a solid piece of equipment.
Specifications
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Screen: 6.5-inch 90Hz HD+ (269ppi)
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Processor: Unisoc T606
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RAM: 4GB
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Storage: 128GB + microSD card
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OS: android 12
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Camera: 50MP, 2MP depth, 2MP macro; 8MP front
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Connectivity: 4G, Wi-Fi 5, NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, 3.5mm headset, FM radio, GNSS
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Waterproof: IP52 (rain)
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Dimensions: 165×76.2×8.5mm
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Weight: 196g
Three day battery life
The G22 has a low-performance chip made by the Chinese company Unisoc. It’s slow by any measure, but it manages to feel snappy enough in general interactions: menus pop up quickly, the phone unlocks quickly, and the keyboard is responsive.
You have to wait a second or two for heavier apps like Evernote to open and load any content. Some sites in Chrome have a hard time loading images as you scroll down the page and you can forget about trying to play Fortnite or anything other than simple games.
What the G22 lacks in raw power, it more than makes up for in long-lasting battery life. The phone lasts a full 72 hours in my tests, racking up over eight hours of active screen usage with five hours on 4G, the rest on Wi-Fi.
Note that the G22 does not support 5G and only has Wi-Fi 5, not the latest 6E. Overall, I found it to be fast enough, but I struggled for a connection in weaker signal areas where other Wi-Fi 6 devices had no problem connecting.
Sustainability
HMD rates the battery to maintain at least 80% of its original capacity for a minimum of 800 full charge cycles. A replacement costs from £22.99. Other parts are also availableincluding the £18.99 charging port, £22.99 back cover and £44.99 screen, while HMD and iFixit post DIY repair guides.
The back is made of 100% recycled plastic. The company publishes environmental reports and offers circular phone subscription, barter and recycling systemseven for non-Nokia phones.
android 12
The phone runs Android 12, which was released in 2021 and is a bit disappointing to see, having been replaced by Android 13 in the summer of 2022. Still, unlike the one used by most smartphone makers, Nokia’s version of Android is very similar. offered by Google directly without major modifications. That makes it fast and neat despite the low-power processor. But it also comes with some unwanted pre-installed third-party apps, including Booking.com and ExpressVPN, all of which can be uninstalled.
HMD will provide two years of major Android version updates and three years of monthly security updates, which is competitive for the price but poor compared to the best on the market, which offer at least five years of software support.
Price
The Nokia G22 comes in blue or gray and costs £169.
For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy M13 costs £169cost the Motorola G13 £149does the Google Pixel 6a cost £399 and the costs of the Fairphone 4 £449.
Verdict
The Nokia G22 is a low-end Android smartphone that stands out from the crowd in two ways. It has a very long three-day battery life and an easier-to-repair design that makes DIY repairs a realistic proposition.
You won’t need specialized heating and prying tools, as the back releases without glue and the components can be unscrewed. You’ll need some more general tools and a screen fix is still quite a laborious affair, but it can be done with enough patience following iFixit’s comprehensive guides. A battery change is so much easier, and you can get these components done at home, which is the first hurdle in any repair. Let’s hope this is the start of a positive trend.
Otherwise, the G22 is a pretty cheap phone. It’s pretty slow, the camera is nothing to write home about, it runs Android 12, not the latest 13, and the 90Hz display is fine, but far from great. It’s nice to see a microSD card slot for adding more memory and a headphone jack. But one of the big disadvantages is a short lifespan of only three years.
No matter how many times you can fix the phone, once it no longer receives security updates, it should not be used.
Advantages: Repairable design with guides and parts available, very long battery life, clean version of Android, camera OK, microSD card slot, headphone jack, low cost.
Cons: slow, average screen, rain resistant only, only three years of software updates.
