(gentle music)
- The OnePlus Nord is an
important moment for OnePlus.
For years OnePlus has
basically stuck to flagships.
Nowadays it likes to do them two at a time
but they're both designed
to sit more or less
at the top of the market.
Now it's expanding with the
Nord, its first serious attempt
at a mid-range phone in years.
Launching a mid-range phone
means making some tough
decisions about what the
OnePlus name means to people.
It still needs to have those
features that people buy
OnePlus phones for in the
first place but it also needs
to make some compromises.
Not just because it needs to make it cheap
but also so that once it is
cheaper it doesn't end up
so good that people choose
it over your flagship phones.
It needs to draw a line
between OnePlus features
and flagship OnePlus features.
It's a balancing act where
if you get the balance
slightly wrong you could
end up with the same kind
of flagship killer that
OnePlus liked to call
its phones back in the day.
Only now OnePlus has
flagship phones of its own
that risk getting caught in the crossfire.
So what does a mid-range
OnePlus phone look like?
Which flagship features do you get to keep
and which do you lose?
(gentle music)
So this is it, the OnePlus Nord.
The model I've been using has 12 gigabytes
of RAM and 256 gigabytes of
storage and costs 469 pounds
or 499 euros.
But there's also a step down
model with eight gigabytes
of RAM and 128 gigabytes of
storage which costs 379 pounds
or 399 euros.
So it's a mid-range phone
sitting in a similarish
sort of price category to
this year's entry level,
419 pound iPhone SE or the
429 pound Galaxy A51 5G.
Both models are releasing in
Europe and India but OnePlus
is only planning a limited
beta launch in the US for now.
At either price you're
getting what is on paper
quite a well specced device.
There's a 6.4, four inch OLED display
with a 1080p resolution and
a 90 Hertz refresh rate,
a quad rear camera array based
around the same 48 megapixel
sensor that OnePlus used for
the 8, dual selfie cameras,
including one with an ultra
wide lens, and you're getting
support for sub six gigahertz 5G.
Now the trade-off, on paper
at least, is that the Nord
is powered by a Snapdragon 765G
processor which isn't quite
as fast as the flagship
processors OnePlus used in the 8
and the 8 Pro.
But specs can't tell you how
premium a device feels to hold.
And the OnePlus Nord's design
is one of the more obvious
indicators of it's lower price point.
That said, I still really like it.
I like the simplicity,
there's no messing around
with screens that curve round
the edges of the device.
Instead you're gonna get a
flat screen with a smallish
hole-punched notch for the
Nord's dual selfie cameras
and what I'd call reasonably small set
of bevels around the edge of the screen.
Generally the whole design
does feel less premium
than the 8 but not in
a way that feels cheap,
it's just more utilitarian.
Battery life is also good.
Now I'll admit that it's
still quite hard to gauge this
given the amount of time I'm
spending at home right now
and I'll also caveat this by
saying that I was connected
to 4G rather than 5G networks.
But I was getting between
eight and 10 hours
of screen time between
charges from the Nord's
4,115 million power battery.
And that includes everything,
from watching copious amounts
of YouTube to keeping in contact
with friends and colleagues
over Slack and WhatsApp, taking photos
and of course browsing plenty of Twitter.
There's no wireless charging
but there is support
for OnePlus' Warp Charge 30T
standard which the company says
should get you about
70% of your charge back
in half an hour.
So good battery life doesn't
seem to be exclusive to OnePlus
flagships, it's more of a
universal OnePlus feature.
Now we already know you're
not getting exactly the same
display on this as you did
on the 8, it doesn't have
that same curve for example.
It's also a little bit
smaller at 6.44 inches
compared to 6.55 inches with the 8.
But honestly if you hold
them next to each other
you barely notice the difference.
So it's a very similar screen
which means it's pretty great.
It's OLED so blacks are lovely
and deep, colors are vibrant,
it's still 1080p and hey, it's also got
that 90 Hertz refresh rate display.
Now I've said it before
and I'll say it again
but high refresh rate
displays deserve to become
the new standard.
But there is a caveat and
that's that the slightly less
powerful processor on the Nord
means that it doesn't feel
exactly as smooth as the 8.
I mean it's fine if you're
scrolling through something
simple like the app drawer
but scroll through Twitter
with its numerous videos and images
and it does start to
stutter, if only a little.
It's a little bit hard to
show on video but trust me
when I say it is there.
It's still better than a 60 Hertz display
but it just doesn't feel as
smooth as what we've seen from
flagship phones with 90 Hertz displays.
It's an acceptable trade off
for the price but it's also
something that's worth bearing in mind.
Oh, and by the by, I
found it hard to fault
the in-display fingerprint sensor.
It works basically every
time and I've barely
had to think about it.
So a high-end display seems
to be a OnePlus staple
and not something that's
exclusive to its flagships,
even if you're not getting
exactly the same performance.
Audio isn't a strong suit of the Nord.
There's a single downward
firing speaker here which means
that there's no stereo and
while it gets plenty loud enough
there's just not that much base there.
So I guess good speakers
are a flagship exclusive.
(upbeat music)
So far we've been trying to
work out what features OnePlus
thinks all of its phones need
to have and which it wants
to keep for its flagships.
But cameras are a bit
trickier to categorize here
because they've never been one
of OnePlus' core strengths.
They've been good, but
never best in class.
Now the good news is that the
Nord's cameras are in a very
similar ballpark to the
OnePlus 8 and the better news
is there's at least one feature here
that is exclusive to the Nord.
Now the Nord has a lot of cameras.
I mean on the back there's four.
There's a 48 megapixel main
camera, an eight megapixel
ultra wide angle camera, a
two megapixel macro camera
and a five megapixel depth sensor.
And on the front, there's two.
There's a main 32 megapixel camera
and an eight megapixel ultra wide
with a 105 degree field of
view, a neat little exclusive
for the Nord.
Now that's a lot of hardware.
So here's what OnePlus
actually does with it.
In daylight I think you get
very similar quality photos
to the 8 with the Nord.
I mean check out this
photo from my living room.
And if I didn't label the
photos I think you'd have a hard
time telling me which
phone took which photo.
Sometimes the OnePlus Nord decides to add
a little bit more saturation
to photos than the 8 does
but most of the time you can
barely tell the difference.
It's the same when it comes to faces.
There's more of a difference
when it comes to wide angle
shots though where you really
miss the extra resolution
on the 8's ultra wide camera.
The Nord seems to overcompensate
with a little too much
image processing sometimes.
But, it's probably
acceptable at this price
and I'd rather it was
there than not at all.
It's the same deal with the
wide angle selfie camera.
Sure, it's images are a little softer
than the main 32 megapixel
sensor and the selfie camera
in general seems to
make my face a bit weird
and bright looking but it's
super useful for group selfies
or I guess couple selfies if
you're socially distancing.
Whatever, I like it.
While we're talking extra
cameras let's run down
the other two that are on
the back of this device.
There's a macro camera and
the camera for sensing depth.
Both are kind of a mixed bag.
I mean take the macro camera,
it's certainly managed
to focus on this amoeba that
yes, I know, I always use
to test macro cameras but try
as I might my shots ended up
looking muddy and blurry.
Same with these flowers.
It's not something I'd ever choose to use.
Likewise with this depth
sensing camera I think
it did a decent enough job
generating a convincing
background blur on this
photo of me in low light
but in this shot of my
flatmate it completely beefed
the hair on the top left of his head.
It quite a nice shot overall
but once you notice the hair
you can't un-see it.
And speaking of low light
shots, well, if you watched
my review of the 8 then you
probably have a good idea
of what to expect here.
It's acceptable, but nothing amazing.
So, like the 90 Hertz
display, the Nord has a lot
of hardware but I don't
necessarily think it gets the most
out of it that it could.
It's in a very similar league
to the 8 and I just don't
think that either are the
phone to get if you want
the absolute best camera available.
That said I think those trade
offs are far more worth it
at this price point
than they were on the 8.
(gentle music)
I think the Nord is a
really solid mid-range phone
but it's not perfect.
It's well specced, yes.
I mean, it's got lots of
cameras, it's got that nice big
high refresh rate display
and of course it's got
that big battery.
But the reality of what it gets
from that hardware sometimes
leaves a little bit
to be desired.
I mean it's got lots of camera lenses
but overall performance
ends up only being okay.
And it's got that high
refresh rate display
but sometimes its processor
seems to let it down.
They're compromises but I don't
think they're unreasonable
at this price point.
Picking a mid-range phone
is normally a matter
of choosing the battles.
You have to pick which features
are most important to you
because no mid-range phone is
gonna be able to completely
deliver on all of them.
But you sort of can't
do that with the Nord,
it's too well-rounded,
which means there are no serious pitfalls.
There's also no one area that
it completely delivers on.
That's not a bad thing at all,
it just kinda makes it hard
to unreservedly recommend this phone
to any one group of people.
On the flip side though
it does mean that I can
sort of recommend this
phone to almost anyone.
OnePlus made a decent mid-range phone.
But look, it's no flagship killer.
Hey, so thank you so
much for watching guys.
If you're looking for
another video to watch
then obviously I just recommend
watching this one again
'cause it's kind of great.
But if you must have
some variety in your life
then Becca reviewed the
OnePlus Buds last week
which are the new true wireless earbuds
that go along with this phone.
So if you like OnePlus give it a watch.
