OnePlus launched its most expected OnePlus Nord 3 smartphone in India this week. It is a major upgrade from last year’s Nord 2T, since this is the phone in the range to pack MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC.
It brings the 6.74-inch 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED screen, Sony IMX890 sensor and the 5000mAh from the OnePlus 11R. Specifications look great on paper, is this the best phone under Rs. 35,000? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- OnePlus Nord 3 16GB + 256GB in Tempest Gray
- 80W SuperVOOC fast charger
- USB Type-C to Type-A cable
- Protective case
- SIM Ejector tool
- User guide
Display, Hardware and Design
The OnePlus Nord 3 5G sports a 6.74-inch (2772 x 1240 pixels) 1.5K flat AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate which is adaptive, so it can switch to 120Hz/90Hz/60Hz/45Hz/40Hz based on the content.
The phone has 1000 Hz touch sampling rate and 450 PPI, same as the 11R. The display is bright since it has up to 1450 nits peak brightness, also offers s 8192 different levels of 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, Natural and Pro screen colour modes.
The company doesn’t mention if this has high-frequency PWM dimming technology. The phone also has HDR 10 support, which works for YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. 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 also video color boost and image sharpener options.
The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but this has an always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule. There is also music playback option in the always-on-display with the Spotify integration, and there is also Zomato and Swiggy integration to show order details on your lock screen.
The phone has ultra narrow bezels with 1.46mm side bezels and 2.31 mm ultra-narrow chin, making it compact to hold. It has X-axis linear vibration motor. It has Dragontrail glass protection, said the company.
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 the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the alert slider. The volume rockers are on the left. The primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone and the IR blaster are present on the top. The phone doesn’t have an expandable storage.
The Tempest Gray colour that we have has a matte textured finish that is silky smooth to hold, so it might be slippery, so it is recommended to use a case.
The Misty Green has a glossy glass design with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The phone also has IP54 ratings for dust and splash resistance.
Camera
Camera setup
- 50MP rear camera with 1/1.56″ Sony IMX890 sensor, f/1.8 aperture, OIS
- 8MP 120° ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 2MP macro camera with f/2.4 aperture
- 16MP front camera with f/2.4 aperture
The camera UI in the OxygenOS 13.1 is familiar. There is Pro mode with RAW option, Extra HD, Panorma, Macro, Flim, Slo-mo, Time-Lapse and Dual-View video. There is Bokeh Flare portrait option for photos, and there are no filters for video. 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. There is AI mode which recognizes different photo scenes and automatically adjusts camera settings to make boost the colours. 2X is good, but as you zoom in you lose details even though you get up to 20X zoom. The portrait mode is decent and the 2MP macro camera is useless, so it is recommended to use 2X with the normal camera.
Low light shots are good with a lot of details and less noise. The night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process. There is also a tripod mode. The front camera also does a good job in daylight. The bokeh shots good with decent edge detection.
Check out the camera samples
It can record videos in up to 4K 60 fps, slow motion 1080p at 120fps, 720p at up to 240 fps, and the front camera can record 1080p 30fps videos. Ultra-wide camera shooting and Portrait video mode and HDR / AI Highlight video with the main camera are limited to 1080p 30 fps.
There is OIS and EIS which does a good job, but EIS is limited to 1080p. There is ultra-steady mode which is limited to 1080p 60fps.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 13 based OxygenOS 13.1 out of the box. It has Android security patch for June 2023. The phone will get 3 Android updates and 4 years of security updates, similar to the 11R, which is good. OxygenOS 13 adds Aquamorphic design, intuitive iconography, new card-style layout for the UI, Smart AOD, Large Folders, dynamic home screen widgets, and more.
Apart from the usual set of realme apps and Google apps, it comes with Prime Video, Netflix, and Spotify. There is also an IR remote app since this has IR blaster.
Out of 16GB LPDD5X RAM, you get 15.08GB of usable RAM, and about 8GB 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 12GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 256GB, you get about 222GB of free storage. The phone uses UFS 3.1 storage, and we got sequential read speeds of, 1820.88 MB/s.
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 lockscreen by holding the fingerprint. The phone also has face unlock feature.
Music and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default Music Player. It has Dolby Atmos which works with headset and has customizable Smart, Movie, Game and Music modes. 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, Netflix and Prime Video.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The OnePlus Nord 3 5G has support for n1/n3/n5/n8/n28A/n40/n41/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 ax (2.4GHz + 5GHz), VoWiFi / Wi-Fi calling support, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support and also has NFC support. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud. Google dialier is default.
The OnePlus Nord 3 5G’s body SAR is 0.872W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.13/Kg, which is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the first phone in the price range to use MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC in India. It has 1 x ARM Cortex-X2 CPU clocked at 3.05GHz, 3x Cortex-A710 CPU clocked at 2.85GHz and the 4 x Cortex-A510 CPU cores are clocked at 1.8GHz. There is a Mali-G710 10-core GPU, and the phone has up to 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, which is a first in the segment.
The phone has a 4129mm² large vapor chamber cooling area and the company says that it has used materials like copper and graphite to help keep the phone cool. The performance is smooth without any lags, and it also offers smooth gaming performance even in most graphic intensive games, but there was a slight stutter in Genshin Impact even though fps was stable. This could be fixed in an update.
When you play graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact, it gets a bit hot. It reached maximum 41.8º in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, which is good, but this might vary outdoors in 4G or 5G.
That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see, it is better than the OnePlus 11R in AnTuTu, and is almost similar in Geekbench 5 benchmark.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) built-in battery, compared to 4500mAh in the Nord 2 and 2T. It lasted me more than a day with mixed Wi-Fi and 5G use and dual SIMs. I got about 5 hours of screen on time with over a day of use on Wi-Fi and in 120Hz. Since the phone has support for 80W SuperVOOC Charge, same as the Nord 2T. It can charge up to 50% in about 13 minutes and up to 100% in about half an hour with the bundled 80W charger.
There is a new battery health option that shows the battery capacity. There are 15 temperature sensors and a bespoke charging chip, so it promises 1,600 full charging cycles from the phone that’s equivalent of fully charging, and fully discharging the OnePlus Nord 3 5G every day for four years.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 33,999 for the 8GB + 128GB, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G is a worthy successor to the Nord 2 / 2T. There is increase in price compared to the older models, but for this price, it ticks almost all the boxes, and brings most of the top-end features that are available in the OnePlus 11R at a cheaper cost.
Alternatives
The iQOO Neo 7Pro is the direct competitor that offers Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC at Rs. 1000 more offering a better gaming experience. You can spend more and get the OnePlus 11R, if you need Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC and a slightly faster charging.
Pricing and availability
The OnePlus Nord 3 is priced at Rs. 33,999 for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage version and the 16GB RAM + 256GB version is priced at Rs. 37,999. It will be available from Amazon.in, OnePlus online stores, offline stores starting from July 15th. There is a Rs. 1,000 Instant Bank Discount.
Pros
- 120Hz AMOLED display is brilliant
- Smooth performance
- Main camera is good
- Good build and IP54 ratings
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Average ultra-wide and macro cameras