OnePlus Nord 2 5G Hands-On | Camera Samples

Recently, OnePlus Nord 2 5G debuted in India as an upper mid-end phone featuring a powerful high-end SoC, well-optimized camera, and 65W dash charging with a charging price of Rs.27,999 INR (377 USD / 317 euro). Let’s get into the details and know more about the phone along with the exclusive OnePlus Nord 2 5G Hands-On hands-on images.

OnePlus Nord 2 5G Hands-On | Everything We Need To Know

Design & Appearance

Starting with the built quality, OnePlus Nord 2 has a front and back glass build with a plastic frame. The body is 8.2 mm thick and the phone weighs around 189 grams.

On the front, we have the left-sided punch-hole design on the 6.43-inch screen. The screen-to-body ratio is 85.8% which has slightly decreased from the previous generation (86.7%).

The most visible change can be seen in that the dual punch-hole design from OnePlus Nord has been shifted to a single punch hole design.

The phone is available in three color options:

• Gray Sierra
• Blue Haze
• Green Wood

No special change can be seen about the design, instead, it looks a bit plainer in comparison to the 1st gen. 

On the back, we do see a change in the rear camera section. Instead of the old vertical rectangular section, it’s shorter and popped outside the main chassis similar to most of the phones this year. In fact, instead of continuing the quad-camera design, we see a triple camera design.

The rear is also slightly neat this time. The main OnePlus logo is still present at the center. But the name ‘OnePlus’ has been removed from the bottom back.

On the bottom, we find the Type-C port along with Stereo speakers.

Screen & Display

The phone features a 6.92-inch punch-hole screen with a fluid AMOLED display of 2460 x 1080 pixels (FHD+). The pixel density is as high as 409ppi and supports a 90Hz high refresh rate. As for durability, both the display and rear body are protected by Gorilla Glass Protection 5.

OnePlus also adds some display-enhancing software optimizations including AI Color Boost and AI Resolution Boost, which improve colors and upscales resolution from popular apps.

Compared with the 1st generation, we don’t see any big changes, except for the 0.01-inch decreased screen size in the 2nd generation, and the addition of software optimizations.

Hardware & Performance

Now comes the hardware section. The 2nd Generation of the OnePlus Nord series is powered by high-end Dimensity 1200 5G SoC with a frequency reaching to 3GHz. Based on the 6nm process, it’s a 1+3+4 tri cluster design with the 9-cores Mali-G77 as the GPU. On benchmarks, the performance is better than Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865 Plus but barely lower than Snapdragon 870 and much lower than Snapdragon 888 and 888 Plus.

In comparison to the previous generation, it has 65% faster CPU performance and 125% GPU performance.

The processor is further accompanied by 6/8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128/256GB UFS 3.1 storage with no option of an expandable MicroSD card.

To deal with the heat dissipation, there’s a cooling system added in the body as well, but just on a basic level.

Camera

The greatest highlight of the OnePlus Nord 2 5G is the camera performance. Despite moving from quad rear camera design to triple-rear camera design, the camera performance has improved. Here are the rear camera specs:

• 50 MP, f/1.9, 24mm (wide), with PDAF and OIS – capable of capturing 56% more light than the Sony IMX586 from the first Nord.
• 8 MP, f/2.3, 119˚ (ultrawide)
• 2 MP, f/2.4, (monochrome)

Rear Camera Modes & Features

• Nightscape Ultra (image capturing in as low as 1 lux brightness)
• Ultra wide
• Macro
• Portrait Mode
• AI filter
• Beautify filter
• Smart timer
• Pro mode
• Slow motion

OnePlus Nord 2 5G Rear Camera Samples

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The front camera has downgraded from dual design to single camera which is the same 32MP Sony IMX615 wide camera with f/2.5 aperture. 4K recording is not possible. However, Auto HDR and gyro-EIS have been added.

However, software optimizations for the front camera are even better. There’s a new feature added called Group Shots 2.0.

Connectivity & Network

OnePlus Nord 2 supports the latest 5G networking. It has a dual SIM slot. Like said before, there’s no dedicated or hybrid option to add a MicroSD card.

The phone also features Dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2, USB OTG, and NFC. It doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack.

Battery

ZTE Axon 30 has a built-in 4500mAh battery, supports 65W dash charging via its USB Type-C Gen 2.0 supporting USB Power Delivery. The advertised time from 1% to 100% is only 35 minutes.

OS

OnePlus Nord 2 runs on the latest OxygenOS 11.3 based on Android 11 along with 2 years of OS updates.

Price & Availability

The phone has debuted in India with a total of three versions:

• 6+128GB for Rs.27,999 INR (377 USD / 317 euros) (only Blue Haze)
• 8+128GB for Rs.29,999 INR (404 USD / 340 euros) ( 2 colors)
• 12+256GB for Rs.34,999 INR (471 USD / 397 euros) (exclusive Green Woods color