Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “OnePlus Nord review: Buy it for OxygenOS, not for the hardware”.
This video is brought to you by android authorities. Tech deals if you could use three terabytes of storage without any monthly billing. Stick around for more details. 2020’S, most hyped smartphone the oneplus norm, launched early last week. I’Ve been using the device for just shy of two weeks and i’ve got a few thoughts on oneplus brand new mid-range smartphone. On the surface. The nord is just another mid-range smartphone with oxygen os installed.
It has a snapdragon, 765g, 5g processor, 6, 8 or 12 gigabytes of ram 64, 128 or 256 gigabytes of storage, a 90 hertz amoled screen a decent sized battery and a bunch of cameras. It doesn’t look far off the normal mid-range smartphone either it’s got the standard. Elongated pill shaped rear camera housing, it has a dual punch hole at the front and it comes in a cool color. It feels well made with gorilla glass, 5 front and back as well as plastic rails that feel uncannily like metal like i had to check, because they feel that good, in fact other than the logo. The only thing that gives away the devices kind of manufacture is really the mute. Toggle switch on the right hand, side, which is a signature oneplus feature.
I have to say. I very much appreciate that feature and i love it every time i return to a oneplus device, but other than that, it’s very samey. The display is a nice 6.44 inch, full hd 90 hertz amoled, which gets bright at up to just below 500 in its sustained brightness and has more punch than the lcd based panels that we’re often seeing in this segment. However, its 90 hertz refresh rate is, i feel, almost integral to the user experience that you get on this thing between the fast display, the quick and short animations in oxygen os and the snapdragon 765g processor.
The device definitely has that snappy oneplus ux that we’ve all come to love the display definitely helps the phone feel snappy and responsive, and that’s how i would describe the rest of the smartphone experience here. However, after extended periods of time with the nord and the 8, it’s pretty easy to feel the difference in speed. There are just a few extra lag spots and hangs where there aren’t on the bigger devices. It’S not deal breaking by any means, but it is something you do notice coming from a flagship.
Also, not many 3d titles do feel like they’re running at full 90fps, even the ones that are supported. This is likely due to the weaker gpu in the 765g compared to the trunkier chips. That said, i did play a fair amount of minecraft on this thing and that did seem to run at a high frame rate and was buttery smooth and if you’re worried about battery life, the snapdragon 765 g and the just over 4 000 milliamp hour battery seem To do a good job of giving me roughly a full day every time i use it, the battery life is definitely going to be good enough for many, just like the real me x55g and the redmi k30 in our objective testing, it did okay, but surprisingly, wasn’t Up there with the best devices, despite the power, efficient chip and the big battery warp charge, 30t has been brought to the nord from the bigger devices enabling a 57 minute naught to 100 battery charge time in our testing. That is a definitely a good figure, but it is something that you expect from phones in this category this day and age before we get to the software.
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Terabytes get more details in the link in the video description i’ll admit, i’m a sucker for oxygen os. I love the way it feels it’s so fluid it’s so smooth, and it makes me want to jump back to a oneplus device. All the time oxygen os is, in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons you would actually buy the nord over one of its competitors. You get oxygen os 10.5 on android 10 at launch, which is current and up to date, oneplus track record of delivering reliable platform upgrades and software updates is really good, so expect around three years of platform upgrades and perhaps even longer, software updates. What’S not so awesome. Well, the nord’s cameras: now you do get heaps of versatility with the total of six sensors and lenses on this thing, the main sensor is an imx 586, which is complemented by an eight megapixel ultrawide and a couple of others and the front cameras are 32 megapixel And 8 megapixel respectively.
So, if you like, shooting wide then on paper at least this thing is for you, but it’s not quite that simple in practice see like many mid-range smartphones. The hardware is not the limitation of the nord’s camera system, but the processing images from the main camera look: okay, there’s a decent amount of detail, it exposes well and it captures highlights just fine. However, the colors are a little washed out. There’S way too much contrast.
I mean just look at how much detail is lost in these trees and there’s a strange softness for a sensor rated at 48 megapixels. The ultra wide is where things really fall apart. Firstly, the images are very, very soft, then there’s this weird denoising going on at the edges with smeary artifacts, not a good look whatsoever and then there’s this massive drop in dynamic range. There’S hardly any detail in the shadows of the nord’s ultrawide photos and that’s rather disappointing.
There’S also this weird thing where oneplus decided to give it a 5 megapixel depth sensor, but only a 2 megapixel macro camera suffice to say macro shots are pretty terrible, with almost no sharpness and awful dynamic range and within the app itself the camera isn’t great. At focusing, neither is it great at switching lenses. It actually got pretty rather frustrating at times with the amount of lag specifically when switching lenses, portrait mode and night mode are both hit and miss night mode on the ultra wide is pretty much useless in comparison to the rather usable shots from the main camera. There’S not heaps of detail and there’s a lot of denoising going on, but the nord did at least manage to capture a few stars in the sky.
Here it does get a little confused with edge detection in portrait mode despite having a 5 megapixel depth sensor. But then again at this price point i wouldn’t expect anything exceptional flipping over to selfies. The nord once again has a processing problem.
The skin smoothing is being done even with the mode completely turned off, and the hdr haloing around contrasty objects is pretty bad. The ultra wide selfie camera amplifies this with lots of noise and a softer overall image. Video is actually pretty good on the nord sure it’s only ultra hd 30 fps, as opposed to 60 fps, but there’s a decent amount of dynamic range, a sharp enough image and actually rather good stabilization. It might make you feel a little bit sick after watching heaps of it, as it does get a little bit wavy, but in terms of absorbing footsteps and ironing out pans, it’s really not that bad, the cine 4k mode just cuts off the top and the bottom To give you a cinematic, look, it’s gimmicky, but it is there if you want to use it for the money, the main rear camera on the nord isn’t too bad aside from lots of lost detail in shadows, however, the supplementary cameras yeah, i can’t quite say the Same about those that said, you were never buying a oneplus, let alone the nord for the cameras. So there we are. Which brings me to the main question: why would you go out and buy a oneplus note? Well, for me, it’s the software sure there are tons of mid-range smartphones with similar specs like similar size batteries and similar system on chips and similar displays some with even higher refresh rates, perhaps at the lack of an amoled panel. However, this one stands out because it’s made by oneplus and because it’s running that fast oxygen os software, the pricing is a little bit odd. The base model, which is 8 gigabytes of ram and 128 gigabytes of storage, is the one i’d personally recommend, but it’s also 379 pounds, which is a good value sure you can spend 80 less than get an x50 with a 120 hertz display, but you’d be losing Out on the quality amoled from the nord, as well as super clean software, but the 12 by 256 gig model, which is 469, is a little bit more nuanced. At this point, it’s competing in price, with the 449 base model, poco f2 pro, which sports a better camera setup and a top tier system on chip, though with less ram and storage.
Personally, i’m taking the poco f2 pro there for its much better camera and much more powerful processor. However, that there are pros and cons there, you’re getting less ram, less storage and you’re, not getting a 90x display, and probably most crucially, for a lot of people. You’Re not getting that oxygen os experience, because at the end of the day the oneplus nord is just another mid-range smartphone, but it’s running ultron os and that provides more value than a spec sheet would ever suggest. I can happily recommend the oneplus not for being a solid, a great mid-range smartphone, but it’s not as magical as the hype made it out to be and that about wraps up today’s review guys. Please do let us know in the comments what you think about the oneplus nord. Are you pre-ordering one, have you got one how’s that going and uh? Maybe would you pick a competitor over the nord? Let us know in the comments whilst you’re down there.
Please do hit like and subscribe to never miss a video like this one and check out all the links in the video description. I’Ve been ryan thomas with android authority and i’ll catch. You later .