Best daily deals

Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. Learn more.

The latest budget Nokia phone doesn't have an in-box charger

We've seen flagship phones ditch the in-box charger but this trend is now hitting a budget phone.
By
April 22, 2021
nokia x20
HMD Global
TL;DR
  • The budget-focused Nokia X20 doesn’t come with an in-box charger.
  • It’s unclear if this is a decision for specific markets or all regions.

HMD confirmed that the new Nokia X series smartphones would be getting three years of Android version updates, much like we saw with Samsung’s phones. But it turns out that HMD is hopping on another recent trend with this series.

TechDroider (h/t: XDA-Developers) noticed that HMD isn’t including a charger in the box for the Nokia X20 phone. Check out the tweet below.

“There’s no plastic wall charger included, and with the 100% compostable case, we’ve reduced the ecological impact of Nokia X20,” reads an explanation of the decision on the phone’s webpage, under a sustainability heading.

HMD isn’t the first phone brand to make this decision, as Apple and Samsung have removed the charger from their boxes. Xiaomi also removed the charger from the Mi 11 box in China but allowed users to request a box with a charger at no extra cost.

What do you think of in-box chargers being removed from budget phones?

307 votes

We’ve asked HMD whether this is a one-off decision, if it’s a general move or for certain regions only, and whether the company will allow users to request a charger at no extra cost. We’ll update the article if/when they respond to us.

In any event, it’s also interesting to note HMD is doing this for a budget-focused phone. People who buy a budget device might not want to (or be able to) splash out extra on a charger in the first place. So they might look at alternative budget devices from the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi, and others instead (which do ship with chargers).

People in the market for a wallet-friendly phone like this might also still be using a device with microUSB. In fact, we saw Nokia phones released with microUSB as recently as this year with the Nokia 1.4. It’s unclear whether the USB-C charging cable would be included in the Nokia X20 box, but consumers wouldn’t be able to use their old charging cable with the new phone if they still have a microUSB-toting device.