OnePlus Nord 3 Review: Luxury with Compromises

Value When Reviewed

Not out there within the US

The Nord sequence is OnePlus’s mid-range telephone sequence, and the Nord 3 is the newest within the line.

Like earlier numbered Nord entries this telephone isn’t launching within the US, and surprisingly it additionally isn’t coming to the UK, nevertheless it has launched in Europe the place it has competitors from the likes of the Google Pixel 7a, Xiaomi 13 Lite, and Samsung Galaxy A54.

Not way back, we examined the primary Nord telephone in era three, OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G, an extended and complicated title for a not-so inexpensive telephone with too many compromises to options, efficiency and design. Within the extra merely named Nord 3, OnePlus will get it extra proper.

Luxurious construct

It has a sublime design with a premium really feel, luxurious supplies, and a form that’s as fashionable as it’s sensible. With a 6.74in display screen, it’s something however small, however due to skinny display screen edges and flat sides on the telephone’s aluminium body, it’s not too vast to grip. It’s a barely bigger display screen measurement than the Nord CE 3 Lite 5G, however a millimetre smaller within the outer dimensions.

On the entrance, it doesn’t have Gorilla Glass however Dragontrail Glass from a competitor of Corning referred to as AGC. Whether or not it’s precisely as sturdy is troublesome to find out, nevertheless it ought to supply good safety towards a drop. The glass rounds off in a teardrop form alongside the perimeters immediately towards the matte aluminium body, and the again can also be glass, on this case Gorilla Glass 5 with a curved design in the direction of the perimeters. The Nord 3 is on the market in two types, with a matt grey-black again, or a inexperienced shiny end.

Oneplus

Identical to the flagship OnePlus 11 I’m slightly dissatisfied that I can’t get the extra engaging inexperienced color with the comfy matt again, but when like most individuals you place a protecting case over the telephone, it doesn’t matter. The Nord 3 has an influence button and quantity management on reverse sides of the cell phone, and on the high of the precise facet is OnePlus’s trademark slider that may rapidly swap the telephone to silent or don’t disturb mode. It was lacking from some earlier OnePlus fashions, so it’s a welcome sight.

Excessive mid-range efficiency

The Dimensity 9000 chipset from Mediatek delivers efficiency that’s roughly equal to final yr’s high telephones. It delivers metrics in keeping with Google’s Pixel 7 mobiles, and with 16GB of RAM within the high mannequin, I skilled virtually no choppiness or lag. Solely when loading giant apps, the place it’s slightly slower than one of the best of the newest top-end mobiles. Not too unhealthy for a mid-range telephone.

With comparatively excessive graphics efficiency and good cooling, it’s a terrific telephone for gaming. It runs many of the extra demanding Android video games at a excessive and clean body price on its 1080p display screen, and it manages to maintain the body price up for a very long time even at actually excessive masses.

Nonetheless, there may be an higher restrict, and the telephone’s cooling is in charge. A radical stress check reveals that it manages to keep up peak efficiency for 10 to fifteen minutes, then it rapidly loses about 30 per cent of its computing energy. That must be sufficient in most conditions, apart from lengthy gaming classes.

Mattias Inghe

Excessive class display screen

120Hz body price and as much as 1,000Hz contact sampling within the display screen makes the response pleasantly quick. The decision is a barely odd 1,240 x 2,772 pixels.

It’s not full LPTO expertise within the display screen, nevertheless it adjusts frequency in 5 fastened steps between 40 and 120Hz. In automated mode, it’s seemingly seamless. But it surely doesn’t appear to be superb at holding the frequency low, as I get virtually the identical battery life then as once I manually run the telephone in 120Hz display screen mode.

The display screen is an AMOLED with wonderful color and excessive peak brightness for sunny days. 1,450 nits is the acknowledged most brightness, and utilizing the telephone outdoor isn’t an issue. With help for HDR10+, and the precise certificates for HDR content material on Netflix and Prime Video, you’ll be able to have a terrific movie expertise.

Constructed-in stereo audio system present detailed sound, particularly within the mid-range,. Sadly, it lacks fairly a little bit of energy within the bass, so it may be a skinny sounding expertise. Dolby Atmos is enabled and might’t be switched off except you plug in headphones, and irrespective of which sound profile I select, I by no means get any actual fullness within the sound.

Mattias Inghe

Three cameras

On the again are two spherical digicam pucks, which include three cameras. A 50Mp IMX890 sensor with optical picture stabilisation within the higher one, and a less complicated 8Mp ultrawide digicam with fastened focus and 2Mp macro within the different. Subsequent to every are white circles, however evidently solely considered one of them is the LED flash, it’s the one one which prompts once I’m capturing. What the opposite does is open to conjecture. Mild sensor? Ornament? Who is aware of.

Photographs in daylight are sharp and detailed, and with fast focus and AI help, it’s simple to drag the telephone out of your pocket, level, click on, and get a reliably good image. I get pure colors in all my check pictures, however the dynamics are slightly unreliable. If the digicam has giant darkish areas in shadow, it needs to spotlight them to get particulars, which suggests shiny areas are overexposed.

For probably the most half, although, it seems good, and the ultrawide and selfie digicam match the primary digicam in color and light-weight ranges. The small macro digicam has paler color saturation and a few fixed noise within the picture. In professional mode, you’ll be able to management publicity intimately and you’ll select to shoot in RAW format.

Mattias Inghe

Night time images with a daytime really feel

OnePlus is eager to emphasize how good the Nord 3 is at night time images, with its giant sensor, optical picture stabilisation, and its personal multi-exposure expertise referred to as Turbo RAW. So I went out into the neighbourhood and tried some pictures. The outcomes present that OnePlus isn’t mendacity – you will get loads of element and nuance with a pointy, virtually noise-free picture.

There’s only one drawback: it’s too shiny. As an alternative of giving me nice colors, it pushes the sunshine compensation to the max, so it immediately seems like I’m capturing within the early night moderately than the midnight. The perfect cameras I’ve seen handle to seize element and color however nonetheless preserve a practical sense of night time within the picture. It’s attainable to tweak this within the app’s handbook professional mode, nevertheless it’s not simple.

As a video digicam, the Nord 3 is helpful. You get a gradual picture with a mix of optical and digital stabilisation, and might shoot at as much as 4K and 60fps, with easy however intuitive controls. In horizontal mode you even get a stereo microphone, which I feel sounds convincing, and with good filters towards noise and wind noise. If you wish to join an exterior microphone through USB or Bluetooth, that’s tremendous, however sadly it’s not attainable to change to it within the app; you’ll must dig into the system’s settings menu for that.

M3

System and battery

The interface is OnePlus’s typical OxygenOS, now in model 13.1, with a couple of enhancements in comparison with the 13.0 that OnePlus 11 got here with, together with an prolonged Zen mode that you may activate to disconnect and calm down.

It’s in fact primarily based on Android 13, and OnePlus guarantees three years of Android updates and 4 years of safety updates. That’s not so good as the premium OnePlus 11, nevertheless it’s on par with what Google itself presents.

OxygenOS is, as all the time, elegant and well-tuned for a quick expertise, and can also be mentioned to assist with battery optimisation to assist preserve battery well being and maximise cost cycles. Because of this it has solely a marginal lack of capability after as much as 1,600 cost cycles. Says OnePlus. After all, it’s unimaginable for me to check with out having used the telephone for therefore lengthy that you may now not purchase it and have to take a look at the Nord 6 or Nord 7 as a substitute.

A 5,000mAh battery powers the telephone and is sufficient for a full day of energetic use. The telephone isn’t extraordinarily vitality environment friendly in some conditions the place others shine, similar to video streaming, however you’ll be able to nonetheless binge watch a season of your favorite present earlier than the battery runs out. Brightness and audio quantity have an effect on battery life greater than body price.

When it’s time to high up, you get actual quick charging with the included 80W proprietary Supervooc charger. It takes simply over half an hour to recharge a full battery, so it’s simple to do along with your morning espresso.

Mattias Inghe

The primary OnePlus Nord was a hit, and the Nord 2 was even higher. Now OnePlus has constructed on its good qualities and above all delivers the next sense of luxurious than earlier than – however at an elevated value.

The Nord 3 begins from €499 for 8GB+128GB, rising to €549 for 16GB+256GB, a hefty hike from the earlier €399 begin value for the Nord 2 and Nord 2T.

Specs

Product title: OnePlus Nord 3
Producer: OnePlus
Circuitry: Mediatek Dimensity 9000
Processor: Cortex-X2 3.05GHz, 3x Cortex-A710 2.85GHz, 4x Cortex-A510 1.8GHz
Graphics: Mali-G710 MC10, 848MHz
Reminiscence: 8/16 GB
Storage: 128/256 GB
Mannequin examined: 16/256 GB
Show: 6.74 inch AMOLED, 1240 x 2772 pixels, 120Hz
Cameras: 50Mp + 8MP ultrawide, 2Mp macro, 16Mp entrance
Connections: USB 3 Kind C
Communications: 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, Galileo, NFC
Working system: Android 13 with OxygenOS 13.1
Different: Twin SIM, in-screen fingerprint scanner, alert slider, splash resistant (IP54)
Battery: 5000mAh, 16 hrs 40 min on-line video (Wi-Fi, excessive brightness, 60 Hz), about 15 hrs blended use (4G, low brightness, 120Hz), about 36 hrs calls
Battery charging: 80W USB-C (SuperVooc), 30W USB charger included.
Measurement: 16.2 x 7.5 x 0.82cm
Weight: 194g

Efficiency

Antutu Benchmark 10: 850,773 factors*
Geekbench 6: 3,297 factors
Geekbench 6 single-core: 1,093 factors
Geekbench 6 compute: 6,040 factors
3dmark Wild Life Limitless :8,663 factors
3dmark Wild Life Excessive :2,302 factors
Storage learn: 1,687.7 MB/s
Storage write: 1,628.3 MB/s

* New model of Antutu. Whether or not the rating is corresponding to measurements made with Antutu 9 shouldn’t be confirmed.