With the launch of OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G, OnePlus has registered a strong comeback in the mobile market in India. It is touted as the mid-range killer but it has to fight off quite a few worthy competitors besides overcoming some of its own cons. The phone is available in sub-Rs 25K segment, which is highly competitive nowadays. With the launch of this smartphone – a modified version of OnePlus Nord CE 5G – OnePlus is looking to position itself as a high and premium brand. But to achieve this objective is not so easy. All in all, the Nord CE 2 5G is a well-balanced mobile, that is up to the task and can register a strong presence.
Here is the complete review of the smartphone so that you spend your hard-core money on the mobile, that deserves. In fact, the OnePlus Nord series phones have consistently offered good value for the money. With the introduction of OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G, the manufacturers have raised the bar several notches above. This latest entrant offers the whole OnePlus experience. In fact, OnePlus Nord CE 2 is the true successor of OnePlus Nord CE. The bunch of improvements add up to the better user experience.
Let us discuss OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G, point by point.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G Design and build: Very pleasant in-hand feel
No dout, OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G looks attractive and premium. It is quite smooth in palms while using. Even you may once think, it is glass build but this is not the case. The mobile doesn’t have a glass build and it has a plastic frame, plastic back and though, the front side has a glass cover, the company’s website finds no mention of the type of glass, the manufacturing brand has used. Of course, most people use cover cases irrespective of the smartphone has a plastic build or the glass .
The plastic cover gives the premium feeling at a budget price. The NFC supported plastic build offers a nice experience. The phone looks quite different from Nord CE, and is a little more premium. However, one annoying side effect of this glossy finish is that it is a great fingerprint magnet. A user needs to clean the fingerprints regularly. The smartphone has very pleasant in-hand feel and it also appears quite sturdy. It is well put-together. The phone is fairly slim (7.8mm) and light (173 grams) and this makes it quite comfortable to use. The overall design and build quality are nice and can be offered 4 points out of five. One point is deducted as it being a great fingerprint magnet.
Display: The vibrant AMOLED display is a big plus
The OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G offers a vibrant AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. Though, the display performance is better, it has been top-class, had the refresh rate been 120Hz. However, it is now HDR10+ certified. The display has a relatively thick chin and the bezels along the rest of the panel are also prominent. Precisely, the display is smooth and performs well while gaming or watching movies. The touch response was pretty good, even with ffast-paced multiplayer games. The smartphone’s network strength is worth appreciating whether it’s a case of Wi-Fi or other networks. The fingerprint scanner has been introduced in display, which is comfortable. The in-display fingerprint sensor works very well and even the face recognization was fast and quick. The brightnesss of the display screen is more than adequate and excellent. As told, videos look very good on this display as the colors were punchy with nice saturation. But the smartphone does not have stereo speakers which would have otherwise made the experience better. However, a user is allowed to plug any wired earphones in for lag-free audio. The headphone jack makes the users happy. The user gets a USB Type-C port and a single speaker at the bottom. As told, this phone still misses out on stereo speakers and an IP rating, but considering its other features, we can ignore these slides.
Camera: the biggest weakness of this smartphone
The camera hardware offered on OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G is its biggest disadvantage. The cameras have the same specifications as the ones on the previous phone. There’s a 64-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera on the back. In the front, you get a 16-megapixel selfie camera which is Sony IMX471. In this triple rear camera setup, the 64-megapixel primary camera and the 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera come with electronic image stabilisation (EIS) support. The camera performance offers artificial results and the original colors are not maintained. Had the camera quality been better, this smartphone would have been the best phone in the given segment. On occasions, the colors are neither punchy not natural. The front camera performance is better. It captures details with good dynamic range.
Performance: Top-class gaming experience
OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 900 SoC with an ARM Mali-G68 GPU under the hood. The handset runs on Android 11 out of the box. The smartphone also features a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a dedicated microSD card slot. It’s a dual-SIM device. The smartphone is available in two varients – 6GB of RAM with 128GB storage and 8GB of ram with same capacity storage. Good enough, unlike with the Nord CE , the storage here may be expanded via a dedicated microSD (up to 1TB) card slot. OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G features an accelerometer, gyroscope, ambient light sensor, and proximity sensor. The phone is available in a Bahama Blue and Gray Mirror finishes. This phone has a lot in common with the Oppo Reno 7. It features the more powerful processor as compared to its predecessors. It also supports eight 5G bands in India, compared to just the one band with the Nord CE. The smartphone offers top-class gaming performance. Importantly, with the updation, no bugs have been observed till now.
Battery: Wickedly fast charging is a big plus
The smartphone comes with a 4,500mAh battery, which supports 65W SuperVOOC fast charging as compared to 30W with the previous model. Performance of the battery was never really an issue with the OnePlus Nord CE and is certainly not a pain point. A user is able to charge the phone up to 94 percent in just 30 minutes, which is very quick. With typical use, a user is easily getting a day and half on one charge. Battery life is also very good.
Conclusion
The new and improved Nord CE 2 will get two years of Android updates and three years of security updates. It gets extremely fast charging and supports a lot more 5G bands. It’s no secret that the competition in this segment has never been so fiercer. All major brands currently have very aggressive offerings. The OnePlus Nord CE 2 comes with a lot of goodies in the box. Of course, things like the charger and cable are present, but you also get a silicone case and some stickers. This is a nice touch. OnePlus Nord CE 2 and Oppo Reno 7 are quite similar in many aspects.
The camera modules on the back are almost identical. Both are about the same size and weight, and the buttons and ports line up exactly. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise considering OnePlus is now officially part of Oppo. In the past as well, we have seen such design overlaps.
