The OnePlus Nord Review. The true Nord for OnePlus?
A couple of months back, we were seeing leaks for the OnePlus 8 series of smartphones. Among that, we came across this particular ‘lite’ version of the 8 series, dubbed as the OnePlus 8 lite. Quite the Samsung-esque name if you ask me. We are still talking about a company that has a product named ‘OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition’. Now, that’s a mouthful. This ‘lite’ model couldn’t be worse than that, could it?
A couple of weeks ahead, the old OnePlus X starts resurfacing in the news. It comes with a hint as to what the new rumored ‘lite’ phone could be called — The OnePlus Z. Now that, I can understand. They want to pay homage to their first attempt at a budget phone and I was all in for it. The OnePlus Z would be the perfect name for a product that would be touted as the best mid-ranger when OnePlus had transitioned from their ‘flagship killer’ tag to proper flagships.
The biggest bombshell that fell was this supposed name ‘Nord by OnePlus’. Nobody could come to a conclusive statement as to why OnePlus would do that. Not to mention, the leaks and rumors were aplenty for the phone hardware as well. From the processor used, display specifications, camera modules, etc, etc. And you have to understand that it all started way back in March — for a product that launched towards the end of July. So, was the hype — for a mid-range smartphone — called for? What did we get in the end?
We got a 6.44 inch 1080p AMOLED display with 90Hz and a touch response rate of 180Hz (for reference, the OnePlus 7T had a 135Hz touch response rate), a 5G ready Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chipset — future-proofing, which is good, a quad-camera setup on the rear (The macro and depth sensors are useless. Just putting it out there as blatantly as possible), a dual front-facing camera setup (Thank God they didn’t make the secondary lens a depth sensor like on the Poco X2 and some other phones), a hearty 4115 mAh battery with the custom OnePlus Warp Charge 30T fast-charging brick — in the box (Apple, take notes please) and to top it all off, we have quite possibly the best implementation of Android, in the form of Oxygen OS. Seems like a good deal of a phone right?
Now let’s look at the features that OnePlus cut corners at. The phone has support for dual-sim slots — that’s a good thing, I know but it has no headphone jack (I understand OnePlus wants to promote the sales of their wireless headphones but at least providing a dongle would have been nice), doesn’t have external storage options, only a single downward-firing speaker, comes with Wifi 5 instead of Wifi 6, USB 2.1 rather than USB 3.0/3.1 and if you have a keen eye for materials used, then you will not like the fact that the OnePlus Nord has gone for a plastic frame, made to look like metal. These are all in the end nitpicks and I am sure that most buyers won’t even bother to look into such detail. So, all in all, I think OnePlus have cut the right corners and made a smartphone that is not the best at any particular aspect nor does it lack in any other particular department. It’s like a basic phone done right for an aggressive price — and that’s saying a lot for 2020 smartphones.
One thing to note is that the cable included inside the box doesn’t match the whole Nord branding style and I was kind of disappointed with that. Popular tech reviewer Dave2D went on to spray-paint his cable to the Nord blue to keep everything consistent and I must say, I like it! (Dear OnePlus, please do that).
Let’s talk about that quad-camera setup, shall we? I want to focus on this particular aspect of the phone because I am fairly certain that everything else, like — the in-display fingerprint scanner, the UI optimizations done by Oxygen OS, the battery life and charging, the performance of the Snapdragon 765G chipset — are all good and fine. Moreover, I can’t comment on those factors since I don’t have the phone to test it out. For a comprehensive take on how the 765G chip fares against the likes of the 865, 855+ and 855 chips, I’ll attach an article by ‘Android Authority’ which compares the Nord to the OnePlus 8 Pro, 7T Pro, 7 Pro, etc. — https://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-nord-performance-1138174/
So, the quad-camera setup.
I like how they mention the primary sensor is stolen from the OnePlus 8 — bringing this air of flagship camera quality to the Nord. But if you look at past OnePlus phones — the Sony IMX 586 sensor has been used ever since the OnePlus 7 and that’s a phone that released in May of 2019. It might be old but having used the same sensor over multiple phones, OnePlus have almost perfected the image processing capabilities of the sensor. I am disappointed at OnePlus for including a separate macro and depth sensor. They were the ones who boasted about macro photography being possible on the 7T through its ultrawide lens. So why did they do this? I don’t know. The same goes for the depth sensor. The 7T doesn't have it and it still takes good portrait shots. So why? Did OnePlus just succumb to market trends following Realme? And now that I mention Realme, I don’t understand why OnePlus chose the Realme way of camera placement. The Realme vibe on the back of the OnePlus Nord does not sit well with me. So, in my opinion, OnePlus should have not included the macro and depth sensor and instead used those resources to put in a higher resolution ultrawide sensor or maybe even a telephoto lens.
The phone starts at 27,999 INR. You might say “But hey, I heard it was 24,999 INR!” and you are right. But if you go online and try to buy one right now, the available options are the 27,999 and the 29,999 models. The magical 24,999 model doesn’t release until September. Moreover, looking at the available models, I would rather pick up the 27,999 version because of the higher storage capacity and RAM.
So has OnePlus nailed the perfect mid-ranger smartphone for 2020? To a large extent — the answer is yes. You get a great display compared to the other products in the same range, you get a decent battery and camera layout, typical mid-range performance (Everybody says this but you really won’t see much of a difference in day-to-day performance when compared to any flagship for that matter) and the almost stock android experience. It ticks all the right boxes. So wrapping up this OnePlus Nord review — It isn’t the best mid-range smartphone per se but it certainly is a worthy mention.
I don’t have the smartphone in hand to do a deep analysis of every single property of this phone but this article is more of my thoughts and feelings on this product.
