Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “OnePlus Nord Review: Neither Bored Nor Floored”.
Not a lot of folks talk about the risks that come with success, but one of them is., The more successful you become, the tougher it gets to impress people. To hear OnePlus tell it that’s part of the reason it named its newest smartphone. After the concept of true North., Because over the past seven years, the company has gradually strayed from its original mission of selling great smartphones at an accessible price., And now it wants to say it with me, return to its roots. [ Alex ]. It’S supposed to be about the company returning to its roots., The company’s going back to its roots.
They’re returning to their roots. ( record, scratches ) No shade on my fellow reviewers by the way.. It’S a marketing narrative custom formulated for folks like us, desperate to find an exciting angle on yet another static slab of a smartphone. And to be fair.
This is an excellent phone at an opening price. We haven’t seen from OnePlus since 2018., But don’t buy a ticket on the hype train unless you read the fine print because just like older OnePluses, the Nord comes with concessions. (, upbeat music ). Let’S defy YouTube convention and get right into what those concessions are.
In its quest for a sub- $ 500 price point. The Nord sheds three hard-fought features geeks, like me, have lobbied OnePlus to include since 2013 wireless charging, an IP certification for dust and water resistance and cameras you’ll actually want to use.. For the most part, all those are as gone as the metal frame replaced by coated plastic which to be fair, I didn’t notice until another reviewer pointed it out., You’ll notice, the choice of processor isn’t one of the compromises I called out, because I think OnePlus did Well, here. Of all the components driving up phone prices in 2020, Qualcomm’s top shelf Snapdragon 865 processor is among the priciest, so the OnePlus Nord drops it in favor of the 765G..
I bothered Android Central’s Daniel Bader on a Friday afternoon to ask him what we’re sacrificing in the downgrade, and he explained to me what this handy chart at Know. Your Mobile will explain to you.. Mainly, the cheaper chip will get you slower cores, slower maximum theoretical speeds using 5G and a less capable image signal processor., And you know what for anyone who doesn’t base their self-worth on a spec sheet? None of that matters much in the day-to-day experience.. I say it all: the time smartphones are more than their silicon., Whatever minor performance hits you’re seeing on the Nord CPU are cleverly hidden.
First by a display that refreshes 90 times a second fast enough to make it smoother than the average phone, but not so fast. That it bleeds out the battery. And second by an operating system, so well, optimized that input lag and stutter are as alien as unneeded bloat and cruft.. Are you tired of hearing me talk about how awesome OxygenOS is? Well, I’m tired of saying it, but don’t think you’re getting away without hearing for the 47th time.
How awesome a physical Do Not Disturb switch is because every phone should have this. Anyway. The point is you’re, not gon na notice. The silicon swap much if at all.. If you’re worried about gaming, my buddy Enobong has a great gaming review at Booredatwork.. Here’S one thing you will notice: since it’s summertime, the display doesn’t get quite bright enough to overcome those high noon: summer, days.
And more specifically, for North American would-be buyers. The Nord isn’t being sold here.. I imagine so. Oneplus doesn’t cannibalize sales of its closest cousin. The OnePlus 8 released just three months ago., So my review device isn’t designed or equipped for this market, which means I’m not surprised that it doesn’t do a great job of holding onto T-Mobile 5G signal., But that could also be because it’s a pre-production device running pre-release Software, so there’s that disclaimer too., Fortunately that hasn’t affected battery life..
This is an all-day phone and then some., Even on a day that included several hours of GPS navigation and photo taking going in and out of service near Sandy Hook to take some sample photos. I went to bed with fully half a charge. Left.
Also Warp Charge. 30 is just as convenient as it’s always been for topping up your tank in not much time at all. And despite those signal dropouts callers reported, I sounded very clear in VoLTE calls, though, sorry OnePlus, not as nice as I sounded on the 2019 Motorola razr.. Actually, maybe there’s another reason the Nord isn’t launching in the U.S., But before we get to that, I have some bad news.. This is not the phone’s factory finish.. The good news is that you too can live the tear-down lifestyle with a skin from my sponsor dbrand.
Co-designed, with my friend and all-around good guy Zach from JerryRigEverything.. I put this on as soon as I got the Nord and under the clear case that comes in the box. It really does look like I’m rocking an old-school, transparent case., Get your dbrand skin, whether it’s Teardown Swarm or even Bulletproof Banana at the link in the description. That other potential hiccup for a U.S.
launch. Well, folks, with cameras like this, I wouldn’t wan na be doing battle with the rumored Google Pixel 4a.. That’S not to say the cameras are bad..
In fact, in one crucial area, this phone is doing something. Every other phone should be. Switch over from the primary FFC to the secondary selfie shooter and what you lose in resolution.
You get back in field of view with a crazy 105 degrees of capture.. You don’t wan na use it in low light, and actually neither of these would be my first choice for selfies, given their softness., But this ultrawide does go a long way for those of us who do a lot of talking to the camera. Around back OnePlus made The right call when it ported the primary camera from the 8 to the Nord. Given ideal, or at least forgiving shooting scenarios. It’S a good performer.. It’S these other three cameras that don’t do a great job of justifying their existence..
One is a depth sensor which, as we all know, will never make portrait mode as perfect as you’d hope.. Another is a dedicated macro camera. And, as these photos show being able to get your lens right up in, there is truly awesome.. But folks, other phones achieve the same results by repurposing.
Their wide angle, cameras which lets you shoot at higher resolution than the Nord’s dedicated macro camera, whose two-megapixel sensor should’ve been left back in 2006.. So the only two cameras worth talking about here are the primary and the wide angle, both of which do fairly well in their respective roles., But stacked up against the fire-and-forget consistency of the Pixel 4, whose camera chops are bound to be replicated in the much cheaper Pixel 4a. Now the Nord becomes a much harder sell.. All things considered, there’s not much to complain about on the Nord, but there’s also no one single feature that really elevates it above the competition unless you’re buying your phones based on low-band 5G support, which you shouldn’t.. When you’re a company pitching to a customer who’s, also cross shopping, the iPhone SE and the coming Pixel 4a, one of them has superior build quality with wireless charging and an IP rating, and the other is almost guaranteed to have a better camera..
And on top of that, both will likely cost the same or even less, depending on which Nord configuration you choose to import. That doesn’t change my overall opinion that the Nord is a solid and well balanced, smartphone. And for the price it’s definitely a better buy than The OnePlus 8 another possible reason it’s not coming to the U.S., But well for a company that says it’s returning to its roots.
I don’t know.. I guess I expected a little more flagship killer, a little less same old story.. If you’d, like the perspective of someone who lives in a market, the Nord will actually come to be sure to check out Alex Dobie’s review at Android, Central from which I stole a few very beautiful shots..
My video was produced following 10 days with a OnePlus Nord review sample provided by OnePlus., But Mr. Mobile works for you not. The manufacturers.
OnePlus did not provide compensation in exchange for this coverage, nor did it receive copy approval or an early preview of this content. They’re. Seeing it for the first time right alongside you., Please subscribe to theMrMobile on YouTube.
If that’s the kind of video you’d like to see more of. Until next time, thanks for watching. And if you can’t stay home, then at least stay safe and mask up. While you stay mobile, my friends.
( upbeat music, ) .