Referring to the previous article, we discussed how this phone has potential for its specs and price point and even has a few specs you will find in a mid-range phone.
Well…now we’ve had this phone with us for almost a week, and this is our review of the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G phone.
But before that, we’ll just list down the specs, basic pros and cons.
Specs
Price
- Starts from ₹19,999
Processor & OS
- Snapdragon 695 5G CPU
- Adreno 619 GPU
- OxygenOS based on Android 12
RAM-ROM variants
- 6 GB LPDDR4X RAM + 128 GB ROM
- 8 GB LPDDR4X RAM + 128 GB ROM
Display & Media
- 6.59″ screen size
- FHD+ LCD Display (2412 x 1080 pixels)
- 120 Hz Refresh rate
- Supports sRGB and Display P3
- Superlinear speaker
Connectivity
- 5G compatible
- 5.2 Bluetooth Compatibility
Battery and Charging
- Battery Capacity: 5000 mAh
- Best Compatible Chargers: 33W SUPERVOOC Charger.
Camera
- Rear Camera
-64MP (Main Camera) + 2 MP (Depth-assist Camera) + 2 MP (Macro lens camera) with a single LED Flash.
-1080p video recording at 30 fps, slow-mo 720p video at 120 fps and time-lapse recording in 1080p.
-Nightscape, HDR, AI Scene Enhancement
- Front Camera
-16 MP camera with Sony IMX 471 sensor
-1080p video recording at 30 fps
-Time-lapse
Design
- 16.43cm x 7.56cm x 0.85cm
- 195 gms
- Polycarbonate back panel
- Available in shades Black Dusk, Blue Tide
- Matte-Glossy Textured back
Pros
- Inexpensive, but good value for money
- Oxygen OS based on Android 12
- Battery life is good; it lasts at least a day with heavy usage.
- High refresh rate for a better scrolling and gaming experience
- Expandable storage
- Virtual RAM up to 5 GB
- 3.5 mm audio jack
- 33W Fast Charging
Cons
- No ultrawide camera; high saturation in skin tones while clicking pictures
- No HDR display support
- No 4k video recording
- No stereo speakers
Detailed Review
- OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G, as we had mentioned earlier, is a phone with a high amount of potential. After a week’s usage, we realised that while this phone’s performance is good in places, this phone also has some concerns that need to be addressed.
- The chipset is good for multitasking purposes. We barely saw any glitches or lags while keeping many tabs open. The OxygenOS is still a clean OS, but not as before because now they’re giving their Community and Store apps with Netflix and Spotify as bloatware. Less bloatware is okay, but it’s concerning for what’s to come soon. Also, since the refresh rate is high, we thought of trying out Genshin Impacton OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite. Yep, we know it’s a heavily graphical game, and that’s why we went for this game. The game ran smoothly on the handset without too much of stutters and frame skips. In conclusion, 6 GB RAM/ 8 GB RAM works just as fine for good performance, and in addition, you’ve got the support of 5 GB VRAM too for boosted performance.
- Talking about OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite’s screen display, we have a lot of mixed opinions. It’s a 6.59″ FHD+ display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, making the scrolling and gaming experience good. But, the LCD panel waters it all down because the colours and the brightness are just okay-ish, not the high quality you would find in an AMOLED display. Moreover, there’s no HDR support, so the colours are not very vivid and bright. Talking about the speakers, it is not a stereo system, so the sound quality is not great. Solely for content streaming like OTT or YouTube, OnePlus Nord CE 2 light is not the best recommendation.
- The battery life is absolutely amazing. Even after putting it through heavy multitasking throughout the day, it lasted for a day without any hiccups. The heavy multitasking included gaming, using the camera, keeping multiple apps open and content streaming other than usual calling, texting and social media scrolling. Even if your battery is almost over, you can put it for fast charging with the 33W SUPERVOOC Charger for a quick mid-day power-up.
- Just like the screen display of the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite, we have mixed opinions about its camera too. The camera works well in daylight using the primary lens camera. However, the rest of the lenses are not very helpful. The saturation in pictures taken with the rear camera is high, which can be ideal for still life or photos of surrounding areas. However, it is not ideal for skin tones as it adds a weird pinkish-orange tint to your pictures which does not look good. The front camera is not that great as the pictures clicked on it are a little blurry and fuzzy. Most importantly, there is no ultrawide camera which takes away a big factor out of the camera.
- Design-wise, well…it’s not what you would expect from a OnePlus phone. Even the other budget versions of the Nord lineup give out a certain amount of premium feel while holding the phone, except OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite. It’s got a polycarbonate casing, which is not something you see in OnePlus Phones. Moreover, this phone is a little heavy, weighing about 195 gms, and is a broadly structured phone. This implies that the phone is not very ergonomic as well.
Verdict
In conclusion, you can buy the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite if you’re looking for a budget phone for generic purposes like calling, texting and social media scrolling. It’s a good value for money. But one crucial point to be noted here is that in the context of a phone dedicated to streaming or photography, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite won’t make the cut.
But if we look at the silver lining, in terms of pricing, this is how OnePlus started eight years ago, so that’s some good news. However, the quality is not up to the mark compared to what we expect from any OnePlus phone. We hope that OnePlus considers this price point for future budget phones and works better on them because budget phones like this have great potential, and the demand is more. If a brand like OnePlus starts to make budget phones with improvement, their turnover will be great.
As we’ve come to the end of this review, we would love it if you could browse through our collection of OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite skins. Shades are very limited in number and you can always add a little bit of pizzazz to your device. It won’t bite you, we promise. AAAAANNNNNNNDDDD, if you wanna simply stick to either of the shades provided by OnePlus, just go for our OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite screen guards!