Finally, the OnePlus Nord 2 is official. It is the successor of last year’s OnePlus Nord, which marked the company’s return to the budget segment (OnePlus tried the same earlier with the OnePlus X). Since it is the successor, it offers some significant upgrades over the last year’s model. The Nord 2 offers upgrades in almost every section, whether it is the performance, the cameras, battery, or the charging.
Design-wise, the OnePlus Nord 2 inherits the design language of the OnePlus 9. If you ignore the slightly different LED flash placement on the back, it is very hard to distinguish between the Nord 2 & the OnePlus 9. There is a glass back, but the frame is plastic. The phone also misses out on the 3.5mm headphone jack. So no matter how much OnePlus hyped the 3.5mm headphone jack on the Nord CE, that’s not here on the latest Nord device.
On the front, there is a flat-screen featuring a hole-punch cutout on the top left corner. Unlike the OnePlus Nord of last year, there is no dual selfie camera setup, hence a tiny cutout.
The display on the front is a 6.43-inch Fluid AMOLED with a 90Hz refresh rate & Full-HD+ resolution. This time, OnePlus went the MediaTek route, and so the Nord 2 features the Dimensity 1200-AI SOC. This makes it the first smartphone from OnePlus with a MediaTek chipset. The Dimensity 1200-AI is named so because there are some extra AI tweaks exclusively for the Nord 2. This SOC is paired with 6GB or 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM & 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.
Speaking of the cameras, the biggest upgrade is in the primary sensor. The OnePlus Nord 2 uses a 50 Megapixel Sony IMX766 camera sensor for the primary camera & this is the same camera sensor we saw on the OnePlus 9, OnePlus 9 Pro, the recently launched Realme GT Master Explorer Edition, etc. This camera also comes with Optical Image Stabilization, so that’s great. The other two cameras are not very impressive, at least on paper. There is an 8 Megapixel ultrawide & a 2 Megapixel monochrome sensor.
The video recording is limited to 4K 30fps. On the front, Nord 2 has a 32 Megapixel Sony IMX615 sensor. The selfie camera features EIS. OnePlus Nord 2 has a 4,500mAh battery inside & supports 65W fast charging as well. So that’s a huge upgrade over the 30W charging of the last year’s Nord.
Finally, OxygenOS 11.3 runs out of the box, which is based on Android 11 & this version is based on the combined codebase of OxygenOS & ColorOS.
OnePlus Nord 2 comes in three color options named Blue Haze, Gray Sierra & Green Wood. Among these three, the Green Wood color option comes with a leather-like texture on the rear. The official website shows that only the Blue Haze color option is available for the base model. Also, the Green Wood color option is only for the highest-end variant of the phone. Here is the pricing for various markets –
- 6GB + 128GB – ₹27,999
- 8GB + 128GB – ₹29,999 / £399 / €399
- 12GB + 256GB – ₹34,999 / £469 / €499