OnePlus Nord 3 5G Review: Solid performance that checks most boxes

OnePlus Nord 3 5G

Amidst all the mediocre midrange smartphone brands that compelled the price-conscious consumer to settle with compromises, OnePlus has always come as a breath of fresh air that showed that one can still get flagship-level smartphone chops without the sky-high prices.

OnePlus started 2023 on a positive note with two stellar smartphones – the OnePlus 11 and 11R – both getting loved by consumers. Continuing the trend, OnePlus launched the OnePlus Nord 3 5G on July 5, their premium midrange offering starting at Rs 33,999, which the company claims take the Nord lineup to another high. I got to play with the device for about two weeks now, and here is my full review of the device:

Design and in-hand feel

The Nord 3 5G is 16.20 cm long, 8.15 mm thick and weighs 193.5 gm, which feels very light and easy to hold. However, the width of 7.51 mm felt slightly uncomfortable for me, which may create some problems for one-handed usage.

The phone comes in two colours – Misty Green and Tempest Gray. My review unit was the latter, which I really liked for its fantastic matte glass textured look that retained the smooth feel to hold. While the glass back with Gorilla Glass 5 protection looks premium, the matte metal sides add to the feel. The phone is slippery, and I will suggest slapping on the good-quality case that comes in the box.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G box contents

The Nord 3 5G comes with a USB-type C port at the bottom with a dual-speaker setup, 2 microphones and a dual-SIM functionality with no option for memory extension. It also packs a power button on the right, while having an optical fingerprint scanner that felt quick to unlock. The phone also lacks a headphone jack.

Display

OnePlus has packed the Nord 3 5G with a 6.74-inch, 1.5K super AMOLED display with 120 Hz refresh rate and 1,450 nits of peak brightness. The display packs in 450 pixels for every inch of its screen which has very thin bezels with symmetrical looks on all sides, looking sharp and crisp with excellent outdoor visibility. Its screen also boasts 10-bit colour depth and 100 percent of DCI-P3 and sRGB, so viewing multimedia content was pleasurable. OTT apps look vivid on the phone, as it supports Widevine L1 and is HDR-10+ capable.

However, the use of Dragontail glass on the front screen was a bummer and I didn’t quite understand why OnePlus gave Gorilla Glass 5 protection at the back but not for the front of the smartphone.

Picture taken on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G in indoor lighting conditions

Performance

Powering the OnePlus Nord 3 5G is an octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 9000, a 4nm chip that is a significant jump from the 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 1300 used in the OnePlus Nord 2T. My review unit came with a top-of-the-line 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256 GB internal memory with UFS 3.1 storage speed. OnePlus claims this gives Nord 3 5G the ability to transfer data more than 75 percent faster than OnePlus Nord 2T while consuming more than 20 percent less power.

The phone felt extremely snappy in day-to-day usage with almost no lags or jitters, including app opening/closing and keeping apps in the background. However, I did notice that the phone gets warm during playing games. Since I was using a pre-release unit, I still got one software update with June security patch, which did seem to reduce the heating.

The phone scored a respectable 1,026 points in Geekbench 6’s single-core test and 3,208 points in the multi-core test, while touching 916,702 in the AnTuTu benchmark. In the Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, the phone showed a stability of 67.3 percent, which could have been better.

Picture taken on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G, on a cloudy morning

I recently tested the Samsung Galaxy F54 5G that was launched at Rs 27,999 and the Nord 3 5G seemed far superior to that in day-to-day performance.

I did play some occasional games such as Candy Crush and Temple Run and did not notice any lag. As for heavy games, I played Genshin Impact, BGMI and Call of Duty for some time on high setting and while the device did saw some frame drops and heating, it handled them well without any major lags or frame drops.

The phone’s dual-speaker system, which are High-Res and Dolby Atmos compatible, is also loud and adds to the immersive experience.

The phone supports dual-5G with Wi-Fi calling, Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6 and I almost never faced any issues with internet speeds. I tested the device with Jio and Airtel SIMs, and while network reception and call clarity was excellent – both indoors and outdoors – I felt the microphone volume felt slightly low during calls and could be a problem while making calls in noisy situations.

Camera

For optics, The OnePlus Nord 3 5G packs a triple-camera setup in the rear housed inside a two-circle layout. The primary camera is the Sony IMX890 sensor, a 50-MP shooter with a large 1/1.56” sensor that allows more light and has optical image stabilization (OIS). This is the same sensor used in the flagship OnePlus 11 that was launched earlier this year. The other two cameras are an 8-MP, Sony IMX355 sensor that’s an ultra wide shooter with electronic image stabilisation (EIS), while the last one is the mostly useless 2-MP macro camera. The front camera is 16MP.

Daylight picture taken on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G

While the primary sensor seems potent on paper and OnePlus claims a lot about its portrait and landscape photography chops, they actually do deliver. Outdoor images looked sharp and vibrant under natural light with excellent dynamic range, but the camera software tends to oversaturate the colours. And in low or artificial lighting conditions, I could see a bit of noise and graininess creep into the pictures when slightly zoomed in.

Edge detection in portrait mode also needs some polishing.

Since I was using a review unit, hopefully OnePlus listens to my feedback and fixes these camera issues with a quick software update.

The 16 MP selfie camera handles dynamic range just fine, but skin tones look slightly boosted. Edge detection on portrait selfies could be better but they do separate the subject from the background. The OnePlus Nord 3 5G also performed well under night selfies, while boosting the colours a bit.

An evening sky on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G

When it comes to video recording, the smartphone can shoot 4K video at 60fps, and OnePlus claims its AI noise reduction algorithms help improve the stabilization in videos.

Videos captured in daylight reproduce good clarity, dynamic range and exposure. Colour accuracy was an area where OnePlus did struggle and I noticed a bit of a yellow tinge in my videos. However, the vivid colours will definitely appeal to the social media-friendly youth, which this phone targets to cater to. At night, the exposure captured 4K video at 30fps with good noise reduction and decent details.

Picture taken on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G, during the night in artificial light conditions.

Battery

The Nord 3 5G comes with a 5000mAh dual-cell battery, that should easily last a day with moderate usage but will mostly need a top-up towards the end of the day for heavy users and gamers. The phone’s processer – the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 sips battery and that helps in preserving battery.

However, OnePlus’ legendary charging capabilities will never let you down on the battery front. The phone comes with an 80-watt SuperVOOC fast charging with the charger supplied inside the box, giving me a day's power in half an hour, from 1-60 percent in 15 minutes 100 percent power in about 32 minutes.

Software

On the software front, the Nord 3 5G boots Android 13-based OxygenOS 13.1 out of the box. Probably, maximum controversies surrounding OnePlus of late have centred around OxygenOS now turning into just another iteration of Oppo’s ColourOS, which seems valid on paper.

However, the OS still seemed fast and snappy with almost no lags throughout my entire usage, with superb network reception, sometimes even trumping my good old Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G as well. OnePlus also has not filled up the phone with junk apps and if set up correctly, one will not get any ads or spam posts inside the OS, which is a plus. Call quality was good, but I was expecting in-call volume to be slightly louder.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G software

OnePlus promises three years of major OS updates and four years of security updates on the device.

OxygenOS 13 has a 40 percent reduction in app power consumption and installs apps 15 percent faster than the previous generation, claims OnePlus. The software also comes with features such as Zen Space, which helps tune out background noise and notifications and O-Relax, an app that generates relaxing sounds and mini games designed to relax the mind.

OxygenOS 13 has its quirks, where some lock screen notifications can only be dismissed with a left swipe while some with a right swipe. Hopefully, it can provide monthly security updates once the phone is released and fix this issue.

In the end, it all boils down to personal choice. For a stock-Android purist like me, I prefer the OG OxygenOS look but for a new user, they will not have too many problems with the OS.

Daylight image taken on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G

Verdict

Overall, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G packs everything that most users want – a large modern display with sharp and punchy colours in a light frame, a robust processor and an OS that handles most tasks without breaking a sweat and that superfast charging speed that lets you forget about battery anxiety. The dual-speaker setup also lives up to its expectations.

While the camera performs well in outdoor light and produces images that are social-media friendly, its performance under low-light conditions and selfies still needs some work.