Why This Mobile phone Is So Popular

One Plus Nord

The OnePlus Nord is one of the most awaited smartphone. Even if you’re not a tech enthusiast, you probably must have heard of it, all thanks to the hype created by the company. The plot got even thicker when its price was announced — was it the new best smartphone under Rs 30,000 in India?

Nord is a new series from OnePlus that is meant to give users a premium software and hardware experience at an affordable price.

One plus nord offers extremely satisfying performance in all the major aspects of the phone and more often than not, it comes out as a winner. 

In India, it goes against popular offerings such as the Realme X3 and the Redmi K20 Pro, smartphones which were the price champions for their time. 

OnePlus Nord price in India

India is one of the first who's going to get the Nord. And just like last time, it is priced way more competitively in India. It starts at Rs 24,999 for the 6+64GB variant. The 8+128GB variant is priced at Rs 27,999 and the top of the line 12+256G variant costs Rs 29,999. This will comes with Blue Marble and Gray Onyx colours.

Design

184 gram weight, 8.2mm thickness

Glass sandwich with a polycarbonate frame

Blue Marble and Gray Onyx colours

OnePlus has not compromised much in of design of nord . This phone comes with a glossy glass body with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the back as well as the front. Holding the phone feels solid and comfortable. However, it has a plastic frame which definitely affects its premium positioning.

One Plus Nord can also be used with a single hand, a feat that is rare these days. It has a taller display which makes the phone a lot narrower (73.3mm) with dimensions very similar to the OnePlus 8. It weighs 184 grams, which is also extremely lightweight, especially when you look at the competition which is at the 200-gram mark. The weight distribution of phone is also good. 

Towards the right, you get the power button, which is easy to access without needing to readjust the grip by a lot. It has good clicky tactile feedback. OnePlus Nord has the iconic alert slider, which can be used in three modes: Ring, Silent, and Vibrate. On the left, you get the volume rocker, which is at right above the power button. All the three buttons are coated with blue colour here, which looks pretty cool. Towards the back, you get a quad-camera array which protrudes out quite a bit. Next to the camera, there is a dual-LED flash. OnePlus logo is placed at the centre and OnePlus branding towards the end.

On the front of the device, there is a pill-shaped dual front-facing camera towards the left, a first in a for a OnePlus phone. The earpiece is located along the top edge of the phone.

The USB Type-C port and the SIM slot is also present at the bottom. It has a mono speaker with two outlets at the bottom of the OnePlus Nord. As you might have already guessed, the device omits the 3.5mm headphone jack.

A silicone case is also included in the box, which has a weird pattern that switches between matte and glossy. There’s a subtle arrow pointing upwards, figuratively looking towards the North. 

Overall, the design is pretty good.

Display

The One Plus Nord has a 6.44-inch Fluid AMOLED screen with Full HD+ (2,400 x 1,080p) resolution. It has a 90Hz refresh rate panel for smoother scrolling experience. It also comes with an option to switch back to the traditional 60Hz mode. The phone is tall and has a aspect ratio of 20:9. The phone is capable of handling HDR content and comes with support for sRGB, DisplayP3, and AMOLED wide gamut screen calibration modes. Furthermore, you get a vibrant colour effect which optimizes the video colors and contrast to make it more vivid. The phone has also Reading mode and Night mode. 

Oneplus Nord has a high refresh rate. In the OnePlus 8 series, you get a flat screen on Nord with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. 

The phone’s animation starting from the home screen live wallpaper comes to life when you unlock the phone and acts as another reminder of the higher refresh rate. 

You can reach easily to most parts of the screen with just your thumb and the touch is also pretty responsive. 

The sunlight visibility is just above average and the texts and videos are visible during the day time. The hole punch is bigger than what I’d like, but it gets easier to ignore with time. 

• Single downward-firing speaker
• No headphone jack

Audio performance is as important as the screen or visuals. The combination of good screen and good audio always make the content more enjoyable and immersive. The OnePlus Nord comes with a mono super linear speaker at the bottom right with two small passages to put out the sound. Playing audio via the bottom firing speaker was quite good and enjoyable. The overall output levels were overall hig, but nothing extraordinary. There is very little distortion even at max volume.

When you are using the phone in landscape mode, it is very easy to block the speaker grill and muffle the audio. There’s no headphone jack on the device. For personal audio experience, you’ll have to depend on the Type-C port or Bluetooth. The phone has Bluetooth 5.1 and supports aptX, aptXHD, LDAC, and AAC standards. 

You also get Dirac audio tuner which allows you to set scenario based enhancement such as Dynamic, Movie, and Music. And, surprisingly, these worked pretty well in my experience. Additionally, there is also support for earphone mode which offers autoplay, smart call answering, and notifications in earphones. You get support for equalizer for both the wired and wireless earphones. The call quality was also pretty good, people on the other end could hear me without any issue. The audio was crystal clear on my side too, the earpiece is loud and clear, despite its position.

Performance

• Snapdragon 765G.
• LPDDR4X RAM, UFS 2.1 storage.
• 5G capable.

Here’s where OnePlus’s approach is a little different than others in this segment. The Nord is powered by the Snapdragon 765G SoC, which is also 5G capable, thanks to the Snapdragon X52 RF 5G modem. While that technically makes it the cheapest 5G smartphone in India, that shouldn’t really be a major factor for consumers for the near future (unless Jio pulls off another miracle). Regardless, it is one of the most advanced chipsets on the market, built on an efficient 7nm process with integrated modem components.

The Snapdragon 765G has a prime core clocked at 2.4GHz, one gold core at 2.2GHz and six silver cores at 1.8GHz. Graphics will be taken care of by Adreno 620 GPU. The OnePlus Nord is available paired with LPwitt a 6GB+64GB variant which is exclusive to India along with the standard 8GB +128GB variant and the top-of-the-line 12GB+256GB variant, which is insanely well-priced. 

Unlike Realme, who went with last-gen flagship chipset on the X3 series, OnePlus has gone with the mid-range yet powerful chipset from the Snapdragon 7 series. And, I am happy to report that the decision has not let down OnePlus by any means. The performance and day-to-day operations with the device was a breeze, in line with what we’ve come to expect from OnePlus. The phone handles everything you throw without any hassle and manages to consistently run at 90Hz. However, the memory management was a little too aggressive at times, which shouldn’t be the case for a phone with 12GB of RAM.