Is the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite worth the upgrade over its predecessor?
OnePlus has held a larger chunk of sales with its OnePlus Nord (Review) being one of the best smartphones in the mid-range segment and it further expanded its Nord range later we also had the OnePlus Nord CE series in the mid-range segment which made its debut in 2021 and then came the Nord CE Lite segment which focuses mainly on the budget smartphone segment and slightly closer to the mid-range segment.Last year, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite was one of the top-selling smartphones in the budget segment compared to other smartphones as it brought in some good specifications like a 120Hz IPS LCD display, a Snapdragon 695 chipset which provides good performance and decent gaming, a 64MP camera setup, and a 5000mAh battery with 33W fast charging.
However, the top selling point has been the clean software experience in the form of OxygenOS with no bloatware which is not the case with other user interfaces in this price segment except Motorola. Other than that the support for 5G in the budget segment made it a solid hit. With the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite, OnePlus brings a few upgrades in terms of cameras, slightly faster charging, and a newer design.
So is the OnePlus Nord CE 3 worth buying in the budget segment? Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Design:
In terms of design, OnePlus has tweaked the design at the back compared to the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite where we have the rectangular camera module that houses triple cameras. Still, here on the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite, we have an almost similar design inspired by the Realme 10 Pro Plus where there are only two circular rings placed on the back.
The top ring houses the 108MP camera and the second ring houses the macro and the depth cameras and alongside the cameras, lies the LED flashlight which looks more significant. The back of the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is completely flat except for the slight curves around the sides. There is no official IP rating or protection claimed by OnePlus.
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite weighs around 195 grams which makes it quite light while holding it in hands as OnePlus has gone for a polycarbonate back which has a glossy finish and does attract a lot of fingerprints and smudges. The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is available in two different colours - Chromatic Gray and Pastel Lime where the Pastel Lime looks attractive and it shines when light falls on it.
Around the sides, there is a polycarbonate frame that houses the power button on the right side which doubles up as a fingerprint scanner and on the left side are the volume buttons and a dual SIM card slot. which is a hybrid slot. At the bottom, there is a loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a USB Type-C port.
The top of the smartphone has a secondary noise-cancelling microphone only. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display located in the middle on the top and around the sides, there are minimum bezels around. Overall, the build feels good but still lacks the premium feel you get with a glass back but the newer design is appealing.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Display:
On the front, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite has a slightly larger 6.72-inches display compared to the 6.59-inches display on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite. This display has a Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) IPS LCD display that has support for a 120Hz refresh rate which makes everything smoother on the smartphone. The colours look good and the viewing angles are decent.
However, if you compare it with an AMOLED display, definitely this display lacks the deep blues and blacks and also the viewing angles are not so good. However, the 120Hz refresh rate is an adaptive one where if you set the refresh rate to High, the display refreshes between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz depending on the content on the display.
Still, very few applications support 120Hz and mostly it maintains a refresh rate of around 30Hz or 60Hz in most of the applications. Combined with a 120Hz refresh rate, you get a 240Hz touch sampling rate which provides faster touch responses. In terms of brightness, the display can reach a peak brightness of around 680 nits which is good for an LCD display and normal brightness hovers around 550 nits.
The display has decent visibility under direct sunlight and you get two different colour modes - Vivid and Natural where Natural covers the sRGB content and has more realistic colours and switching to Vivid results in punchier colours and it covers the DCI-P3 but, as usual, the display maintains a warmer tone and there is also the temperature slider to set the display to a warmer or a cooler tone.
Since it is an LCD display, you do miss out on an in-display fingerprint scanner and rather get a side-mounted one which works accurately and is faster. The display does not have support for HDR on YouTube as well as on OTT platforms due to the limitation of the chipset. Overall, the display is good for media consumption but the inclusion of an AMOLED display would have been better.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Performance:
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is powered by the Snapdragon 695 chipset which is the similar chipset also found on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite. This is a 5G chipset in the budget segment which was found on many of the budget and mid-range smartphones launched last year. This chipset is based on an efficient 6nm process and is coupled with an Adreno 619 GPU.
In terms of daily tasks, the smartphone can handle everything well but at times while multi-tasking there are some lags and stutters noticed. Also when it comes to gaming, the smartphone handles casual games well but when you play heavy and demanding titles like Genshain Impact, BGMI, etc. there are some frame drops noticed at the highest graphics settings.
In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone can maintain a sustained performance of around 80-85 per cent with minimal throttling present which is really very good. After longer hours of gaming, the smartphone does not feel warmer which is very good as the dedicated liquid system does dissipate heat faster. In terms of benchmarks, the scores came out good but still not the best in class.
In terms of network connectivity, there is support for good carrier aggregation and 8 bands of 5G. The haptics do feel good as this is a budget smartphone. The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is available in two different variants - 8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128/256GB UFS 2.2 storage speeds. Overall, the performance is good in daily tasks but is not made for heavy gaming but you can play casual games easily.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Software:
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite runs on OxygenOS 13.1 with Android 13 out of the box. OxygenOS 13 brings some very good features like an Always-On display which has a lot of features where you can see that it is integrated with third-party applications like Zomato which shows the upcoming delivery as well as Spotify where it shows the track that is being played in the background.
The Shelf is present which provides some additional features and the animations are slightly faster also. You can customize the icon shape and size, have different animations for the fingerprint scanner and Always-On display, and the Privacy Dashboard is present where you can see which applications are using the microphone, camera as well as location also.
Everything feels smoother but there is some stutter noticed while switching between applications. As well as know OxygenOS is by far one of the cleanest user interface out there but with this smartphone, OnePlus seems to have introduced some third-party applications in the form of Hot Free Games which can be uninstalled and also some duplicate applications also which can be disabled but still it is not good.
However, with a recent software update, OnePlus has removed the Hot Free Games which is good. In terms of software updates, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite will receive another two major AndroidOS updates and three years of security patches which is good for a mid-range smartphone. Overall, the software experience is excellent ever since that Hot Free Games has been removed.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Cameras:
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite has a triple camera setup where the main camera has the 108MP f/1.8 Samsung HM6 sensor and the other two cameras include a 2MP macro camera and a 2MP depth sensor. On the front, there is a 16MP f/2.4 camera. The main camera seems to be a good upgrade over the 64MP camera on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite.
The images from the main camera come out with sharper details with a good dynamic range and contrast. The colours look natural as there is no oversharpening in the background and noise is very less. With the HDR mode, the colours look overprocessed slightly but using the 108MP mode defaults to 12MP images by taking a crop from the middle of the sensor.
However, these images using the 108MP mode come out with slightly softer details and do have a slight amount of noise compared to the images shot using the regular mode i.e. Photo mode. At night, the main camera takes images with good dynamic range and colours look natural with some amount of oversharpening in the background. There is a larger amount of noise in shadows and exposure is not so good.
With the dedicated Night Mode, things improve to quite a larger margin as details look sharper, dynamic range improves and also the noise reduces to quite some margin but still OnePlus needs to improve the low-light photography. There is no ultrawide camera which is disappointing considering its competition which does offer an ultrawide camera which is useful for those wider shots.
The 2MP macro camera is a fixed focus one where images come out with a decent level of detail, dynamic range is average with a lot of noise in the background. The colours look natural though. In terms of portraits, the main camera does a good job in terms of edge detection but the details look a tad softer with some noise and the level of background blur needs some improvement.
The background blur is good but at times it does get uneven but the colours look natural. On the front, there is a 16MP camera that does a good job in terms of selfies which come out with sharper details and good dynamic range and contrast. The skin tones look natural with no oversharpening and also portrait selfies come out with good edge detection and dynamic range.
In terms of videos, the main camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps and there is no OIS present which results in a slight amount of noise in the videos the dynamic range is good and the colours look natural with no oversharpening. On the front, the camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps which comes out with a decent level of detail and average dynamic range and since there is no EIS, there is quite some noise present.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Battery Life:
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite has a 5000mAh battery similar to the one on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite and combined with the 6nm based Snapdragon 695 chipset, the smartphone can easily last a day with heavy usage that includes playing heavy games, attending calls continuously for longer hours, etc. but with normal usage that includes casual gaming, web browsing, streaming social media, the smartphone can easily last two days.
The standard screen-on time with normal usage comes around 6-7 hours and with heavy usage, it results in 3-4 hours which is very good thanks to the good battery optimizations on OxygenOS 13.1. There is a 80W fast charger bundled inside the box but the smartphone charges at 67W which takes around 45-50 minutes to charge it completely from 0 to 100 per cent.
The charging speed is a good improvement over the 33W fast charging on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Audio Quality:
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite has a dual stereo speaker setup which sounds adequately loud and clear and the sound does not feel muffled but still, it lacks the feel found on other dual stereo speakers as the bass levels are just average. However, it does retain the 3.5mm headphone jack which provides it a big advantage as the audio output through it is very good and balanced.
Verdict:
Overall, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is a good offering in the mid-range segment as it gets some of the basics right with a good design, a 120Hz LCD display with stereo speakers is great for multi-media consumption, the Snapdragon 695 chipset handles all the daily tasks easily except heavy games, the software experience is cleaner and has a good update cycle, battery life is good and you get faster charging.
However, there are some areas where OnePlus have cut a lot of corners which is really disappointing like the display is still LCD and not AMOLED, and there is no ultrawide camera, then the main camera struggles when it comes to night photography, and the build is polycarbonate instead of glass and off lately now OnePlus had introduced some bloatware in the smartphone which now is removed is a good thing.
The biggest disappointment is the Snapdragon 695 chipset which has a lot of limitations as it does not support YouTube on HDR, no 4K recording is present on the main camera and heavy games are not optimized well to play in the highest graphics setting. However, the smaller upgrades over the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite make it worth buying if someone is looking to upgrade to the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite.
So if you want the cleanest software experience and faster updates, good battery life, a good display for media consumption and good performance with decent gaming, then the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is a great buy but on the other hand, if you want the best performance, an AMOLED display, better build and cameras, then this may not be your right choice as there are many different options in the market.
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