OnePlus Nord 3 5G Evaluation: Levelling Up

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G has formally launched as a successor to the Nord 2T (Evaluation) in India. The brand new Nord flagship will get large upgrades on paper over the mannequin it replaces. OnePlus has packed MediaTek’s flagship-series SoC and a major digicam sensor from the OnePlus 11 (Evaluation). The Nord 3 continues to supply SuperVOOC charging, a beefy battery and a 120Hz show. Nevertheless, the upgrades do include a rise in price over the outgoing mannequin.

With all that’s on supply, does the OnePlus Nord 3 5G supply the perfect worth on your cash? Right here is our full assessment that can assist you discover out.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G worth in India

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G has been launched in India in two storage choices. The bottom mannequin provides 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and is priced at Rs. 33,999. The variant we now have for assessment comes with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and is priced at Rs. 37,999.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G design and show

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G, with its design and color choices, seems to be like a premium model of the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G (Evaluation), which was launched earlier this 12 months. The brand new cellphone has barely curved edges for the glass again which is Corning Gorilla Glass 5. We’ve got the Misty Inexperienced color which seems to be fairly good however attracts fingerprints and smudges simply as a result of shiny end. I desire the Tempest Gray color, which has a matte-textured end. Each color choices include an IP54 score for primary water and dirt resistance, one thing that was lacking within the earlier mannequin.

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G has a flat plastic body with a matte end. Its proper aspect has the fan-favourite Alert slider and the facility button. The amount rocker is on the left aspect. On the underside edge, there may be room for a USB Sort-C port, major speaker grille, microphone, and a dual-SIM slot. On the prime, there may be additionally an IR emitter which can be utilized to to manage home equipment in your house.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G continues to function an alert slider

 

I like the general in-hand really feel of the OnePlus Nord 3 5G. The slight curvature of the rear panel across the edges ensures that the body doesn’t really feel very sharp when enjoying video games or holding the cellphone for lengthy intervals. Weight distribution can be good and it doesn’t really feel top-heavy. For the spec sheet nerds on the market, the Nord 3 5G weighs 193.5g and measures 8.15mm in thickness.

On the entrance, the handset includes a tall 6.74-inch ‘Tremendous Fluid’ AMOLED show. In contrast to the marginally extra reasonably priced Realme 11 Professional+ 5G (Evaluation) and Motorola Edge 40 (Evaluation), the OnePlus Nord 3 5G provides a flat show as a substitute of a curved-edge one. The bezels are pretty skinny, together with the chin, which helps supply extra display and gives an immersive viewing expertise.

Content material considered on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G’s 10-bit AMOLED panel with a 1.5K decision (2772×1240 pixels) seems to be crisp. The show additionally produces vivid colors, and with HDR10+ assist on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, you get these deep blacks. The twin audio system function Dolby Atmos enhancement and supply wealthy sound. Additionally they get loud sufficient to fill a small room.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G has a reasonably skinny chin bezel

 

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G’s show provides a contact sampling charge of as much as 1,000Hz and includes a dynamic 120Hz refresh charge. Throughout my time with the machine, I didn’t discover any stutter whereas scrolling and the animations felt clean.

The Nord 3 5G has an in-display fingerprint scanner which is pretty fast to authenticate and unlock the cellphone, though it’s positioned a bit low for my liking. Alternatively, you should utilize the much less safe however extra handy AI-based face recognition for authentication.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G specs and software program

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G will get the flagship-grade MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC which relies on a 4nm fabrication course of. The SoC includes a Mali G-710 GPU and is paired with as much as 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM together with 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There isn’t a microSD card slot or headphone jack. The handset helps eight 5G bands, Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity. The OnePlus Nord 3 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery and provides 80W quick charging assist.

When it comes to software program, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G boots Oxygen OS 13.1 based mostly on Android 13. OnePlus’ customized pores and skin is understood to supply a bunch of personalisation and customisation choices. You cannot solely change wallpapers and themes but in addition regulate the icon form, dimension and the fonts. Oxygen OS 13.1 helps Android’s Materials You theme, which lets you match the system and UI colors to that of the wallpaper. You may examine our OnePlus 11 assessment, the place we now have shared our expertise with the brand new Oxygen OS 13 options.

The Nord 3 5G comes preloaded with a bunch of OnePlus and Oppo apps, akin to Zen House, Group, O Chill out, OnePlus Retailer, Clone Telephone, and so on. There are only a few preinstalled third-party apps akin to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Spotify.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G runs on the most recent Oxygen OS 13 replace.

 

OnePlus has promised to supply three main Android updates and 4 years of safety patches for The Nord 3 5G. That is the longest assist {that a} Nord smartphone has ever acquired at launch.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G efficiency and battery life

Throughout my time with the OnePlus Nord 3 5G, I performed a bunch of video games whereas performing different routine duties on the machine. The expertise was fairly fluid, to say the least. Apps loaded shortly and gaming efficiency was additionally wonderful. I performed Battlegrounds Cellular India (BGMI) and Asphalt 9: Legends on the cellphone, each of which ran easily. BGMI supported as much as Extremely HD graphics with an Extremely framerate. Nevertheless, if you wish to use the Excessive body charge possibility, you’ll need to set graphics to HDR.

RAM administration on the 16GB RAM variant of the Nord 3 5G was wonderful as apps remained in reminiscence and continued to load from the place I had left them. In fact, heavy video games akin to BGMI did reload after switching again to it after some time. The world across the digicam module did get barely heat whereas enjoying video games for lengthy intervals nevertheless it was nothing alarming.

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G scored 8,47,115 in AnTuTu (v10), which is barely lower than the lower-priced Poco F5 (Evaluation), which scored 10,94,798 factors with its Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 SoC. The cellphone scored 863 and a couple of,978 factors in Geekbench 6’s single-core and multi-core checks. 

There may be the brand new iQoo Neo 7 Professional (First Impressions) which is priced roughly the identical because the Nord 3 5G. It includes a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC and whereas we’re engaged on the total assessment, our preliminary AnTuTu check of the Neo 7 Professional returned a rating of 12,63,884 factors, whereas, in Geekbench 6 it scored 1,727 and 4,459 factors within the single-core and multi-core checks. 

OnePlus Nord 3 5G doesn’t get sizzling whereas enjoying video games

 

When it comes to battery life, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G can final a full day on one cost. The typical screen-on time (SoT) that I received was about eight hours and half-hour on days with medium utilization. On days after I performed video games and shot photographs and movies, the SoT dropped to seven hours and quarter-hour. In our HD video loop check, the Nord 3 5G lasted for about 21 hours and 12 minutes. The cellphone takes about 40 minutes to cost from 1-100% utilizing the bundled adapter.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G cameras

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G includes a triple-camera setup on the again. This features a 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 major digicam with optical picture stabilisation (OIS), an 8-megapixel ultra-wide digicam, and a 2-megapixel macro digicam.

The first digicam’s daylight efficiency is sort of spectacular. You get good particulars and dynamic vary and hues look vibrant. It managed to seize some detailed and colour-accurate photographs even when it was fairly cloudy or raining outdoors.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G major digicam samples (faucet to see bigger dimension)

 

Oddly, the Photograph mode within the digicam app tends to provides some pink hue over human pores and skin tones. Portrait mode photographs alternatively supply good background blur whereas getting the pores and skin tones proper. In low gentle, there is a good steadiness of publicity between the highlights and shadows. The great factor right here is that the evening sky does look gray and never darkish blue. To this point, the OnePlus Nord 3’s major digicam efficiency is likely one of the greatest that I’ve seen in its section.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G digicam samples (Prime row: Portrait mode, Photograph mode; Backside row: Low-light digicam samples)

 

The ultra-wide digicam, although, is sort of common. For starters, the color temperature is completely different in comparison with the principle digicam with barely cooler tones. As anticipated, particulars are weaker, particularly across the distorted edges. The 16-megapixel entrance digicam’s daylight efficiency is nice for the worth. It will get human pores and skin tones proper more often than not and the portrait mode blur seems to be pure too.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G digicam samples (Prime row: Extremely-wide; Backside row: Entrance digicam)

 

Recorded movies from the OnePlus Nord 3 5G is sort of spectacular for the worth. The rear digicam can seize as much as 4K 60fps movies. The dynamic vary efficiency is sort of good and so are the colors, that are near pure. The entrance digicam will get the segment-standard video recording restrict of 1080p 30fps, which is sort of okay with pure colors and satisfactory dynamic vary efficiency.

Verdict

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G checks nearly all of the packing containers to be a possible contender for the perfect smartphone beneath Rs. 40,000 in India, in the mean time. It has a much bigger and higher show than its predecessor, a flagship-grade efficiency unit and a succesful set of cameras. Software program expertise is also fairly clear and feature-rich.

The one downsides that I see are the underwhelming ultra-wide digicam and the truth that it solely will get a primary IP score. The marginally reasonably priced Motorola Edge 40 and the Samsung Galaxy A34 5G (Evaluation) supply IP68 and IP67 rankings, respectively.

The worth of the Nord 3 5G has additionally gone up by a number of thousand rupees in comparison with the outgoing mannequin. The 16GB RAM variant sits fairly near the OnePlus 11R (Evaluation), which is priced at Rs. 39,999 and provides a curved-edge AMOLED show and a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, with an identical set of cameras and barely sooner 100W charging. Nevertheless, if you need an all-rounder smartphone with out stretching your funds an excessive amount of, I believe the OnePlus Nord 3 5G continues to be an important purchase.

From the Nothing Telephone 2 to the Motorola Razr 40 Extremely, a number of new smartphones are anticipated to make their debut in July. We talk about the entire most fun smartphones coming this month and extra on the most recent episode of Orbital, the Devices 360 podcast. Orbital is on the market on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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