OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G: First Impressions
This new Nord is no exception to camera bumps, but at least the one here is subtle. That’s commendable since it houses a triple camera unit, which I will be touching upon in the latter part of this article.A sim card tray is a 3-in-1 unit, which means you can put in two micro SIM cards along with one micro SD card. It supports expandable storage up to 1TB. From the design point of view, you can expect the usual OnePlus standard, except for 2 things — a good and a bad. The bad news is that it doesn’t come with an alert slider. As they say, you miss the most basic of things when they are not there, and I have been feeling that ever since I have gotten hold of this device. The ease of use and convenience of switching between profiles with a slider is unbeaten, it saves just a few seconds and may not be a deal-breaker for many but it's undeniably convenient. This is a bit of a turn-off for me.Now for the good part, you get the 3.5mm headphone jack. You can take it as a trade deal, and maybe that will make you feel better. For me? I would prefer to have the alert slider over a headphone jack since I’ve already invested in a good pair of truly wireless headphones.AdvertisementThe latest Nord runs on Android 11 but it will be receiving the Android 12 update soon, as per the company. The Android OS is combined with OxygenOS 11 on top.Yes, I did have some preconceived ideas about how the device will feel since the Color OS and Oxygen OS merged lately, but I was pleasantly surprised. The software remains to feel smooth and responsive during my initial experience with the device. With minimal bloatware and smooth functionality out of the box, it would be unfair to say it’s lost the OnePlus flavour. I just hope the company has worked on the bugs seen with third-party apps like Instagram and Facebook on some of its previous phones.OnePlus Nord CE 2: DisplayWe can’t deny that no clean OS is attractive if it’s not being used on a good display, fortunately OnePlus has scored there. The 6.43-inch fluid AMOLED punch-hole display is gorgeous. It’s bright and the pictures look vibrant and well saturated. It is also HDR10+ certified which makes its presence felt when you watch content on third-party apps like Netflix or Amazon Prime. (I watched an episode of The Office on it, and yes, it was clear - RYAN STARTED THE FIRE).The CE2 comes with 90Hz as a default refresh rate that’s become a standard on phones of this range, and it improves scrolling or playing games.AdvertisementThe linear speaker set-up on the smartphone is loud but it's not as good as seen on more expensive flagships from the company.OnePlus Nord CE 2: Performance, battery and cameraThis young OnePlus runs on MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G chipset, which so far has been holding up pretty well. The device boots up quickly, handles games like BGMI smoothly, if played on HD settings. There was hardly any lag, and I am satisfied as of writing my first impressions.So far, I am also happy with the RAM management. With 8GB of memory, applications stay intact around the day and open up exactly where I left them.The in-built storage is 128GB which is ample for a regular user, but if you are someone hardcore then you can always expand it with a micro SD card.AdvertisementAnother area where the processor makes its presence felt is battery life. Nord CE 2 5G runs feature a 4500 mAh dual-cell battery set-up (2 x 2250 mAh cells). In the last 2 days, I had to plug in the device once when the battery went all the way down to 0%. So that’s impressive.What surprised me more was the charging time. With 65W charging, the device went to 80% in just about 20 minutes, and in about 30 minutes it was a complete 100%. These are great numbers considering it is so far running for an entire day. I will have more to write about it when I test it thoroughly.Before closing this piece let’s talk about the camera. But first, the camera app, which is a mix of what we see on Oppo and what we used to see on the older version on OxygenOS.The primary sensor is a 64MP shooter, with electronic image stabilization and produces decent images. It retains skin tones and doesn't put a beauty filter to spoil a frame. Portrait mode works well and the amount of bokeh can also be adjusted as per your taste. Low light performance is just aren’t as impressive as daylight so far. The 2MP macro sensor is impressive and retains a great amount of detail. Yet, there is a problem with colours here as well. You can check out the camera samples in the video above.AdvertisementThe third camera fortunately is a useful one, it's an 8MP ultra-wide sensor. Creating a giant canvas for your frames, allows you to click decent images and does retain great details. The selfie camera is a 16 MP shooter and so far the results have been pretty satisfying. Skin tones stay intact and colours are not overly bright or vibrant. Portrait selfies also look impressive in daylight.The video mode has surprised me more than anything else, even with just EIS, the output looks great, with the audio complementing the video really well. There are some bonus features like the dual-video mode, which is implemented perfectly on the device.Early verdict So what are my parting thoughts? OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G, has some serious potential to go head to head against, its competitors like the Xiaomi 11i, or Samsung M and A series smartphones. It looks good, works well, and doesn't compromise a lot when it comes to actual usage. So my initial thoughts can confirm that it’s a promising product that can only be dwarfed if the competition is tough, which will be the real test for the Nord CE 2 in this segment.SEE ALSO-Galaxy S 22 series launched in IndiaAdvertisementRealme 9 Pro+ 5G Review{{}} NewsletterSIMPLY PUT - where we join the dots to inform and inspire you. Sign up for a weekly brief collating many news items into one untangled thought delivered straight to your mailbox.CAPTCHA:Enter captchaBy clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Next StoryAmazon workers due to vote in a union election were told in a mandatory meeting that negotiations could start at 'minimum wage'
Hot Articles
