OnePlus’ Nord collection of smartphones was initially supposed to be the corporate’s price range providing, delivering value-for-money efficiency and design with out breaking the financial institution. Nonetheless, the collection has been a bit in all places, with the Nord 3 launching not too long ago and the Nord 3 Lite a bit earlier than that. Priced at Rs. 26,999 for the bottom mannequin and Rs. 28,999 for the upper mannequin (which I’ve been utilizing), does the telephone justify the value tag? Let’s try to discover out.
Design: The Nord CE3 follows a easy but premium design with a shiny plastic again that does not really feel low-cost in any respect. The again homes a protruding triple digicam setup in a cutout format. The telephone is available in two colours – Gray Shimmer and Aqua Surge – the latter being the one I attempted. The edges are all matte end – with the amount button and Energy/lock keys on the correct aspect; whereas the left aspect is left plain. On the backside, you’ve gotten your twin SIM card tray, USB Kind-C port, main speaker, and one outlet for the loudspeaker; on the highest, you’ve gotten the infrared port, secondary mic, and secondary outlet for the loudspeaker to go together with the ear-speaker grille within the show’s prime bezels subsequent to the round punch-hole digicam. Talking of bezels across the 6.7-inch show (20.1:9 side ratio), these are fairly skinny with almost uniform dimensions. The telephone weighs round 185 grams and measures 0.32 inches in thickness, and it by no means felt slippery to hold round.
Show: The OnePlus Nord CE3 sports activities a 6.7-inch full HD+ (2412×1080) AMOLED show with help for refresh charges of as much as 120Hz and HDR10 for movies. The show is sort of brilliant and usable underneath direct daylight. There is a little bit of shade retention when viewing full HD movies, however in any other case, shade replica is fairly good with sharp and punchy output. I favor the pure mode for the show’s settings, however you might favor one thing else. For HDR, solely YouTube supported HDR video playback, which the Nord CE3does a strictly okay job of by way of distinction and shadows.
Digital camera: You get a triple digicam setup – a 50MP (f/1.8) predominant digicam, an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide digicam, and a 2MP (f/2.4) macro digicam together with an LED flash. The principle Sony IMX890 and ultra-wide Sony IMX355 can produce detailed and well-color-stitched pictures for daylight situations. The topic is commonly centered with good distinction and dynamic vary to go together with it. It could possibly battle with portrait pictures even in daylight open air with oversharpening of the topic. For movies, you possibly can shoot at 4K decision at 30FPS, and 1080p movies at 60FPS. The front-facing 16MP (f/2.4) digicam takes fairly sharp pictures and respectable portrait pictures when utilized in appropriate lighting situations, and it’s greater than adequate for video calls. The digicam app masses and snaps shortly with little or no shutter lag and has quite a lot of choices to select from inside.
Efficiency and software program expertise: Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 782G chipset (as much as 2.7GHz octa-core processor, Adreno 642L GPU, and x53 5G modem), 12GB LPDDR4X RAM, and 256GB UFS3.1 storage (the bottom mannequin comes with an 8GB + 128GB configuration). The Nord CE3 runs on OxygenOS 13.1 primarily based on Android 13 with the June safety patch put in. It handles day-to-day duties of opening and shutting apps, switching between apps, utilizing multi-window, and scrolling inside these apps simply superb. Then again, I did discover that navigating inside an app is nearly by no means carried out at greater than 90Hz refresh charges, which is one thing seen on earlier OnePlus fashions too. When enjoying a excessive bitrate video with HDR, the telephone can present a little bit of sluggishness by way of dealing with playback easily. It doesn’t occur continuously however it’s reproducible. For gaming, do not anticipate to play a sport like BGMI at its highest settings, although enjoying at low to medium settings needs to be okay. As you possibly can see, efficiency is usually okay, but it surely does not fairly hit it out of the park with regards to easy scrolling and gaming. You get only a few third-party apps pre-installed out of the field, and most of these might be uninstalled too. The Enhanced Clever Companies possibility inside Settings is now switched off by default.
Battery life: The Nord CE3 comes with a 5,000mAh battery unit and an 80-watt SuperVooc charger within the field (together with a blue-colored rubberized protecting case and USB type-A to C cable). The Nord CE3 lasted me a day round 8 out of 10 instances, not requiring charging once more throughout a day nearly each time. It fees from 1% to full in about an hour and does not warmth up considerably both.
Different bits: The decision high quality and WiFi reception on the Nord CE3 are top-notch as I did not discover any uncommon community drops or bandwidth points throughout my utilization. 5G connectivity from OnePlus is a few of the higher implementations on telephones, and the Nord CE3 isn’t any exception, giving good speeds and latching on to 5G in most locations the place it is normally accessible.
Verdict: The Nord CE3 is an efficient performer with regards to offering a neat and clear software program expertise out of the field with nice battery life. Then again, it does not fairly give you the very best efficiency and gaming expertise at this worth level; for that, the likes of the Poco F5 and Realme 11 Professional+ nonetheless take the cake. So, if you’re anyone that prioritizes how the telephone’s expertise is out of the field with out an excessive amount of tinkering required to be carried out your self at first and a digicam that’s fast to snap pictures, the Nord CE3 is a good possibility to think about underneath 30k.”
