- Not a lot of folks talk about the risks
that come with success, but one of them is.
The more successful you become,
the tougher it gets to impress people.
To hear OnePlus tell it,
that's part of the reason it named its newest smartphone
after the concept of true North.
Because over the past seven years,
the company has gradually strayed
from its original mission of selling great smartphones
at an accessible price.
And now it wants to, say it with me, return to its roots.
- [Alex] It's supposed to be about the company
returning to its roots.
- The company's going back to its roots.
- They're returning to their roots.
(record scratches)
No shade on my fellow reviewers, by the way.
It's a marketing narrative custom formulated
for folks like us,
desperate to find an exciting angle
on yet another static slab of a smartphone.
And to be fair, this is an excellent phone
at an opening price we haven't seen from OnePlus since 2018.
But don't buy a ticket on the hype train
unless you read the fine print,
because just like older OnePluses,
the Nord comes with concessions.
(upbeat music)
Let's defy YouTube convention,
and get right into what those concessions are.
In its quest for a sub-$500 price point,
the Nord sheds three hard-fought features
geeks like me have lobbied OnePlus to include since 2013:
wireless charging, an IP certification
for dust and water resistance,
and cameras you'll actually want to use.
For the most part,
all those are as gone as the metal frame,
replaced by coated plastic, which to be fair,
I didn't notice until another reviewer pointed it out.
You'll notice the choice of processor
isn't one of the compromises I called out
because I think OnePlus did well here.
Of all the components driving up phone prices in 2020,
Qualcomm's top shelf Snapdragon 865 processor
is among the priciest,
so the OnePlus Nord drops it in favor of the 765G.
I bothered Android Central's Daniel Bader
on a Friday afternoon to ask him
what we're sacrificing in the downgrade,
and he explained to me what this handy chart
at Know Your Mobile will explain to you.
Mainly, the cheaper chip will get you slower cores,
slower maximum theoretical speeds using 5G,
and a less capable image signal processor.
And you know what,
for anyone who doesn't base their self-worth
on a spec sheet, none of that matters much
in the day-to-day experience.
I say it all the time,
smartphones are more than their silicon.
Whatever minor performance hits you're seeing
on the Nord CPU are cleverly hidden.
First, by a display that refreshes 90 times a second,
fast enough to make it smoother than the average phone,
but not so fast that it bleeds out the battery.
And second, by an operating system so well optimized
that input lag and stutter are
as alien as unneeded bloat and cruft.
Are you tired of hearing me talk
about how awesome OxygenOS is?
Well, I'm tired of saying it,
but don't think you're getting away
without hearing for the 47th time how awesome
a physical Do Not Disturb switch is,
because every phone should have this.
Anyway, the point is you're not gonna notice
the silicon swap much if at all.
If you're worried about gaming,
my buddy Enobong has a great gaming review at Booredatwork.
Here's one thing you will notice since it's summertime,
the display doesn't get quite bright enough
to overcome those high noon summer days.
And more specifically, for North American would-be buyers,
the Nord isn't being sold here.
I imagine so OnePlus doesn't cannibalize sales
of its closest cousin,
the OnePlus 8 released just three months ago.
So my review device isn't designed
or equipped for this market,
which means I'm not surprised
that it doesn't do a great job
of holding onto T-Mobile 5G signal.
But that could also be
because it's a pre-production device
running pre-release software,
so there's that disclaimer too.
Fortunately, that hasn't affected battery life.
This is an all-day phone and then some.
Even on a day that included several hours
of GPS navigation, and photo taking,
going in and out of service near Sandy Hook
to take some sample photos,
I went to bed with fully half a charge left.
Also, Warp Charge 30 is just as convenient
as it's always been for topping up your tank
in not much time at all.
And despite those signal dropouts,
callers reported I sounded very clear in VoLTE calls,
though, sorry, OnePlus,
not as nice as I sounded on the 2019 Motorola razr.
Actually, maybe there's another reason
the Nord isn't launching in the U.S.
But before we get to that, I have some bad news.
This is not the phone's factory finish.
The good news is that you, too,
can live the tear-down lifestyle
with a skin from my sponsor dbrand.
Co-designed with my friend
and all-around good guy, Zach from JerryRigEverything.
I put this on as soon as I got the Nord
and under the clear case that comes in the box,
it really does look
like I'm rocking an old-school transparent case.
Get your dbrand skin, whether it's Teardown Swarm
or even Bulletproof Banana at the link in the description.
That other potential hiccup for a U.S. launch?
Well, folks with cameras like this,
I wouldn't wanna be doing battle
with the rumored Google Pixel 4a.
That's not to say the cameras are bad.
In fact, in one crucial area,
this phone is doing something every other phone should be.
Switch over from the primary FFC
to the secondary selfie shooter
and what you lose in resolution,
you get back in field of view
with a crazy 105 degrees of capture.
You don't wanna use it in low light,
and actually, neither of these would be my first choice
for selfies given their softness.
But this ultrawide does go a long way
for those of us who do a lot of talking to the camera.
Around back, OnePlus made the right call
when it ported the primary camera from the 8 to the Nord.
Given ideal, or at least forgiving shooting scenarios,
it's a good performer.
It's these other three cameras
that don't do a great job of justifying their existence.
One is a depth sensor, which as we all know,
will never make portrait mode as perfect as you'd hope.
Another is a dedicated macro camera.
And as these photos show,
being able to get your lens
right up in there is truly awesome.
But folks, other phones achieve the same results
by repurposing their wide angle cameras,
which lets you shoot at higher resolution
than the Nord's dedicated macro camera,
whose two-megapixel sensor should've been left back in 2006.
So the only two cameras worth talking about here
are the primary and the wide angle,
both of which do fairly well in their respective roles.
But stacked up against the fire-and-forget consistency
of the Pixel 4,
whose camera chops are bound to be replicated
in the much cheaper Pixel 4a,
now the Nord becomes a much harder sell.
All things considered,
there's not much to complain about on the Nord,
but there's also no one single feature
that really elevates it above the competition,
unless you're buying your phones
based on low-band 5G support, which you shouldn't.
When you're a company pitching to a customer
who's also cross shopping the iPhone SE
and the coming Pixel 4a,
one of them has superior build quality
with wireless charging and an IP rating,
and the other is almost guaranteed to have a better camera.
And on top of that,
both will likely cost the same or even less,
depending on which Nord configuration you choose to import.
That doesn't change my overall opinion
that the Nord is a solid and well balanced smartphone.
And for the price,
it's definitely a better buy than the OnePlus 8,
another possible reason it's not coming to the U.S.
But, well, for a company
that says it's returning to its roots,
I don't know.
I guess I expected a little more flagship killer,
a little less same old story.
If you'd like the perspective of someone
who lives in a market the Nord will actually come to,
be sure to check out Alex Dobie's review at Android Central,
from which I stole a few very beautiful shots.
My video was produced following 10 days
with a OnePlus Nord review sample provided by OnePlus.
But Mr. Mobile works for you, not the manufacturers.
OnePlus did not provide compensation
in exchange for this coverage,
nor did it receive copy approval
or an early preview of this content.
They're seeing it for the first time
right alongside you.
Please subscribe to theMrMobile on YouTube
if that's the kind of video you'd like to see more of.
Until next time, thanks for watching.
And if you can't stay home,
then at least stay safe and mask up
while you stay mobile, my friends.
(upbeat music)