Finally, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G is here. The smartphone launched in Europe and India today, and “CE” in the name stands for “Core Edition,” which means this phone takes the same approach as the last year’s Nord but has even more toned down internals to make it even more affordable. In the Indian market, the starting price is Rs 22,999, which is Rs 2,000 lesser than the starting price of the last year’s OnePlus Nord when it launched.
Design-wise, there is not a major difference between it and the last year’s Nord. There is a similar-looking vertically placed camera module, but this time, there are three cameras on the rear instead of four. The phone has a single-hole punch on the front instead of a dual selfie camera setup. It also lacks the alert slider, which is a unique aspect of a OnePlus phone because apart from OnePlus, you will hardly find any other Android phone maker offering an alert slider to quickly change sound profiles. What this phone has, however, that the last year’s Nord missed, is a 3.5mm headphone jack! It is placed on the bottom alongside the Type-C port and the speaker grill.
OnePlus also did some cost-cutting in terms of the materials it used. The last year’s Nord had a glass back, but the Nord CE has a plastic back.
On the front, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G has a 6.43-inch 90Hz Fluid AMOLED with Full-HD+ resolution. The fingerprint scanner, therefore, sits under the display. It is a good thing that the OnePlus stuck with a 90Hz AMOLED because, as we have seen, most of the phone makers go for high-refresh-rate LCDs at this price range to reduce the overall cost of the phone. Under the hood, it gets the Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G chipset which is paired with 6/8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB or 256GB UFS 2.1 storage.
While this is a 5G phone, it is worth mentioning that in India, it supports just one 5G band, the n78.
The triple camera setup on the back includes a primary 64 Megapixel shooter with an f/1.79 aperture lens, an 8 Megapixel ultrawide unit, and a 2 Megapixel monochrome sensor. The primary camera can shoot 4K videos at up to 30fps. On the front, the OnePlus Nord CE has a 16 Megapixel Sony IMX471 sensor for selfies.
The battery is bigger, this time at 4,500mAh, and there is support for Warp Charge 30T Plus (5V/6A). Android 11 runs out of the box with OxygenOS on top.
OnePlus Nord CE 5G comes in three colors named Blue Void, Charcoal Ink, and Silver Ray. Here is the pricing for various markets –
- 6GB + 128GB – Rs 22,999 | €299
- 8GB + 128GB – Rs 24,999 | €329 | £299
- 12GB + 256GB – Rs 27,999 | €399 | £369
In India, the sales start on the 16th of June, and you can buy the device via the OnePlus store or from Amazon.