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Review: OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G (8GB+256GB)
Review: OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G (8GB+256GB)

Review: OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G (8GB+256GB)

After a week-long bonding with the new OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G, we are ready to share our thoughts on this new device.

One of the new things sporting the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G from its predecessors is the design giving out a fresh look and vibe. You also get some notable features included on the device with a new 108MP main camera, large storage capacity, higher refresh rate, and faster 67W SUPERVOOC charging.

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G is priced at Php14,990 available in all OPPO and OnePlus authorized stores nationwide from April 21 to April 30, it will be officially available in-store on May 5.  Get a free OnePlus Bullets Wireless Earphone Z2 when you pre-order the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G from April 21 to May 4.

You may also avail through Lazada starting April 21 and have the option of 0% interest installment for 45 days via LazPayLater.

On the other hand, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite and OnePlus Nord Buds 2 will be available in Shopee starting April 26, where you can avail of 0% interest installment for 3 months via SPayLater. You can also get a free OnePlus Bullets Wireless Earphone Z2 when you purchase the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G via Lazada and Shopee from April 21 to April 30. 

You can also purchase the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G through Home Credit with easy installment options for 6 to 18 months.

Design and Build Quality

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G variant we got for our review unit is the Chromatic Grey. There’s another color variant in Pastel Lime which certainly stands out in a vibrant lemon yellow-greeny color.

It weighs 195 grams with a thickness of 8.3mm which is still light and easy to carry around.

The phone’s body is made of durable plastic material and the back panel offers a glossy mirror finish which easily attracts fingerprints and smudges. It is best to use the included clear case cover plus, you also get added protection.

Pastel Lime Color

It has a flat-edge design with a 2.8D curve around the edges. It is wrapped together with the frame in a textured matte metal brush-type finish for a nice comfortable grip.

OnePlus removed the camera housing for a much cleaner or minimalist look. It now has two large protruding circular cameras with the LED Flash moved to a more central location.

Over on the front, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite has slightly thin bezels on both sides and on top. The bottom bezels are more raised. The front camera has a centered punch-hole which does not hinder my viewing experience.

For protecting the display, the phone comes guarded with a Corning Gorilla Glass material.

It features a power button that doubles up as a fingerprint scanner on the right side. It would have been nice if the fingerprint sensor is placed on display. SIM tray on the left, while the bottom holds a USB-C port, microphone, and 3.5mm headphone jack for those who still use wired headphones. On the left lies the SIM card tray and volume rockers.

A famous feature found on a OnePlus device is the alert slider was not included in this model.

In general, the design of the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite offers a fresh new look and premium feel to it.

Display

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G features a large 6.72-inch FHD+ LCD panel with a maximum refresh rate of up to 120Hz. It has two refresh rate options: high and standard at 60Hz which can help conserve battery.

It has an average 240Hz touch sampling rate which our touch or swipe on the screen responds quickly and provides a smoother experience.

The screen resolution at 1800×2400 pixels and an 8-bit color depth produce good color and details.

You get 680 nits of peak brightness making the screen just bright enough to be visible outdoors but struggles a bit in direct sunlight.

It lacks HDR support which could have been a good feature to have with. So far, the video quality streamed from Netflix, HBO Go or Amazon Prime Video are of standard quality.

For a budget-range phone, the display can offer a good viewing experience with nice colors and details.

Performance

Powering the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 octa-core chipset with clock speeds of up to 2.2 GHz. With a frequency of 2.2GHz, the chipset is able to perform well for long-term gaming and even multitasking. 

The phone has 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM that can be boosted up by an extra 8GB thru its virtual RAM expansion. If 8GB RAM is too much storage to increase, you can also opt for 4GB or 6GB RAM.

You get a hefty 256GB UFS 2.2 for the built-in internal storage and there’s a microSD card slot should you wish to expand this up to 1TB. For the GPU it gets an Adreno 619 that helps games look well and pleasing to the eye.

Geekbench 6 gave out a single-core result of 899 and a multi-core of 2,072. Our CPDT tests measured the storage performance of the phone with sequential write (4MB) of 349.85MB/s and sequential read (4MB) of 391.99MB/s.

For biometrics, you have face unlock and a fingerprint scanner that unlocks the phone instantly. The registration method is fairly straightforward as well and easy. It has the traditional lock screen for additional security with a numeric, alphanumeric, or pattern.

For gamers out there, the OnePlus Nord CE Lite 5G has built-in gamer-friendly features with a dedicated Game App to store all your games in one place.

During gameplay, you can access Gaming Tools which brings up a menu panel by swiping down from the left or right corners of the screen.

The panel lets you see the system temperature, battery level, the fps, and adjust the brightness of the display. It also has shortcuts to toggle how notifications are displayed, enable mis-touch prevention, screen recording, take a screenshot, and more without having to leave the game.

Sound Quality

The Nord CE 3 Lite 5G features dual speakers, delivering decent stereo sound quality that’s clear, warm, and has a bit of bass. 

If you want to further boost your sound, the phone features an ultra volume mode to increase the volume to 200%, simply press the volume up button to the maximum level. However, the audio quality tends to suffer a little in the details.

Camera

On the camera department, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G features three rear-facing cameras comprising of 108MP main camera, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth sensors.

The main camera has a wide f/1.75 aperture and f/2.4 aperture on both the macro and depth sensors. The phone misses out on an ultra-wide lens.

The front-facing camera will have a 16MP lens for your selfies.

Opening the camera app, we could see that the interface is very simple, and user-friendly plus all controls are available around the viewfinder.

There are four available shooting modes ready on the camera app with Night, Video, Photo, and Portrait. Selecting the More option will open eight more shooting modes with Pro, Extra HD, Pano, Macro, Slo-Mo, Time-Lapse, Dual-View Mode, and Text Scanner.

The camera supports up to a maximum of 6x zoom and a 3x lossless zoom that can still maintain a few details in the photos.

For stabilization, the main camera doesn’t support optical image stabilization (OIS), but they equipped it with an electronic image stabilization (EIS).

During daylight conditions, the photos captured on the main rear camera produced images of good quality and the colors are natural.

For low light or night situations, we recommend using the night mode always to get decent image quality. These images will have less noise, and dark areas are brighter with a small number of details.

As for the selfie camera, the 16MP sensor captured images that are share-worthy for social media posting. It maintains the details, natural skin tones with no over-beautification of the face, and good color reproduction. The portrait mode has a good bokeh as well.

1x photo mode, outdoor, sunny weather

1x photo mode, outdoor, sunny weather

1x photo mode, indoor, bright ambient light

1x photo mode, indoor, ambient light

1x night mode, outdoor, low light

1x photo mode, outdoor, low light

selfie, outdoor, sunny weather

selfie – portrait mode, outdoor, sunny weather

1x zoom, outdoor, cloudy weather

3x zoom, outdoor, cloudy weather

6x zoom, outdoor, cloudy weather

Videos can be recorded either in 1080p or 720p resolutions and both are limited to only 30 frames per second.

Video performance is on average level, you still have good details and the dynamic range is modest. The colors are natural which we like while other phones have a more saturated color. Noise levels are kept down to a minimum when shot during well-lit conditions.

Software

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite runs with OxygenOS 13.1 based on Android 13.

What I like about this UI it doesn’t have a lot of bloatware or extra pre-installed apps. It had Netflix, Google tools, and a few proprietary apps from OnePlus.

I also noticed there are some duplicate apps on the phone like two photo galleries, two web browsers (Chrome and Internet), and two file managers. You can’t even uninstall any of it.

If you don’t want the look and feel of the phone straight out of the box, it has customization options that you can change from its icons, themes, font, colors, and wallpaper.

If you want to bring some peace into your life for just a few minutes, you may want to try the Zen Space feature. The Zen Space will help you stop using the phone or avoid being distracted by it. It has two options Deep Zen mode and Light Zen mode.

Deep Zen mode blocks all functionality of the phone besides taking photos and you can only receive calls or make emergency calls. While Light Zen is less strict with some restrictions and allows you to use certain selected apps. It also comes with a dashboard to monitor your weekly progress.

Other handy things you can do are open apps in split-screen mode or floating windows for multitaskers and, take screenshots.

OnePlus promises users that they’ll get two major Android updates and three years of security updates on their phones. 

Battery

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G still comes with a big 5,000mAh battery. If you run out of battery, the 67W fast charging support will juice up the phone quickly.

Using the 67W fast charger, you can juice up the phone’s battery to 54% in just 30 minutes. It took us almost 59 minutes to fully charge the device from 0 to 100% which is pretty fast.

On a single charge, if you’re a light user the phone will still be operable up to the next day if you’re doing text messaging, browsing social media, few camera shots, and checking email. During a heavy day full of gameplay and watching movies it will last till the afternoon. No need to worry, the reliable 67W fast charger will quickly charge the phone in no time.

OnePlus equipped the phone with a Battery Health Engine Technology to help you check the condition of the battery, and prevent over-charging. It also has smart charging chip to learn your charging habits. 

To extend battery life, you can enable the Power saving mode, but, it will make the phone slightly slower affecting the user experience. I suggest turning on Dark mode is much better for saving battery power. 

What We Like

  • Stunning Design
  • 120Hz Refresh Rate
  • Large Display
  • Software and Security Updates
  • 67W Fast Charging Adapter
  • 256GB Internal Storage
  • Virtual RAM Expansion Up To 8GB
  • Expandable Storage Up To 1TB
  • Clean UI
  • Decent Camera
  • Price
  • 5G Ready
  • Sound Quality

What We Want

  • Ultra-wide Camera
  • OIS
  • 60fps
  • Dual SIM Card Tray

Conclusion

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G is a nice-looking budget-friendly 5G smartphone that has all the basic features in place.

It packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695, a 120Hz refresh rate, an decently good 108MP main camera, and a large 5,000mAh battery with 67W wired fast charging support.

I also liked it has virtual RAM expansion for a more stable and smooth performance. Then you also get an expandable storage option of up to 1TB just in case you want to increase more space.

I have a great time watching videos and playing games on the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G, thanks to the nice quality of its stereo speakers and clear bright display.

So, if you’re not too keen on some of the specs of this phone and looking for a new 5G budget phone then we recommend the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G.

OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G Full Specifications

  • Price: Php 14,990
  • Colorways: Pastel Lime, Chromatic Grey
  • Height: 165.5×76.0x8.3mm
  • Weight: 195g
  • Resolution: 2400 x 1080 pixels
  • PPI: 391
  • Aspect Ratio: 20:9
  • Refresh Rate: 60Hz – 120Hz
  • Panel Type: LCD
  • Touch Response Rate: 240Hz
  • Display Technology: Support sRGB, Display P3, Eye comfort, Dark mode
    OS: OxygenOS based on Android 13
  • CPU: Qualcomm® Snapdragon 695 5G
  • GPU: Adreno 619
  • RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
  • Storage: 256GB UFS2.2
  • Battery: 5000mAh with 67W SUPERVOOC
  • Main Camera Rear: 108MP f/1.7
  • Sensor: Samsung S5KHM6SX03
  • Pixel Size: 0.64 µm/108M; 1.92 µm (9 in 1)/12M
  • EIS: Yes
  • Depth-assist Camera – Rear: 2MP f/2.4
  • Macro Lens – Rear: 2MP f/2.4
  • Flash: LED Flash
  • Zoom: 1x – 6x
  • Autofocus: Multi Autofocus (PDAF+CAF)
  • Front Camera: 16MP f/2.4
  • Video: 1080p at 30 fps; 720p at 30 fps
  • GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
  • WCDMA: B1/2/4/5/6/8/19
  • FDD-LTE: B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20/26/28/66/13/32
  • TD-LTE: B38/39/40/41
  • 5G SA: n77/78/38/40/41/1/3/5/7/8/20/28 BlockA&BlockB/66
  • 5G NSA: n77/78/38/40/41/1/3/5/7/8/20/28 BlockA&BlockB/66
  • WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G
  • Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.1, support aptX & aptX HD & LDAC & AAC & SBC
  • NFC: NFC enabled
  • Positioning: GPS, BDS, GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS
  • Sensors: Accelerometer, Electronic compass, Gyroscope, Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Sensor Core
  • SIM: Hybrid Slot (SIM & SIM/microSD)
  • Audio: Dual Stereo Speakers

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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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