The much-awaited OnePlus Nord smartphone has been officially unveiled by the company. The OnePlus Nord joins the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus 8 Pro as well as the OnePlus 7T, the OnePlus 7T Pro and the OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition on sale in India. The OnePlus Nord is priced Rs 24,999 onwards and is available in two colour variants – Blue Marble and Grey Onix. The OnePlus Nord goes on sale in India from August 4, and will be available on Amazon and OnePlus sites. At this price, the OnePlus Nord is not only competes with all phones priced around the Rs 25,000 mark but because of the specs and potential performance aspects, it could really put a spanner in the plans of the more affordable Android flagship phones.
On the spec sheet, the OnePlus Nord definitely seems to be revisiting the “flagship killer” definition, a term that we haven’t really heard in a while. It has a 90Hz refresh rate display, 8GB and 12GB RAM options, 128GB and 256GB storage options, a quad camera setup at the back led by the same 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor also seen in the OnePlus 8 and a large 4115mAh battery with the WarpCharge30T fast charging. The OnePlus Nord is also 5G capable with the Snapdragon X52 5G modem, as and when 5G mobile networks go Live in India. No corners cut there, then, quite clearly.
The OnePlus Nord is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G mobile platform and you will have the option of choosing the OnePlus Nord variant with 8GB RAM or 12GB RAM. The Snapdragon 765G succeeds the Snapdragon 730G—with faster CPU cores, faster RAM, smaller 7nm architecture, support for 12GB RAM as well as 5G capabilities in tow. This also takes advantage of the fifth generation Qualcomm AI Engine to improve overall performance. Clock speeds go up to 2.4GHz with the Qualcomm Kryo 475 CPU and also runs the newer Qualcomm Adreno 620 graphics. You would perhaps have been rooting for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 platform to power the OnePlus Nord, but one of the probable reasons why OnePlus have gone for the impressive Snapdragon 765G mobile platform instead is the cost.
OnePlus also says they have made as many as 300 under-the-hood optimisations to make the OnePlus Nord work smoothly. These include OxygenOS updates, tweaking of visual elements, animation optimisations, changes to multi-tasking menus as well as 2048 brightness levels for smoother changes and more eye comfort. OnePlus also confirms that the OnePlus Nord will receive software updates for 2 years and security updates for three years—this is in line with the more expensive OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus 8 Pro phones as well.
Apart from these changes on the software side of things, one change that you will notice soon enough is that OnePlus has stripped away its own Message and Phone apps from OxygenOS on the OnePlus Nord, and instead gone ahead with the Google Messages and Google Phone apps. Google Duo video calling app is also preloaded, but that is something which has become very common with recent Android phones.
The OnePlus Nord gets a 6.44-inch FluidAMOLED display. The resolution is ticked off at 2400 x 1080 pixels and this display supports the 90Hz refresh rate as a well as the Display P3 standard. In fact, you see a lot of the same set of features as there are on the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus 8 Pro smartphones too, including the AMOLED Wide Gamut, Vibrant Colour Effect, Video Enhancer, Reading Mode and Night Mode.
As far as the cameras go, this leads the quad camera setup at the back with the same 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor that also does the photography duties in the OnePlus 8. This has the large f/1.75 aperture and optical image stabilisation. Joining in are an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, a 5-megapixel depth sensor and a 2-megapixel macro camera. Front cameras are even more relevant than before since we are spending more time in video calls and video meetings these days, and there are the 32-megapixel and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera combining for your video calls and selfies. In fact, the ultra-wide camera has a 105-degree field of view—hopefully, all your friends will fit in.
The large 4115mAh battery takes advantage of the WarpCharge30T Fast Charging feature—a fully discharged battery will charge up to 70% in 30 minutes.
The OnePlus Nord is also one of the very few compact smartphones in the Android ecosystem. And that in no way means the screen size is compromised. For a phone that gets you a 6.44-inch display, this measures 158.3 x 73.3. x. 8.2 mm in footprint. If you were eyeing the OnePlus 8, you won’t be compromising much on the screen size—the elder sibling gets you a 6.55-inch display instead and measures 160.2 x 72.9 x 8 mm. The Nord weighs 184 grams and has the Corning Gorilla Glass doing the anti-scratch duties on the back.
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