OnePlus Nord 2 Review: A mid-ranger worthy of the "Never Settle" motto

Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus just dropped the Pac-Man Edition of the Nord 2 in India. The OnePlus Nord 2 Pac-Man Edition introduces multiple aesthetic changes as well as some software tweaks. The specs, design, and build, however, are similar to that of the original OnePlus Nord 2, which was unveiled earlier this year.

The Nord 2 was the first real successor to the company’s first mid-range phone the “OnePlus Nord”. Much like its predecessor, the OnePlus Nord 2 brings its A-game when it comes to hardware. However, in recent times, OxygenOS’s popularity has taken a major hit after the announcement of integration with Oppo’s ColorOS.

I’ve had the OnePlus Nord 2 for a few months now, allowing me to use it rigoursly. The OnePlus Nord 2 has a starting price of Rs 27,999 in India for the base 6GB/128GB model and can go up to Rs 34,999 for the 12GB/256GB model. The OnePlus Nord 2 Pac-Man Edition only arrives with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and will set you back by Rs 37,999. Let’s take an in-depth look at the OnePlus Nord 2.

Design

The Nord 2 features the same design principles as the OnePlus 9 series. The phone is available in Blue Haze (our model), Green Woods, and Gray Sierra. In terms of the build, you get a glass back (Gorilla Glass 5) and a plastic frame. The back glass of the phone curves towards the sides, making the overall hand feel quite comfortable.

The device is also pretty resistant to fingerprint smudges, while the button placement aligned well with my hand. The phone features the same rear camera layout as the OnePlus 9 series, while the USB Type-C port and SIM tray are located at the bottom. OnePlus has also managed to fit stereo speakers into the new Nord 2. Additionally, you also get a tiny punch-hole for the solitary selfie camera on the front.

I found the Nord 2 to be quite convenient to use. The smaller screen size may not be appealing to some users but the phone’s compact size makes it easy and comfortable to use. The glass on the front and back gives you additional protection while maintaining a more premium feel. No fingerprint smudges also make the phone look good. OnePlus has added a case, an adapter, and a cable to the box.

Display

The OnePlus Nord 2 sports a 6.43-inch Full HD+ (2400 x 1080 pixels) AMOLED display. The display’s refresh rate is set to 90Hz by default, though the phone can scale it down to 60Hz if an app doesn’t support the higher refresh rate. Moreover, the display is HDR10+ compliant and supports WideVine L1 for HD video streaming on supported OTT platforms.

You also get AI resolution boost and AI colour boost features to upscale resolution and improve colours. I didn’t dive too much into the additional features or manual change colour temperatures as the screen is very-well calibrated out of the box. When consuming content on the phone, you will find colour reproduction, black levels, contrast ratios and viewing angles to be quite good.

The screen also features a 410ppi and gets plenty bright which makes it convenient to use the phone outdoors. However, the panel is not as smooth as 120Hz displays, while the refresh rate scalability is rather limited. The display on the Nord 2 may not be premium but is still pretty good.

Performance

When it comes to performance, the OnePlus Nord 2 doesn’t pull any punches. The handset opts for a MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM. The phone also comes with 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There’s no doubt that the MediaTek chipset here is a real powerhouse. In Geekbench 5, the Nord 2 recorded a single-core score of 801 points and a multi-core score of 2451 points. In PCMark Work 3.0, the device managed to score 8,291 points.

With scores that high, the handset can performance. The device can easily handle multitasking and gaming. Both Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and Call of Duty: Mobile ran on high graphics with frame rates set to the max. I played Call of Duty: Mobile for 30 straight minutes and didn’t find any drops in frame rates or lag.

However, the phone did get a little warm during the gaming session. The OnePlus Nord 2 offers a massive performance upgrade over its predecessor, primarily down to the MediaTek chipset. While benchmarks saw the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC easily, outpacing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 778G chip, the latter did tend to load popular games a tad bit faster.

So far, performance on the Nord 2 still hasn’t slowed down in over three months, though I haven’t gamed on the device for over an hour straight and used the phone too much while charging. From my experience, I found performance on the OnePlus Nord 2 to be class-leading, making it one of the fastest phones in the segment. However, Snapdragon 870-powered phones like the Realme GT Neo 2, Xiaomi Mi 11X, and iQOO 7 might be better picks if you’re looking for raw performance.

Cameras

Another big update coming to the Nord 2 is the addition of the new 50 MP Sony IMX766 primary sensor, which is the same ultrawide camera used on the OnePlus 9. However, there’s no Hasselblad tunning here. To complete the rear camera setup, OnePlus has added an 8 MP ultrawide shooter with a 119.7-degree field of view and a 2 MP monochrome camera. Additionally, the hole-punch cutout on the front houses a 32 MP selfie camera with a Sony IMX615 sensor.

The main camera takes crisp photos in daylight with solid detail and accurate colours. Dynamic range was good as well, while the Nord 2 doesn’t go overboard with saturation and sharpening, giving you natural-looking photos. The main camera also does a pretty good job of preserving details of images in the background.

Portrait mode allows you to set levels of blur before you take a picture. I found the separation of foreground and background and edge detection to be on point for the most part. In terms of zooming, the OnePlus Nord 2 features 2x optical magnification and a 5x digital magnification with serviceable results.

Another area where the main camera on the Nord 2 tends to excel is during the night. Night mode does a great job of keeping noise in check while retaining a good amount of detail and enhancing highlights in darker areas of an image. The Nightscape Ultra mode can also detect when a scene is too dark and can automatically enable night mode. The night mode does take a bit of time, but it is well worth the wait.

The 8 MP ultrawide camera doesn’t quite keep pace with the main camera, in terms of both detail and dynamic range. Additionally, colours are not consistent when switching between lenses, while images look noticeably software. In well-lit environments, images taken with the ultrawide camera are usable but the quality tends to take a dip when shooting indoors or outdoors in dimmer environments.

The 32 MP selfie camera on the Nord 2 captures sharp and detailed images with natural-looking skin tones. The selfie camera is also adept at taking portrait shots. The Nord 2 can capture 4K video at 30fps and 1080p video at up to 60fps. The main camera offers OIS, ensuring stabilised footage. Both 1080p and 4K video shot on the main camera looks pretty sharp provided you have good lighting, with the latter pushing out good colours and detail.

Battery Life

The OnePlus Nord 2 packs a pretty sizeable 4,500 mAh battery that easily delivers a little over a day of battery life under moderate usage, which is quite impressive considering we are working with a 90Hz display. OnePlus has also bundled a 65W charging adapter in the box, which can fully power the phone in under 40 minutes. The phone does tend to get a little hot while charging, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Overall, battery life should be enough to get you through a work day. Additionally, a 30-minute charge will easily get you through an entire day, so if your battery life is less than 10 percent going into the next day, you can charge the device for half an hour before heading out to work.

Software

The OnePlus Nord 2 runs OxygenOS 11.3 on top of Android 11 and feature unified code with Oppo’s ColorOS. However, not much has changed from my experience on the OnePlus 9 Pro. There are a bunch of pre-loaded OnePlus apps as well as some favourites like the always-on display, Zen Mode, and more importantly, the interface is still relatively bloatware-free. The ColorOS influence on the interface is minimal with the original OxygenOS feel still intact.

While the Nord 2 runs on Android 11, OnePlus has promised two major Android updates and three years of security updates, so your Nord 2 should be covered well into 2024, which is pretty good for a mid-range device. From a software perspective, I think Samsung has upped the ante in the mid-range and moved ahead of OnePlus with One UI, but I’d still choose OxygenOS over MIUI, Realme UI, ColorOS, and FuntouchOS.

Verdict

At a starting price of Rs 27,999, the OnePlus Nord 2 is a pretty solid upgrade over the original Nord. With a solid combination of hardware and software, the OnePlus Nord 2 offers commendable upgrades over its predecessor in the design, camera, performance, and battery departments. The Nord 2 gives both the Poco F3 GT and the Realme X7 Max a real run for their money. What I liked most about the Nord 2 was the fact that the company has done an excellent job with the hardware, while still offering some of the best software in the segment. In my lengthy experience with the Nord 2, I felt the phone delivers on most if not all fronts.

However, I would still like see a better ultrawide camera and the axing of the gimmicky 2 MP sensor. But if there is a challenger to the Nord 2 it is the Motorola Edge 20, a phone with excellent hardware and software to match. Another problem with the Nord 2 is availability, getting your hands on the base variant may not be that easy. And the Mi 11X and iQOO 7 offer significantly better hardware propositions at the 30K mark. That being said, the Nord 2 is definitely an indication that OnePlus is taking the mid-range seriously.

Also Read: Another OnePlus Nord 2 explodes, user suffers severe burns