OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G Review: Should you settle for OnePlus' most affordable smartphone?

The rear camera layout is pretty similar to that of the OnePlus Nord CE 2, while the phone is available in Black Dusk and Blue Tide colours. Our unit arrived in the classic Blue Tide colour, which has become synonymous with Nord smartphones. The overall look and feel of the Nord CE 2 Lite are pretty good, while the phone also comes with the standard array of buttons and ports.

It has a USB Type-C port on the bottom, a power button on the right, and volume buttons on the left. The phone also comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD card slot. There’s a single speaker on the bottom, while the power button doubles as a fingerprint reader.

Display

The Nord CE 2 Lite sports a 6.59-inch FHD+ LCD panel with a hole-punch camera cutout. The display boasts a 120Hz refresh rate, which is higher than that of the OnePlus Nord CE 2, although the latter opts for a superior AMOLED display. The screen has relatively slim bezels on either side and is protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass. The screen is Widevine L1 certified to support HD streaming on major OTT platforms like Hotstar, Netflix, and Prime Video, although HDR support is absent.

While it is easy to appreciate the 120Hz refresh rate, the Nord CE 2 Lite does have a few competitors to contend with that use superior OLED technology. The IPS panel offers good viewing angles, punchy and saturated colours, and sharp images. I would have preferred an OLED panel here but this 120Hz screen is the next best thing. The handset also gets plenty bright under direct sunlight, offering a peak brightness of over 500 nits. Another limitation of the phone is the lack of stereo speakers. It is worth noting that the mono speaker gets plenty loud.

Performance

For performance, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite uses the Snapdragon 695 SoC with the Adreno 619 GPU. The handset handles regular multitasking without any hitches, while the interface ran pretty smooth in large part thanks to the chip. The Snapdragon 695 chip offers a major upgrade over the Snapdragon 680 SoC. The chipset is paired with up to 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage. There’s a hybrid microSD card slot and up to 5GB of internal storage can be used as virtual RAM.

Titles like Call of Duty: Mobile, BGMI, Raid: Shadow Legends, and Asphalt 9: Legends (Tested on Medium Settings). We also ran a few benchmarks to test the chip’s performance. In AnTuTu, the Nord CE 2 Lite managed an overall score of 407231. In Geekbench’s single-core score of 681 points and a multi-core score of 1911 points. The overall performance of the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite was quite good as the phone did quite well in gaming and multitasking.

Cameras

For optics, the Nord CE 2 Lite boasts a triple-camera setup on the back with a 64 MP sensor at the helm. The main camera is paired with a 2 MP depth sensor and a 2 MP macro unit. On the front, you get a 16 MP selfie camera. At first glance, the camera setup here looks uninspired and lacking, particularly in the ultrawide department. So how does this setup fare in real-world scenarios?

In daylight, the main camera takes photos with solid detail and decent dynamic range. The camera also handles exposure well and colours are accurately represented in most scenarios. There’s an AI enhancer that adds a bit of pop to colours, although this does cause subjects in the shot to look oversaturated and unnatural.  Portrait shots also yielded good results with good edge detection and background separation.

The camera didn’t do quite well in indoor scenarios and during the late evening, where images looked noticeably softer. You can also use 2x magnification on the main camera, going all the way up to 6x digital zoom but quality starts to deteriorate after 2x zoom. At night, the main camera does a good job of bringing more light into the scene and reducing noise. It also adds a bit of detail in shots but objects in the background are noticeably softer than those in the foreground.

Night mode also bumps up the saturation, but the results are a swing and a miss. The night mode on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite is pretty good but images can come out blurry at times and are not quite as sharp as you’d expect. On balance, the night mode is slightly above average for the price. The macro camera on the new Nord device was average at its best and underwhelming in most instances.

The 16 MP selfie camera on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G did exceed my expectations. The level of detail in selfies was solid, while the camera handled skin tones well. The Nord CE 2 Lite also managed to snap decent portrait selfies and the camera didn’t fall apart in low light.

The overall camera performance on the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite is quite solid on the main camera. However, the lack of an ultrawide lens is a major letdown, considering it is pretty hard to find a sub-20K phone without one. Video quality here is also underwhelming and limited to 1080p at 30fps. On the flip side, the Nord CE 2 Lite took some of the best selfies in the segment.

Battery

The 5,000 mAh battery on the Nord CE 2 Lite was more than enough to get me through an entire day of use with at least an hour of gaming. Under heavy use, you will see the battery die before midnight, although the 33W charging support can fully power up the device in a little under 100 minutes. And it also helps that a compatible adapter is included in the box. I think battery life and charging support here are just about right here, although I do worry about battery integrity in the long run.

Software

Unlike the OnePlus Nord CE 2 that came before, the Lite version of the phone comes with pre-installed Android 12 out of the box. The OxygenOS 12 skin on top of Android 12, is generally bloatware-free. OxygenOS brings a ton of customisation over Android 12 as well as other value-added features to enhance the overall experience. And, while there are hints of ColorOS, the experience isn’t that far out of stock Android. OnePlus is also offering two years of major Android updates and three years of security updates.

Verdict

Although the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite is the most affordable smartphone from the company in India, OnePlus does make a few concessions to get there. The Nord CE 2 Lite is a solid option for someone looking for a sub-20K smartphone. It delivers solid performance, a smooth display, a sizeable battery, and reliable cameras. You also get the benefits of a clean and polished UI with OxygenOS. There’s no doubt that the Nord CE 2 Lite is a good phone under 20,000 in India, but is it the best?

I’d say no. There are quite a few things lacking here, like an ultrawide camera or a linear speaker -- although ultrawide shooters in the sub-20K segment are quite poor. The phone also settles for an LCD panel and lacks the ability to record videos in 4K resolution. Overall, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite doesn’t go all-out; the company takes a more balanced approach, combining good hardware with excellent software, delivering an above-average experience. So, is it worth settling for? Yes, if you want a good overall smartphone experience, but no if you want the best hardware in the segment.