OnePlus launched its most expected OnePlus Nord CE4 smartphone in India today. It is a major upgrade from last year’s Nord CE3, since this gets a faster SoC, bigger battery and faster charging, and also gets cheaper. Is this worth the price? Let us dive into the review and find out.
Box Contents
- OnePlus Nord CE4 5G (8GB+256GB) in Celadon Marble colour
- 100W SUPERVOOC charger
- USB Type-C Cable
- Protective case
- SIM ejector
- Quick Start Guide and Warranty Information
Display, Hardware and Design
The OnePlus Nord CE 4 5G sports a 6.7-inch (1080 x 2412 pixels) Full HD+ curved AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, 240Hz touch sampling rate and 394 PPI. The display is bright since it has up to 1110 nits peak brightness. It offers good colour output since it has 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, and the sunlight legibility is good as well. You can select from vivid, and Natural screen colour modes. It has Dragontrail glass for protection on the front.
The phone has a 2160Hz high-frequency dimming technology. In dark environments where DC dimming can’t work, the phone will automatically switch to 2160Hz PWM dimming mode to maintain accurate colors on display with a more comfortable eye experience. There is Aqua Touch that uses HyperTouch algorithm for even smoother touch experience even when the hands are wet.
The phone also has HDR 10 support, which works for YouTube and Netflix. You can enable video HDR boost from display settings, which increases the colors when playing SDR videos to make them look like HDR. There is always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a 16-megapixel camera. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge that doubles up as a secondary speaker. It has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Coming to button placements, the power button is present on the right along with volume rockers. The Dual SIM slot with a hybrid SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone, IR Blaster and vent for speaker are present on the bottom. It has a plastic frame.
The Celadon Marble has texture-based designs inspired from special edition OnePlus 11 Marble Odyssey, the company says. Even though it packs a huge, 5500mAh battery, it weighs 186 grams. Even though the plastic back looks glossy, the fingerprints are not noticeable.
The phone also comes in Dark Chrome color that builds upon OnePlus’s legacy of iconic dark colorways featuring a subtle shiny gradient.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with 1/1.95″ Sony LYT-600 sensor, f/1.95 aperture, OIS
- 8MP 120° ultra-wide camera with Sony IMX355 sensor, f/2.2 aperture
- 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.4 aperture
The camera UI in the OxygenOS 14 is familiar. There is Pro mode, Panorma, Slo-mo, Time-Lapse, Dual-View video, and text scanner. The rear camera offers 12.5MP output after pixel binning, and the front camera images are 16MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the 50MP sensor, and the dynamic range is better with auto HDR. 2X is good, but as you zoom in you lose details even though you get up to 20X zoom. The portrait mode offers a good edge detection. This drops the 2MP macro camera, which is a good thing.
The colors are natural, but I felt the IMX890 did a slightly better job in the low light. The night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process. There is also a tripod mode. The 16MP front camera also does a good job in daylight, but doesn’t do much in low light. The bokeh shots are good, and the edge detection is decent.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos in up to 4K 30 fps, slow motion 1080p at 120fps, and the front camera can record 1080p 30fps videos. Ultra-wide camera shooting and Portrait video mode video with the main camera are limited to 1080p, 30 fps. There is OIS and EIS which does decent job. There is ultra-steady mode which is limited to 1080p 60fps.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 14 based OxygenOS 14 out of the box. It has Android security patch for March 2024. The phone will get 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates, similar to older CE series phones. OxygenOS 14 offers Trinity Engine with HyperTouch, HyperBoost and HyperRender. There is a new GO Green feature, promoting climate change awareness.
The File Dock feature enables collection, analysis, and sharing of global information through the Dock or other applications simply by making gestures. Notes 2.0 offers more convenient, enriched, and intelligent editing capabilities. The Smart Cutout feature is also able to accurately recognize and extract the subject from complex backgrounds, or background that shares a similar color scheme with the subject, or in group photos.
Apart from the usual set of OnePlus apps and Google apps, it comes with several pre-loaded apps such as Instagram, Netflix and some games. These apps can be uninstalled, but come back once the phone is reset. The IR remote app is useful.
Out of 8GB LPDD4X RAM, you get 7.2GB of usable RAM, and about 3GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has DRE or dynamic RAM expansion feature, which uses the built-in storage as RAM. This has up to 8GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 256GB UFS 3.1 storage, you get about 195.97GB of free storage.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
It has an in-display fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone quickly, but it is not as fast as a physical fingerprint sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps.
Furthermore, you can change the fingerprint animation and also disable it, and also enable quick launch option to launch apps directly from the lock screen by holding the fingerprint. The phone also has face unlock feature.
Music and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default Music Player. . It has OReality audio and has customizable Smart, Movie, Game and Music modes, but doesn’t have Dolby Atmos. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. Audio through the stereo speakers is good without any distortion even in full volume. Audio through earphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1, so that you can play HD content on Netflix and other streaming apps. It supports HDR content on YouTube, and Netflix.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The OnePlus Nord CE4 has support for n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n77/n78 Network Bands in India. It has 4G Wi-Fi and VoLTE, with support for Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 802.11 be (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.3, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support, but lacks NFC support, which was present in the CE 3. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud. It uses Google dialer and messages.
The OnePlus Nord CE4’s body SAR is 0.911W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.158/Kg, which is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is one of the few phones with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 Mobile Platform in India. It has 1+3+4 architecture, as the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. This uses 1 x 2.63 GHz ARM Cortex-A715 prime core, 3 x A715 performance cores at up to 2.4 GHz, and 4 x Cortex-A510 efficiency cores at up to 1.8 GHz.
It is fabricated using the TSMC 4nm Process Technology. It promises 15% improvements in CPU performance compared to Snapdragon 7 Gen 1. The phone has a 4129mm² large vapor chamber cooling area and graphite to help keep the phone cool, similar to the Nord CE 3, said the company.
This uses Adreno 720 GPU. We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games. In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.6% which is good, and the temperature shot up from 28 to 35 degrees. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3-powered Nord CE4 beats Dimensity 7200-powered phones.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5500mAh (typical) battery, which is slightly bigger than the 5000mAh battery in the CE 3. It can easily last for a day with heavy use and for 2 days with typical use.
I over 6 hours of screen on time with 1 and half days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use in 120Hz. Since the phone has support for 100W SuperVOOC fast charging, it can charge from up to 100% in less than half an hour. There are smart charging, option to stop charging at 80%, and the smart rapid charging can charge the device faster if the battery is too low.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 24,999, the OnePlus Nord CE4 5G undercuts the price of the CE3, making it a worthy successor and gives a good competition to others. The performance has improved, the camera is good enough, and the phone gets a huge battery bump with support for 100W fast charging. Wish the company had retained NFC support and had gone with a large camera sensor for better low light photography.
Alternatives
The Nothing Phone 2a is a cheaper alternative, but it has a MediaTek SoC and a smaller battery. Redmi Note 13 Pro offers a better screen, and a better low-light camera performance.
Pricing and availability
The OnePlus Nord CE4 is priced at Rs. 24,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, and the 8GB + 256GB model costs Rs. 26,999. It will be available fromoneplus.in, OnePlus Store App OnePlus offline stores, OnePlus Store App, Amazon.in, Reliance Digital, Croma & other offline partner brands starting from April 4th. There are also launch offers.
Pros
- 120Hz AMOLED display is good
- Smooth performance
- Capable cameras
- Eye-catching design, IP54 ratings
- Good battery life, 100W fast charging
Cons
- Low-light camera performance could be better
- NFC support from CE3 has been removed