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Review: OnePlus Nord 2 5G – Features + Camera Samples

Review: OnePlus Nord 2 5G – Features + Camera Samples

The OnePlus Nord 2 5G is finally here! Our friends from Digits Trading, premiere gadgets and lifestyle product distributor in the Philippines, send us a review unit for us to check out this amazing new device of OnePlus.

But first let us share with you the retail price of the OnePlus Nord 2 5G. It offers two colors with two variants the Blue Haze 8GB+128GB PHP21,990 and Gray Sierra 12GB+256GB PHP25,990.

The OnePlus Nord 5G is now available select Digital Walker Stores in Abreeza Davao, Ayala Cebu, Glorietta 2, One Bonifacio, Podium, Robinsons Magnolia, SM Baguio, SM CDO, SM Fairview, SM Mall of Asia, SM Southmall and Vertis North. You can purchase the device in cash, debit / straight charge, installment up to 6 months and Lyka gems.

The OnePlus Nord 2 is also available in the following payment transactions thru the Digital Walker website: Online credit card payment (all locally-issued credit cards are accepted) and Dragonpay – only valid through online / ecommerce pre-orders.

Let’s check more of what the OnePlus Nord 2 5G has to offer.

In the Box

  • OnePlus Nord 2 5G unit
  • Warp Charge 65 power adapter
  • Warp Type-C cable (Support USB 2.0)
  • Phone case
  • Screen protector (pre-applied)
  • SIM tray ejector
  • Welcome letter
  • Brand sticker
  • Quick start guide
  • Safety information and warranty card

Form Factor, Build Quality and Display

The build of the Nord 2 5G seems strong and sturdy with the frame made of durable plastic but using a special coating to look like a metal effect. The back cover is made of polycarbonate plastic material with a Gorilla Glass 5, same goes with the front display. While buttons on both sides are made of metal.

The material used for the device makes it look and feel premium. It is nice to hold but the phone is a bit slippery so you better use the included clear protective phone case.

On the right side you have the useful alert slider, sleep/power button and the volume rockers on the other side. You have a mic/receiver on top while a USB Type-C port, SIM card tray, speaker grille, and microphone at the bottom. A missing component is a 3.5mm headset jack on the device.

For those who are not familiar with the alert slider it allows users to easily switch between ring, vibrate and silent modes with no fuss. On the SIM card tray, it can accommodate two nano sim but there’s no MicroSD storage expansion available.

For our review unit, we have a nice shiny blue haze color at the back with the camera module in the top left corner offering three camera lenses, LED Lash and OnePlus branding icon at the center.

On the front, the Nord 2 5G sports a large 6.43-inch full HD+ AMOLED display with an available 60Hz and 90Hz refresh rate. The refresh rate of 60Hz gives out less smooth with better battery life on your phone but with the 90Hz it gets an ultra smoother screen experience. You also get HDR10+ support, a resolution of 2400×1080 pixels, pixel density of 410ppi and 20:9 aspect ratio. The front facing camera can be found on the top left corner while the speaker at the center. Bezels on the sides are thin but a slightly thicker at the bottom chin of the display.

OnePlus has equipped the Nord 2 5G with a couple of video enhancements. You have AI resolution boost enhancing the resolution of low-quality videos up to HD. There is also AI Color boost which tries to boost the colors of your videos. Some of the said features only works in  a particular video app but we tried these AI enhancements, there isn’t much of a difference.

We loved the display of the OnePlus Nord 2 5G! It’s bright, vibrant, viewing angles are nice, colors are rich and the text are sharp. With the 90Hz refresh rate you get a smoother scrolling and gameplay experience. Even if you’re using the device during a bright outdoors you can still manage to see everything on the display. However, OnePlus offers the Smart Ambient Brightness found under the display setting. Enabling it when your device is exposed to bright light, its screen can go as high as 633 nits.

Performance and Connectivity

The OnePlus Nord 2 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 1200-AI an exceptional chipset for 5G smartphones to improve AI capabilities, its camera and multimedia. We got 8GB of memory and 128GB UFS 3.1 internal storage. OnePlus claims that the new processor provides 65% faster CPU and 125% GPU performance. If you want more room to save your photos or multimedia files, OnePlus has another variant available with a 12GB memory and 256GB internal storage.

The Nord 2 5G has connectivity support such as dual 5G, 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6, NFC, and five satellite navigation systems. It also supports two 5G nano-sim cards offering 5G download speeds up to 2.95 Gbps.

And if you wanna see some more figures or stats on the OnePlus Nord 2 5G, here are the following benchmark scores that we got:

  • Antutu v8 – 588,773
  • Geekbench 5 – 806 Single Core / 2520 Multi-Core
  • AndroBench – 53 MB/s Sequential Read / 986.53 MB/s Sequential Write
  • PC Mark – 8139 Work 3.0 Performance
  • 3D Mark – 4212 Wild Life

Camera (Photo and Video Sample)

Camera on the OnePlus Nord 2 5G offers a triple camera setup with a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 main camera with an f/1.88 aperture. The next lens gives you an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with a 119.7-degree field of view, and lastly a 2-megapixel mono camera. Selfies are taken with 32M Sony IMX615 with an f/2.45 aperture.

The camera on the Nord 2 5G are quick to lock focus on the subject and AI was fast enough to detect the scenes we are capturing.

During bright conditions, photos captured on the Nord 2 5G has decent details, proper colours and objects at a distance were noticeable. Shooting on the ultra-wide camera gives you a wider field of view but the image quality of our shots drops a little.

Shooting modes available for you to choose on the camera app are Night, Video, Photo, Portrait, Slo-Mo, Time Lapse, Movie, Expert, Ultra Resolution, Pano and Dual View Video.

Notable shooting modes we liked on the Nord 2 5G are the Dual View Video which takes videos and photos using the front and back camera at the same time. The Portrait Mode lets you tweak the level of blur to have a bokeh effect before taking a shot and it had a good edge detection and separation from the background.

With Night Mode it can capture better photos in low light, the AI can detect when it’s too dark and enable this automatically giving a brighter with better details in the shadows. While Selfies taken with the front camera looked natural in daylight as well as low light and clear but noise is still present on the photo but minimal.

Here are sample photos taken with the OnePlus Nord 2 5G.

Photo Mode – Indoor Ambient Light

Photo Mode – Wide Angle – Outdoor Bright Condition

Photo Mode – Normal – Outdoor Bright Condition

Photo Mode – 2X Zoom – Outdoor Bright Condition

Photo Mode – 5X Zoom – Outdoor Bright Condition

Photo Mode – Outdoor Cloudy Weather

Photo Mode – Wide Angle Outdoor Cloudy Weather

Portrait Mode – Outdoor Bright Condition

Night Mode – Indoor Low Light

Video recording on the rear camera offers a 4K resolution at 30fps on the Nord 2 5G while on the front camera you can record with a 1080p resolution at 60fps. It also has Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) feature to stabilize or aid a smooth steady video if you’re walking.

Check our video sample below:

Software and Security 

The OnePlus Nord 2 5G runs on OxygenOS 11.3 based on Android 11 and will receive two years of major Android updates and three years of security updates. There’s no bloatware on this device but comes with a few pre-installed apps like Netflix, YouTube and YT Music.

The OxygenOS 11 boasts of some new improvements such as Dark Mode, Zen Mode, comfortable single-handed operation, and various always on display (AOD) options, with additional personalization, gestures, and gaming-friendly customizations such as the new OnePlus Games App on OxygenOS 11.3. So far we experience a fast and responsive OS on this device.

If you’re an online gamer the device comes with a built-in Gaming Mode that activates automatically whenever you open a game. The feature helps you to enhance performance, network, overall gaming experience and also offers a dedicated in-game Gaming Toolbox.

You can fully customize your default OxygenOS look as it supports different icon packs, change the system colors, the fingerprint scanner animation, the notification drawer icons, even the system font.

For added security the OnePlus Nord offers biometrics with its fast and accurate in-display fingerprint unlock or face unlock. For more layer of security you can also opt to set a lock screen password.

Battery

The Nord 2 5G is equipped with a 4500mAh battery as it comes with their latest Warp Charge 65 power adapter. The Warp Charge 65 is designed to deliver 65W of fast charging power to the device.

During our first charging test, we were surprised that it took 40 minutes to have the battery fully charged from zero to 100%. But on our second test we had the battery fully charged by only 35 minutes! It’s also unbelievable that after 15-minutes you already have 55% charged on its battery.

There’s no wireless charging feature on this device, but that’s not unusual given that this is a mid-range handset.

We have other useful tools you can found under the battery settings are Optimized Night Charging which controls the charging speed at night to avoid overcharging and reduce battery aging. Power Saving Mode offers a series of power-saving mechanisms and strategies to extend more the battery. Sleep Standby Optimization turns your phone to consume less power and reduces notifications when you’re are asleep.

In our video test, it lost 12% from a full charge after streaming 1 hour of YouTube video with our brightness and volume levels set to max. For a 2-hour movie you can probably watch around 3 to 4 movies on the Nord 2 5G. Standby time on the battery is remarkable which can last till the next day.

Conclusion

The OnePlus Nord 2 5G is a good all-rounder at its price level under the mid-range 5G smartphone today. At PHP21,990 you get an impressive 6.43-inch AMOLED display that has nice colors, vibrant and clear plus a 90Hz refresh rate for that smooth scrolling experience. Watching videos and playing games on the display of this phone is truly enjoyable and immersive.

The cameras are impressive as well, they are well-defined and quality are just superb especially shooting your subject on bright condition. It’s nice to see that they have two 5G SIMSs available and the fast charging works very well thanks to the Warp Charge 65 power adapter you get 55% battery after a 15-minute charge. Our experience with the OxygenOS 11.3 software did a good job also.

OnePlus might have to make some few improvements as far as the speakers are concerned. There are some missing features as well that we hoped it should be there such as the expandable storage via MicroSD and a ready 3.5mm port for users who still has a wired headset.

Overall, the OnePlus Nord 2 5G delivers great value for your money. If you’re all right with all of the said features and minor shortcomings on the Nord 2 5G then we definitely recommend this phone for you.

What We Love

  • AMOLED Display
  • Camera Quality
  • Design and Build Quality
  • Fast Charging Feature
  • OxygenOS
  • 5G Ready
  • Processor, Storage and Memory
  • Fast In-Display Fingerprint Unlock
  • Optimized Night Charging

What We Want

  • Expandable Storage
  • Imrpove Sound Quality
  • 5mm Headset Port

Full Specifications:

  • OnePlus Nord 2 8+128GB Blue Haze Php P21,990
  • OnePlus Nord 2 12+256GB Gray Sierra Php P25,990
  • 43-inch fluid AMOLED display with a 90 Hz refresh rate
  • 2400 x 1080 pixels, 410ppi
  • 20:9 Aspect Ratio
  • Camera Rear: 50MP Sony IMX766 f/1.88 / 8M Ultra Wide Camera f/2.25 / 2M Mono Lens f/2.4
  • Camera Front: 32M Sony IMX615 f/2.45
  • Video Rear: 4K at 30fps / 1080p or 720p at 30/60fps
  • Video Front: 1080p or 720p at 30fps
  • OxygenOS 11.3 based on Android 11
  • MediaTek Dimensity 1200-AI
  • ARM G77 MC9
  • 8GB+128GB
  • Dual Stereo Speaker
  • Noise Cancellation Support
  • 4500mAh Dual Cell Battery
  • Warp Charge 65
  • USB 2.0, Type-C
  • Dual Nano-SIM slot
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, 2.4G/5G
  • Bluetooth 5.2, support aptX & aptX HD & LDAC & AAC
  • NFC
  • GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, NavIC
  • 189g
  • 91 x 7.33 x 0.82cm
  • In-display fingerprint sensor, Accelerometer, Electronic compass, Gyroscope, Ambient light sensor, SAR Sensor, Proximity sensor, Sensor core

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About The Author

Raymund Ravanera is an accomplished and experienced graphic designer with almost 20 years of creative expertise working in the graphic design industry. He loves the latest gadgets, food and movies. Currently, he owns and manages megabites.com.ph, an online technology and lifestyle blog since 2015.

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