Is the OnePlus Nord CE 2 worth buying in the mid-range segment?
Since OnePlus entered the smartphone market, its core aim was to deliver smartphones with flagship specifications at a reasonable price making them slightly less expensive compared to flagships from Samsung, Apple, etc. In 2020, they came up with the mid-range lineup in the form of the OnePlus Nord (Review) being their first mid-range smartphone which had almost all the good specifications in a mid-range segment.
Then last year, OnePlus shifted its focus towards the entry-level smartphone by delivering the core experience in the form of the OnePlus Nord CE (Review). The OnePlus Nord CE where the name CE stands for "Core Edition" had a good running since it got almost all the specifications right like a 90Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 750G chipset, a 64MP triple camera setup, and much more.
But there are some areas where there were compromises to define it as an entry-level OnePlus smartphone as for the first time here OnePlus's signature alert slider was removed, the build and design were plastic, etc. So with the newer OnePlus Nord CE 2, the OnePlus seems to provide a good package to the consumers as it brings some very good upgrades but it too has certain compromises.
So how good of an upgrade is the OnePlus Nord CE 2 over the original OnePlus Nord CE and is this mid-range smartphone worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 Design:
The OnePlus Nord CE had a polycarbonate design which was slightly disappointing as the build quality was not so well and this same continues with the newer OnePlus Nord CE 2 also where you also get a polycarbonate back but now the design is newer instead of the three vertically-aligned cameras on the OnePlus Nord CE, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 gets a rectangular module that houses the triple cameras with an LED flashlight.
The camera bump is slightly protruded though. The rear has a holographic look to it and many can mistake it for a glass back also. The back is glossy instead of a matte finish so it does attract some fingerprints. The weight of the OnePlus Nord CE 2 is around 173grams which is not so heavier and is slimmer at 7.8mm which makes it easy to hold.
There is no such IP rating but you do get P2i coating at the back making it slightly splashproof. All around the sides, there is a plastic frame running that houses the power button on the right side and volume buttons on the left side with a dual SIM card slot with a dedicated slot for a microSD card. Like the OnePlus Nord CE, here also you do miss out on the alert slider which is slightly disappointing.
On the top, there is a secondary noise-canceling microphone whereas the bottom has a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a loudspeaker grille. On the front, the smartphone has thinner bezels around the side, except the bottom has a slightly thicker bezel which looks slightly awkward as the earlier OnePlus Nord CE had a thinner bezel at the bottom.
There is a single punch-hole located in the top right corner. Like the OnePlus Nord CE, this also feels compact due to the smaller 6.43-inches display. Overall, the design is a personal preference but the build does not feel as premium as that you get with a glass back.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 Display:
Like the OnePlus Nord CE, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 sports a 6.43-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. As this display is AMOLED, the color reproduction and viewing angles are great. Like the OnePlus Nord CE, here also you get an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works fast and accurately.
This display also supports a 90Hz refresh rate which aids in smooth scrolling through webpages, multitasking between applications, etc but is not an adaptive one where refresh rate adjusts automatically depending on the application in usage. For better battery life, you can switch to the standard 60Hz also.
However, other smartphones in this price segment come with a 120Hz refresh rate which OnePlus could have provided but still, you would not find much of a difference between a 90Hz and a 120Hz display as such., but still 120Hz refresh rate is slightly better. Combined with it, you get a 180Hz touch sampling rate which enables faster touch responses but still, other smartphones offer higher 240Hz/ 360Hz touch sampling rates.
The display on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 has support for HDR10 so you can stream HDR content on YouTube and also Widevine L1 support for streaming HDR content on OTT platforms. But still, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 cannot support HDR content on Netflix, and maybe OnePlus fixes this issue with a future software update.
Talking about the display, it can achieve a peak brightness of 800nits which is good but the best other smartphones like the Realme 9 Pro Plus (Review) and the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge (Review) can reach a peak brightness of 1200nits. One big upgrade that OnePlus has provided is the Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection for the OnePlus Nord CE 2 over the DragonTrail Glass on the OnePlus Nord CE.
In terms of color saturation, you get two modes to choose from - Vivid and Gentle where Vivid covers the DCI-P3 gamut and this saturates the color to a larger extent whereas switching to Gentle, results in natural color profile and covers the sRGB color scale. Overall, the display on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 is good for media consumption but a slightly higher refresh rate would have been better.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 Performance:
The OnePlus Nord CE 2 sports a powerful Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset which is also found on the Oppo Reno 7 launched this year. The Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset has 2x2.4GHz Cortex-A78 cores with other 6x2.0GHz Cortex-A55 cores which are based on an efficient 6nm process coupled with a Mali-G68 MC4 GPU.
This chipset is a good upgrade over the Snapdragon 750G chipset that is built on an 11nm process found on the OnePlus Nord CE. But still, it is not as powerful as the Mediatek Dimensity 1200 chipset or even the Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset found on the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge and the Realme 9 Pro Plus, but still, it is good. But difference between Mediatek Dimensity 900 and 920 is very negligible.
Overall performance feels good and the smartphone can easily do almost all the tasks like rendering videos, switching between applications, and also while playing heavy games. Unlike the OnePlus Nord CE which had a significant amount of frame drops while playing games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc.
But with the OnePlus Nord CE 2, all heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc. ran very smoothly without any frame drops or stutters. BGMI could easily run on HD graphics with Ultra frame rate and also you get Smooth graphics with Extreme. After a longer amount of time, the back of the smartphone did feel slightly warm to the touch but still, it was manageable.
In CPU throttling tests, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 could maintain a sustained performance of around 80-85 percent which is very good but still, the Snapdragon 778G chipset has the best-sustained performance around 95 percent in this price segment. The network connectivity is good as you get carrier aggregation and also have support for 8 5G bands.
The OnePlus Nord CE 2 is available in three different variants - 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB storage which has UFS 3.1 speeds. The benchmarks are not the best but still good. Overall, the performance is good but still, if you want better gaming capabilities, maybe other chipsets would do better.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 Software:
The OnePlus Nord CE 2, like all OnePlus smartphones, runs on OxygenOS 11 built on top of Android 11. This seems to be slightly disappointing as many smartphones are coming with Android 12 out of the box and OnePlus has been always at the forefront in providing the latest Android version in the past but this is not the case now.
After the merger with its parent company, Oppo, the software has transitioned from OxygenOS more towards ColorOS as you would find a lot of ColorOS elements whether it is settings, notification panels, etc. You do get a lot of customizations from changing icon shape and size, fingerprint scanner animations, Always-On Display, etc.
There is a Game Launcher that blocks unnecessary messages and calls during gaming and also boosts CPU and GPU during gaming. Other than this, OxygenOS remains clean without any bloatware present which makes the software experience premium. In terms of software updates, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 is claimed to get another two years of Android OS updates and three years of security updates.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 Cameras:
The OnePlus Nord CE 2 sports a triple camera setup which has the 64MP f/1.8 OmniVision sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. On the front, there is a 16MP f/2.4 camera. This is the same camera setup found on the OnePlus Nord CE so the results may be pretty much similar.
During the day, the images taken from the main camera come out with excellent dynamic range and the details look sharper also. The colors are also on the natural side without any oversharpening in the background. But there is a considerable amount of noise present in the background. The images taken in HDR come out with slightly oversaturated colors and at 64MP resolution, the images have good details.
At night, the images taken from the main camera have good dynamic range and contrast but the details look softer and there is a lot of noise present. There is some oversharpening in the background during night and exposure is also average. Turning on the dedicated night mode does improve dynamic range, but still, the details do not look sharp.
However, noise is reduced to a large extent and the highlights in shadows and low-lighting areas are restored. The 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of dynamic range and details also look good with colors close to natural. However, the details are not as sharp as that on the main camera but still good. Since you get a 119-degree field of view, the details are captured perfectly.
But around the corners, there is a lot of distortion and if you zoom into the images, the details look softer. At night, the images have a decent dynamic range and like the day shots, the details look slightly softer and there is a larger amount of noise in the background also. However, OnePlus has provided a dedicated night mode which does reduce the noise and improves the details slightly.
There is a 2MP macro camera which is just for adding up the numbers as it clicks images with washed-out colors, the noise is on the higher side, and also the dynamic range is very average. Plus it is a fixed focus macro camera so it cannot adjust accordingly to the subject on which you are focusing. So it is better to use the main camera by applying a 2x digital zoom to get better macro images with sharp details and good dynamic range.
In terms of portraits, both the dynamic range and edge detection are good. The background blur is good but still needs some improvement, especially when focusing on a subject in the background.
On the front, the selfies come out with a good dynamic range and skin tones and also look natural without any oversharpening.
At night, the selfies come out with sharp details but there is a considerable amount of noise. In terms of portrait selfies, the edge detection is good but there is a lot of oversharpening present in the background. In terms of videos, the rear camera can record 4K videos at 30fps and these videos have good dynamic range and details do look sharper during the day.
Switching to night, the videos have a decent dynamic range and details look softer with a large amount of noise. However, since there is no OIS present, the videos have a lot of shakiness present. Switching to 1080p videos at 60fps, the videos have an excellent dynamic range with very less noise in the background and since EIS kicks in, the videos come out to be slightly stable and better.
The videos from the ultrawide camera can be recorded up to 1080p at 30fps and videos do have a lot of noise present and details also look softer. The same is the situation at the night, when there is a larger amount of noise present and details also look softer. There is an Ultra-Stable Mode which does improve the stability in the videos taken from the ultrawide camera.
The front camera does have support for 4K videos at 30fps, so you are restricted to 1080p videos at 60fps these videos have a good dynamic range and details and also look good with natural skin tones. The front camera does miss out on EIS though. The portrait selfie videos come out good but do suffer from slight oversharpening in the background.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 Battery Life:
Like the OnePlus Nord CE, this one also has a similar battery capacity of 4500mAh. This battery can easily last for two days with normal usage and with heavy usage that includes playing games like BGMI for 3-4 hours, streaming social media for 5-6 hours, voice calls, and other tasks, the smartphone can easily last a single day with some charge left with the display set to 90Hz.
With the display set to standard 60Hz, the smartphone easily lasted two and half days with normal usage and around two days with heavy usage. The standard screen-on time was around 6-7 hours which is good. In terms of charging, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 supports 65W fast charging which is a good improvement over the 30W fast charging on the OnePlus Nord CE.
The 65W SuperVOOC charger is bundled inside the box and takes around 45 minutes from 0 to 100 percent completely. Overall, the battery life is improved compared to the OnePlus Nord CE 2 due to the efficient 6nm Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset, and charging speeds are also faster.
OnePlus Nord CE 2 Audio Quality:
The OnePlus Nord CE 2 sports a single bottom-firing speaker which remains unchanged from the OnePlus Nord CE. The audio quality is very good for a single speaker as it is very loud and clear with no distortion but still, it lacks the depth and feels that you get with a stereo speaker setup. There is also a 3.5mm headphone jack and the sound output through it is also good.
For enhanced sound output, there is also support for Dolby Atmos.
Verdict:
So should you consider the OnePlus Nord CE 2? Well, as an overall package, definitely it is a good upgrade over the OnePlus Nord CE launched last year as it brings better display protection, better performance, improved battery life with faster charging, and a newer design. The software experience continues to remain excellent with no bloatware.
The display is good as you get that 90Hz refresh rate, the Mediatek Dimensity 900 handles almost all tasks easily, the cameras are good and battery life is very good with support for faster charging. However, there are some areas where corners are cut like the build and design are still plastic instead of glass, the display could have a slightly higher refresh rate and better touch sampling rate, the Mediatek Dimensity 900 chipset though provides good performance is not as powerful as the Mediatek Dimensity 1200 or the Snapdragon 778G chipset, and there is only a single speaker instead of stereo speakers.
If you can live with these compromises, then the OnePlus Nord CE 2 is a good buy.
So if you want a smartphone with a good AMOLED display, good performance, good software experience, and good battery life, then the OnePlus Nord CE 2 is worth buying.
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