It took a while, but the OnePlus Nord 3 is finally here. And since the competition in the upper middle class has kind of hit the brakes this year, or abandoned it, this piece will stand out all the more. OnePlus didn’t disappear, on the contrary, it made a big splash and moved the Nord 3 to a new level in a few key respects.
First, I would like to make a recommendation. The Nord 3 is sold in black and green. The green one looks very nice in the photos, but it has a shiny glass back. Like extremely shiny and doesn’t feel premium to the touch. And when you add that plastic frame, how the back keeps getting stuck, it’s just not my preferred choice. As soon as you take the matte black glass in your hand, which has the same effect as the OnePlus 11, then you are clear.
More pleasant to hold, does not get dirty at all, hair scratches are not so visible, the phone looks much better as a whole. Somehow more robust. So be it on me, I buy the black one without thinking. And I try to avoid her. Otherwise, you must have already noticed the new design, which is modern but does not stand out in any way. However, I appreciate the hardware sound profile switch that I use every day.
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However, it has changed with the Nord 3 and it definitely does not look extra premium. It sort of collapses as if it were a button at the same time. It’s very practical and I’m happy for it, but it could have been better made. On the other hand, the front side will definitely win you over with its quality. From the front, the Nord 3 looks better than any other flag.
We have a large and flat 6.74-inch AMOLED panel, which is covered with 2.5D glass that fits seamlessly into the frame, which is nice for gesture control. It is a 10-bit panel with 100% coverage of both DCI-P3 and sRGB colors. It has 120 Hz, but the frequency drops through 90, 60 and 45 to 40 Hz depending on the need, and a higher resolution of 1240p, so 1.5K, as it is sometimes called. Oh, and the brightness of 1100 nits in the sun and 1450 in HDR is “not bad” either.
In short, it’s a big upgrade that’s among the best in its class. Perhaps the best of its class. Readability is much better than before, I could see everything without problems even in the sun. The image is beautiful, the response is excellent and the fingerprint reader is pretty fast. But you will be interested in all that only on the second or third look. At first glance, the frames catch your eye.
foto: techArena
They’re only 1.46mm at their thinnest point, and sure, the chin is still a tad wider than the hips, 2.31mm, but when the bezels are this thin overall, it’s a no-brainer. It’s the same case with the Xiaomi 13. Considering the size of the panel, the phone looks incredibly impressive from the front. And purely technically, its frames are among the thinnest on the market. Absolutely gorgeous and the Galaxy A54 looks absolutely ridiculous next to it.
This is already too big for me, if it had a 6.5-inch display, I would prefer it, but what can be done. I also appreciate the absolutely excellent haptic response. It is at the flagship level. Detailed, the system works great with her and she is very strong. I don’t even have it at its maximum, and it’s still stronger than many other mobile phones at their maximum. If you like haptics, the Nord 3 will please you.
I was also surprised by the new stereo speakers, which in my opinion may be of slightly above-average quality, but they are very loud and relatively well balanced. There were no problems with connectivity, signal or anything, everything works as it should. And I also appreciate the support of most quality audio codecs via Bluetooth 5.3 LE.
Personally, I also really like to use the Oxygen OS 13.1, i.e. Color OS. As I already said with the OnePlus 11. It’s something completely different. But something else is good enough. Although there are still some features I don’t need. As with any superstructure. Maybe you can’t throw notifications on both sides.
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The environment looks modern, you have a lot of customization options, everything like the OnePlus 11. And the speed? Damn work. Nord 3 is by far the fastest, smoothest and most stable phone of its price tag. And not only that. Even more expensive phones will run like nothing. And what do I mean by stability? I didn’t experience a single freeze or drop in frequency or FPS.
It happens regularly in this class. Nothing Phone 1 does it, Samsung, Motorola, Xiaomi sometimes something insignificant just happens. It’s not worth mentioning in a review, for example, but it happens. I haven’t come across anything with the Nord 3 in almost two weeks. The speed is brutal, the fluidity is flawless, this is a flagship experience that you will quickly get used to.
On the other hand, we owe it to the well-tuned superstructure and the Dimensity 9000 processor with the fastest possible type of RAM. Yes, we have last year’s flagship chipset. Something like Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Heating was not a problem even in the sun while playing Doom or shooting videos, the cooling is great, and there is plenty of performance. The longevity isn’t bad at all either.
It took a while for the Nord 3 to learn, but in the end we usually got about 6.5 hours of the display on on one charge. Sometimes 20 minutes less. It’s not the best endurance far and wide, and for some reason the phone sometimes eats a lot in stand-by, that should be fixed. But overall I didn’t have a problem with staying power. It’s good, and if that’s not enough, 80W charging will get you from 0 to 100% in 30 minutes. And the charger is in the package.
Unfortunately, the phone still doesn’t have wireless charging or proper water resistance, it’s only IP54, but I don’t think that matters so much in this case. You will understand in the end. There is also a telephoto lens missing, but I don’t think that matters so much in this case. You may know that the Nord is this year’s rebranded OnePlus Ace 2V, which has been on sale in China for a few months now. However, the Nord differs in an important area – the main camera.
This piece has the same 50Mpx IMX890 sensor with optical stabilization as the OnePlus 11. The photo app is cut down compared to the flagship and there is a different processor, which means different processing. Don’t expect one-to-one photos from the OnePlus 11. But that doesn’t matter, because you can simply recognize the quality of the sensor, and the Nord 3 has reached the position of this year’s best photomobile in its class.
The photos are very detailed, the focus is excellent, there is no noise, the bokeh looks nice, the dynamic range is great, the software sharpening does not overdo it, and the colors are a bit more saturated than in reality. The result is not exactly faithful, but very lively photos that have some character. Nord has some stylization, it’s not just normal HDR mobile photos.
The main camera is seriously excellent, and this also applies in poor light. In the dark indoors or at night outdoors. These photos are pig quality and clean. The Nord can definitely be compared day and night with the Zenfone 10 or the Motorola Edge 40 Pro. And I think he would often win. At me. I like its processing better. Although it’s stupid that OnePlus turned on the automatic night mode here, but there is no way to turn it off. Realme has it in this price tag, OnePlus doesn’t. And that’s the same superstructure.
Hopefully it will be added in an update, but right now that option isn’t there. So if you want some seriously dark night photos, you’re out of luck. On the other hand, the images are still really ultra high quality and the mode surprisingly produces darker, more natural photos than the competition. The phone makes such good decisions about the connection and length of night mode that I don’t really mind not having control over it. You can see the difference in the sensor. For example, against the more expensive Realme 11 Pro+, which has a 200MP sensor and I am currently testing it, the Nord has a better camera.
But that raw quality isn’t what makes the Nord feel flagship. This is due to use. Even the night mode, when it turns on, is ultra fast. And even if, for example, we were swaying while squatting and May was swaying in the wind again, the photos in the evening with him are sharp and detailed. That’s why I don’t mind that it can’t be turned off. The trigger is always very fast, the shutter freezes fast subjects quite well, for the price.
The application runs exemplarily fast and smoothly, and the phone responds immediately. And in addition, it is mainly dependent on the output. You may not like the photo processing, but every photo from the Nord 3 was as it should be. There were no weak bits when something went wrong or moments when the phone went crazy. This is the flagship reliability that I personally value very much.
In order not to stop praising, the 2x digital zoom is also very good, it can easily take the role of a cheaper telephoto lens. The 5x zoom is decent at times, but mostly it doesn’t look good. And 20 times at all. But the portraits are quite nice. And so is 4K video. The software can work wonders for photos, but not so much for video. There, the sensor itself shines again, delivering great video for the given price tag. Detailed, pleasant colors, the dynamic range will surprise you. But unfortunately, there is again the stupidity like with many phones of this class and the electronic stabilization does not work in 4K, which simply has to help the optical one. So it’s a beautiful but unstable video that is so unusable at times.
Most of the attention and resources obviously went into the main camera, so it probably won’t surprise you that there is only a useless 2MP macro and an 8MP wide-angle sensor below it. But I have to tell you that it’s not bad at all for an 8 Mpx sensor. Yeah, you can feel the resolution and the photos are so flat. There is a lack of contrast, they are too bright, just ordinary, but good 8 Mpx wide.
But what will the software and the processor get out of it in the evening? That’s cool. The colors and white balance are not as faithful as the great main camera can do, but at 8 Mpx? Good. Oh, and the front 16MP camera has a similar problem to the wide one. It is nicely detailed, but very bright, so the photos are flat and the colors are a bit off. And of course it can’t do 4K video.
photo: techArena So I’ll summarize it nicely. The OnePlus Nord 3 has a flagship processor and user experience, flagship haptics, flagship display and bezels, flagship fast charging and flagship quality main camera. Plus good endurance, nice speakers or a practical hardware switch. Oh, and 3 years of major Android updates and 4 years of security. Nice, is not it? And silence about Nord 2. He just pulled out a black Peter, who knows why. The Nord 2T already had better support and the manufacturer is still getting better at it. The phone sacrificed wireless charging or water resistance, but in my opinion it was worth the good stuff.
Much more for features that the vast majority of people will use. Or they just appreciate them a lot more, even though they may not know exactly what they want from a phone. The Nord 3 is the definition of a phone that can do everything it seriously needs to at a high level and nothing more. But thanks to nothing extra, there is also the last advantage over the competition. 10,990 crowns, 449 euros, that’s how much the Nord 3 costs in the basic 8/128GB version. That’s a price that slaps the competition hard. There’s the slightly more expensive Realme 11 Pro+, which looks a lot better, but these are two completely different phones from essentially the same company. You buy one if you want to make it look like you have a flag. You buy the second one when you want to have a flagship feeling when using it.
I’m sorry, but according to my experience and, of course, preferences, there is no better phone around the Nord 3. Sure, you have similarly good pieces that just focus on something else. Which are a little more expensive or at the same price. But overall, for most audiences, Nord is awesome. Whether you want a great user experience, gaming performance, a nice display for videos or great photos, the Nord has it covered and for the price it’s one of the best buys on our market. It is definitely the best mid-range budget phone this year so far.
It will not go on sale until next week, and until the end of the month you have a discount on the higher 16/256GB version. It normally costs 13,490 crowns, 549 euros, but now it will cost 12,290 crowns and 499 euros. In any case, the variant does not matter. The Nord 3 is a return to prominence for OnePlus. In the upper middle class around 10,000 crowns, it is the clear number one choice for me. At least someone didn’t screw up this class this year.
2023-07-11 13:43:46
#OnePlus #Nord #review #needed
