OnePlus officially launched the Nord, and it's time to take a closer look at how it fits into today's mid-tier smartphone segment. The OnePlus Nord starts at Rs. 24,999 for the 64GB Amazon-exclusive variant, but this is only going on sale in September. If you don't want to wait, you have the option of the higher-priced variants which will be available starting from August 4. The good news is that even the top-end variant doesn't breach Rs. 30,000.
The OnePlus Nord comes in at a very opportune time. Given the current global economic slowdown due to the pandemic, I get the sense that consumers are more wary about splurging on a new phone. Budget or mid-range phones that offer some flagship-level features are really the need of the hour. Secondly, at the time of this review, the OnePlus Nord is the only 5G-ready smartphone priced below Rs. 30,000. I think these factors together put the OnePlus Nord in a very advantageous position.
OnePlus Nord design and display: A lot to like
I've talked at length about the OnePlus Nord's design in my first impressions, and after using it for a longer period, not a lot has changed. OnePlus has intentionally used a different design on the Nord, to differentiate it from the OnePlus 8 41,999 (Review) and OnePlus 8 Pro 54,999 (Review). I'm guessing that repurposing an older design the way Apple did with the iPhone SE16,999 (Review) wouldn't have gone down well with the Android crowd.
Certain aspects of the OnePlus Nord's design have some similarities with phones from Oppo and Realme, and I'm not surprised, considering they are all part of the same family. It's still recognisable as a modern OnePlus phone, since it has the alert slider, a similar layout for the buttons and ports, and no headphone jack.
The build quality is very good for a phone with a polycarbonate body. There's Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back, which is reassuring. I quite like the Blue Marble colour on the Nord unit that I've been using, as it looks refreshingly new. There's also a more subdued Grey Onyx colour.
There's no option to expand the internal storage on the OnePlus Nord, as the SIM tray only supports two nano-SIM cards. This shouldn't be an issue on the 128GB and 256GB variants, but those buying the 64GB variant might fall short of storage after a year or so, depending on usage. OnePlus offers 50GB of free cloud storage for a year if you sign up for its Red Cable Club.
OnePlus smartphones are known for their AMOLED displays and I'm happy to see that this hasn't been compromised on the lower priced OnePlus Nord. The sides of the display aren't curved like they are on the OnePlus 8, but there is a cutout for two selfie cameras, instead of one. The screen measures 6.44 inches, and has a full-HD+ resolution (1080x2400) along with a 90Hz refresh rate. You also get the usual options to tweak the colours and mask the camera hole with a black strip, if needed.
Unlike the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro, the OnePlus Nord's display doesn't have any colour accuracy certifications, but it does support HDR10+. It's a good-looking panel overall, with deep blacks and punchy colours. There's a mild shift in colour tone on white backgrounds, which I noticed initially and it didn't go away even after a few updates. Still, you'd have to be a real astute observer to notice it.
The OnePlus Nord ships with the usual set of accessories that we've come to expect from a OnePlus phone. There's a silicone bumper case, a Type-C cable, a fast charger, and of course, stickers.
Specification Which is closer to Flagship:
The OnePlus Nord is one of the first few phones to launch in India with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G SoC. This new chip was announced last year along with the flagship Snapdragon 865 SoC, but has only just started to make its way into phones. This SoC has an integrated Qualcomm X52 5G modem and is built on the 7nm process. It promises better processing capabilities and up to 30 percent faster graphics rendering than to the Snapdragon 730G.
There's a slight difference to the OnePlus Nord models sold in India, versus other countries, with respect to 5G. The Indian version of the OnePlus Nord supports only the N78 5G band, compared to the European version, which supports more bands. This means you could have some compatibility issues with service providers abroad that don't operate on the N78 band.
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 OnePlus Nord measures 8.2mm in thickness and weighs 184g. You get NFC, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.1, and support for satellite navigation systems including NavIC. 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 4,115mAh battery, with Warp Charge 30T fast charging.
The OnePlus experience wouldn't be complete without OxygenOS. I was using version 10.5.2 at the time of this review, which has the July security patch. The Nord did receive a couple of updates in the week I spent reviewing it. The interface and features are very similar to what you get on flagships OnePlus phones. There's Zen mode, a built-in screen recorder and options to customise the ambeint display, fingerprint animations, etc. OnePlus has also promised two years of software updates and three years of security updates for the Nord.
The OnePlus Nord did a great job handling today's graphically demanding titles such as Asphalt 9: Legends and PUBG Mobile, using the highest visual settings in each title. Gameplay was smooth and I didn't notice any unusual heating either. Fortnite ran well at the 'Epic' quality preset, but for some reason, the frame rate was capped at 45fps. There's no 90fps support for now, like you get with the OnePlus 8 series.
The in-display fingerprint sensor worked very well, and all it needed was a quick tap to unlock the phone. I found face recognition to be equally fast and seamless too.
Videos looked great on the OnePlus Nord's display, especially HDR videos streamed using YouTube and Netflix. The single speaker on the Nord gets very loud, thanks to Dirac's software enhancements.
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