My colleague and I often discuss what makes a phone mid-range. In India, the standard to consider phones in the price range is $ 20,000- $ 30,000 ($ 267- $ 401) as a medium range. In Europe and the US, that range goes up when you count in USD.
But in all regions, the newly launched OnePlus Nord is an attractive purchase without shaking up too much money. The phone has a stable construction, with a good screen and reliable performance – it clicks almost any box for a phone in this price range.
I’ve been using this device for over two weeks, but before we talk more about this phone, let’s look at its impressive spec sheet.
Specifications
- Screen: 6.44-inch Full HD screen with a refresh rate of 90Hz
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G
- FRAME: 6GB (India only) / 8GB
- Behind the camera: 48-megapixel head sensor (f / 1.75) + 8-megapixel wide-angle sensor (119-degree field of view) + 2-megapixel macro sensor + 5-megapixel depth sensor
- Front camera: 32-megapixel head sensor (f / 2.45) + 8-megapixel wide-angle sensor (105-degree field of view)
- Internal storage: 64GB (India only) / 128GB / 256GB
- Battery: 4,115mAh
- Charging: 30W warp charging
- Software: Oxygen OS 10.5 based on Android 10
Which is good
Let’s start with building and designing the device. It is not unique from a material or shape perspective: both sides have glass and the frame is made of plastic. It’s not premium, but it will do the job for the price. What stands out is that beautiful Blue Marble color. The gray onyx variant is, well, meh.
OnePlus has managed to cram into a full 90Hz HD screen with this phone. The screen is bright and colorful, the mood was a touch too warm for me. But I was able to change it quickly through the settings, so no big deal there. The 90Hz screen is great for smoothly scrolling your social media feed and playing games with high frame rates. It’s crazy that Samsung launched the $ 999 Note 20 with support for just a 60Hz refresh rate.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G is a good enough processor to handle most tasks. I play resource-intensive games like everyone else Call of Duty Mobile without significant hiccups. Streaming music or video was a breeze, along with handling a barrage of email and social app notifications. This proves that you may not need a Snapdragon 8xx series processor for your daily smartphone needs.
The device’s main camera produces sharp photos with good color accuracy and detail – but it should have ideal lighting conditions. And that’s where the cameras end up.
What improvement is needed
The OnePlus Nord has a hole punch on the front to house two selfie cameras, and that causes a problem with some apps like the hole overlays buttons. It’s not clear if this is a device issue or an app issue, but it’s annoying. Also, the speaker sounds discharged downwards, and it is easy to cover them if you hold the phone horizontally.
The rest of this section is about the cameras of the device, so buckle up. The main camera often wrestles with the dynamic range and color accuracy, even when there is enough light around it. It may not seem bright daylight, but I have seen that cameras do a better job in this range.
While other cameras add length and options to the specsheet, the output quality is okay at best. The wide-angle sensor takes acceptable photos in daylight, but loses some details. The marco sensor does not do a good job of capturing details at close range and you might want to say, “You had one job!” The depth sensor makes no visible difference when I take pictures of pets or objects with the portrait mode, which I can do during the pandemic.
The selfie camera takes captured photos and the dynamic range is not out of the question. Sure, OnePlus can solve some of these problems with a software update, but that is the case for many OnePlus phones and the company might need to change habits.
Conclusion
The OnePlus Nord is has a great set of features for a phone under $ 500. In the hardware department, it can trump many phones in range. The cameras are a bit disappointing, but they are not bad for the price range, and a software update can significantly improve things. There is no doubt that the latest offering from OnePlus is a solid value for money, and the company will be selling many of these units.
In India, the phone may have competition from the likes of the Vivo V17 or Samsung’s Galaxy A70 or A80. The iPhone SE 2020 is in the same price range in Europe, but it is more than $ 150 expensive in India. The Pixel 4a may also be in controversy, but it will take a while until the device hits the shelves. Until then, Nord can have its own party.
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Published August 14, 2020 – 13:14 UTC
