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Oneplus Nord Review : "Back to Basics"

 Oneplus, the brand once synonymous for providing "Flagship Killers" at a highly competitive price is back with a product that bids an ode to their early roots; Since, Oneplus themselves almost seemed to abandon the idea to provide their own "Flagships" by this point of time. If this review went any further without duly crediting one of the main motivators behind such a move, then that would be disingenuous. By that, of course I mean COVID-19, the ongoing global pandemic has made a lot of consumers reconsider and redirect their purchasing habits and it has definitely to an extent has affected the flagship market [1]. In a sense, COVID-19 is the new "Flagship Killer!"


However, there is still a lot of demand from the growing modern populace that is also price sensitive and in comes Oneplus Nord accompanied by similar offerings such as the Pixel 4a and iPhone SE in the same suite, albeit at slightly different price tags but targeting the same market demography carrying similar performance packs. So, without any further ado, let's uncover what the contestant from Oneplus's side of the ring has to offer.


photo credit: Oneplus.


Unboxing Experience

The retail packaging of the Nord is a pretty standard experience akin to its sister products. The box is the usual compact packaging which smoothly lifts off from the bottom half once the lamination is taken off. The lid has the signature "nord" printed over it just like it was repeatedly on the AR product reveal invites as it is evident from the picture below.

photo credit: Amazon/Oneplus

Inside the package, we receive all the standard and expected items. We get the phone wrapped in protection, instruction manual, a charging adapter with pins specific to the socket type of the geological location, the iconic red charging/data cable, a screen protector and a sim card ejector. However, a surprise but welcome addition is a clear gel protector case which is, although uncommon in the flagship segment, is very much an expected added goodie one gets in the highly competitive mid range segment.

photo credit: Business Standard

The packaging involves a little leaflet that showcases the team behind making the Nord the product it is.

Specifications

The main driver behind the 5G ready Nord is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 765G chipset. Although, not as capable as its higher end 800 series counterparts, given the remaining specifications of the Nord, it definitely gets the work done without any hiccups.

photo credit: Oneplus

The Nord flaunts an impressive FHD+ (1080*2400) Fluid AMOLED display, which although is quite uncommon in this price segment, is certainly is not unheard of. However,  standing at 6.44 inches with an amazing 86.7% screen to body ratio, the display of Nord sets itself apart from other usual competitors with its 90Hz refresh rate. The display also supports the HDR10+ standard and it is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 5.


The Nord comes in the following memory variants,
  • 6GB RAM + 64GB Internal Memory
  • 8GB RAM + 128GB Internal Memory
  • 12GB RAM + 256GB Internal Memory

Unfortunately, the Nord does not  offer microSD expansion, nor a 3.5mm headphone jack. Two features that are considered rather staple in this price bracket.

Camera

In the camera department the Nord touts a massive 48MP f/1.8 26 mm wide angle camera with OIS and PDAF technologies on the rear side. It is accompanied by 3 other cameras, an 8MP ultrawide lens, a 5MP depth sensor and a 2MP macro lens camera which by the way is all the rage on higher end smartphone photography in the recent trends.

photo credit: Oneplus


On the front side however, the Nord features a cut out dual camera setup, featuring a 32MP Sony sensor along with an 8MP ultra wide angle lens for those group selfie moments. The 32MP Sony lens can record video at 4K resolution with a rate of 60fps.

Battery & Performance

Battery-wise the Nord ships with a 4115mAh Lithium Polymer battery, which, accompanied with the relatively less straining hardware it is powering, should last a typical working day without any hassle. And in case you needed to juice up your device, it comes with a 30W Warp charge that claims a 0 to 70% charge-up within 30 minutes. Which should address any concern the gaming audience have.

Speaking of gamers, the chipset consists of an Adreno 620 GPU, which by no means as good as the 700 series, is still more than enough to satisfy the needs of the casual gamer. However, it is not recommended for those that game on a professional level.


Software Experience

On the software side the Oneplus Nord arrives with OxygenOS 10.5, a skin built on top of Android 10 operating system and comes with all the bells and whistles of the Google's latest rendition and it is rather comforting to know that the experience of OxygenOS is quite similar to that of a stock Android experience.

photo credit: Oneplus


If you have already purchased the Nord, you must have already received an update upgrading your device to OxygenOS 10.5.4 which should address minor bug fixes and updated security. Feature wise, Oneplus claims that the Nord comes with 2048 levels of adaptive brightness for smoother transition between levels of brightness.


Oneplus promises that the Nord will receive regular software updates for 2 years and security updates for 3 years just like its flagship counterparts.

Conclusion



The OnePlus Nord has been one of the most exciting releases to happen this year along with the Google Pixel 4a, at the least among the tech enthusiast demography. It comes packing a punch with almost flagship levels of feature set at a mid range/budget price point depending on the market and is certainly going to be a justified purchase for those that have been longing for it. However, it falls quite short in terms of absolute performance comparison at the flagship level. On the contrary, Pixel 4a which boasts a rather modest hardware and unapologetically targeted at the mid range casual phone users and comes with the features that are more expected at the price range and hits that sweet spot of brand name and value for money for the budget conscious customers. But, if the Oneplus experience and the unofficial ecosystem built around the brand is what you are looking for, then you have no need to think twice but to grab yourselves a Nord!


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Location: India

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