It's been a few days since One Plus launched it's new mid-tier phone the One Plus Nord. The One Plus Nord starts at Rs.24999 and does not breach the Rs.30000 price range. In this time of the pandemic, the consumers are splurging to buy these mid-ranged smartphones. One Plus Nord being one of the top competitors received 3 waves of pre-orders even before it was launched. Let's take a look if the One Plus Nord is even worth it's hype.
One Plus Nord Design and Display: It is great!
The One Plus Nord has a different design than the One Plus 8 or the One plus 8 Pro. I guess using an old design wouldn't have helped One Plus attract the crowd's attention. Some aspects of the Nord are similar to Realme or Oppo phones but I guess they all fall in the same category.The One Plus Nord feels great in the hand. It is is not a very premium feel but I find it pretty satisfactory. The back and the front are made up of glass while the frame made of plastic, with a silver anodized coating in order to make it look like metal, but the buttons and the ports are made up of good quality metal with a Type-C charging port. The One Plus Nord comes in two colours: Blue Marble and Grey Onyx. I found the Marble Blue a more refreshing and an intimidating colour. The Nord has a Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back which is pretty reassuring. The screen is a Super Amoled display measuring 6.44 inches with full HD+ Resolution(1080 x 2400) with 90 Hz of Refresh Rate. It does not have any curved edges unlike the One Plus 8 or One Plus 8 Pro.The display overall is good with bright and punchy colours but the build quality is not that great. Since the frame is made up of plastic, the structure of the phone pretty weak.
One Plus Nord Internals and Software: Not a Flagship!
The One Plus Nord comes packed with the new Qualcomm SnapDragon 765 SoC 5G. The SoC is not a direct competition to the flagship Qualcomm SnapDragon 865 but is a good competitor for the SnapDragon 855. Although it promises 30% better graphic rendering than the SnapDragon 730G.
In India, OnePlus is offering three variants of the Nord. There's an Amazon-exclusive variant with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for Rs. 24,999; the one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage is priced at Rs. 27,999, and 12GB of RAM with 256GB of storage will cost you Rs. 29,999.
The phone has a single super-linear speaker at the bottom, an in-display fingerprint sensor, and face unlock authentication. The Nord doesn't have any official IP certification, so I'd be a little careful with it around water. You also get a sizable 4,115 mAh battery, with Warp Charge 30T fast charging.
The One Plus would never be complete without the Oxygen OS. The Oxygen OS has a very user- friendly and simple UI. The Fingerprint animations and the haptics just make it a lot better than before. The Nord comes with 2 years of promised software updates and 3 years of promised security updates. Overall the software is just great!
One Plus Nord Performance: A Deal Breaker!
According to OnePlus, the Nord is supposed to deliver the same fluid and snappy response as its flagship phones, and I have to say, it does a very good job. It is as smooth as the One Plus 8 or the One Plus 8 pro. The Nord is a pretty solid phone in terms of performance. It has 180 Hz of touch sampling rate although is lower than One Plus 8 with 240 Hz.The Snapdragon 765G is a pretty solid performer, and the Nord posted strong numbers in some of the benchmarks that were ran. It scored 3,29,345 points in AnTuTu, Geekbench returned 611 and 1,919 points in the single-core and multi-core tests respectively, and 3DMark Slingshot managed 4,608 points.
It does a great job in handling heavy apps and games like Asphalt 9:Legends and PUBG: Mobile. The gameplay is very smooth even at high graphic settings but the frame rate remains capped at 45fps.
The battery life is noteworthy. With 4115 mAh you get at least 8 to 9 hours of screen time. With normal use of the phone you can go through a day and a half with a single charge.When you are running low, the bundled charger is able to take the battery to around 93 percent in an hour, which is fairly quick.
One Plus Nord Camera: Disappointment!
According to One Plus, the Nord comes with a flagship camera just like the One Plus 8 but no, there's quite a big difference. The Nord comes packed with a quad-camera system on the back and a double camera cutout on the front. The rear camera comes with a 48 megapixel primary lens, 8 megapixel Ultrawide lens, a 5 megapixel Macro lens and a 2 megapixel depth sensor.Honestly, the numbers are huge but the camera is just not up to the mark. The primary lens works well in daylight but not at all in the night mode. the ultrawide captures good photos but they are very soft and not sharp. The Macro lens is just bad. It deteriorates the overall image quality and reduces the colour. I would suggest using the primary camera with 2x zoom for Macro photos. The Depth Sensor could have been better. It is not very accurate. To conclude, the last two cameras are pretty useless. I feel, One Plus could have used the money in getting a better primary lens or an ultrawide instead of the Macro lens and the depth sensor. The front cameras have two lens: a 32 megapixel and an 8 megapixel. The photo quality is not very promising. When shooting at 4K 30fps, videos had a neutral colour tone during the daytime, colours were vivid, and stabilisation was smooth. Footage from the wide-angle camera was comparatively grainy and I noticed a slight shimmer as a result of it trying to stabilise video. It is not the so called Flagship camera that we expected.
One Plus Nord: Is it worth buying?
The One Plus Nord is a pretty solid phone. It is not a Flagship killer like the original One Plus 8 but I think it's a great performer. It handles heavy applications pretty well and has a pretty smooth gaming experience. The audio system is satisfactory and so is the display. I think it's a great buy in the mid-ranged phones. Although, if you are into photographs and cameras this is not the right phone for you. Checkout some other options in this category.
That's my view on the new One Plus Nord! Let me know your views in the comment section. I hope you found it useful.