But it also has its competitors, like Realme 9 Pro+ 5G (Review), which offers similar hardware at an even lower price. So how does the Nord 2T 5G compete in its segment and is it a perfect midranger smartphone? I used this phone for a few weeks and here I am telling what I think about it.
Price of OnePlus Nord 2T 5G in India
OnePlus Nord 2T 5G It starts at Rs 28,999 with its base 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant and goes up to Rs 33,999 with its 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant. The phone comes in Greenish Jade Fog and Gray Shadow finish. I received its 12GB Gray Shadow variant for review.
Design of OnePlus Nord 2T 5G
There don’t appear to be any major changes to the design of the OnePlus Nord 2T 5G, especially since it is the ‘T’ version of the phone, which is expected to come with only some minor changes to the hardware. Nevertheless, some details have been changed in the design which are more visible in the rear only. The camera module now appears to have two circular cutouts. One has a primary camera and the other is provided for ultrawide and monochrome cameras. The layout of the phone looks clean but the module is slightly protruding from the body of the phone. Due to this, the phone wobbles when placed on a flat surface.
The rear panel is made of anti-glare glass and has a soft matte finish, which looks quite premium. It also does the job of preventing fingerprints very well. The midframe of the phone is made of polycarbonate and has a chrome-like finish which is highly resistant to fingerprints. But because of this, the hand grip on the device becomes good. The phone is a bit heavy and gives a premium feel in the hand. I am happy that this time the alert slider has been kept the same in OnePlus, which is present in more expensive phones. OnePlus 10R 5G Was removed in.
The display has slightly curved edges and is not completely flat. It gives good grip experience. A holepunch has been given in it for the selfie camera. Fingerprint scanner is also provided in the display which is reliable. The display has the protection of Corning Gorilla Glass 5, on which fingerprints easily fall, but can also be cleaned quickly. I did not like the thick bezels of its display. It looks quite thick considering the other three sides.
Specifications and software of OnePlus Nord 2T 5G
MediaTek Dimensity 1300 processor has been given in OnePlus Nord 2T 5G. Dimensity 1200-AI SoC was given in the previous model. This is the only main upgrade with this model. The phone has LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. It has a dual SIM tray in which two 5G Nano SIMs can be installed. For communication, it has support for Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC. The phone has 4,500mAh battery and support for 80W fast charging. Keep in mind that 65W fast charging was provided in Nord 2. There is no IP rating available in the phone, whereas this feature has now become common in midrange.
The phone runs on Android 12 based OxygenOS 12.1. The software is same as OnePlus but this time I noticed a strange mistake in it that it does not provide live wallpapers, only stable wallpapers are available. For support, the company promises two major Android updates and three years of security updates, which is good for a mid-range device.
Continuing its tradition, OnePlus has introduced a smartphone with minimal bloatware. Among third party apps, I only found Netflix in it. I did not receive unwanted notifications. The rest of the software is customizable. The theme engine automatically picks up the wallpaper colors and applies them to widgets and the keyboard. But the same color is not applied to the accent color of the system, it has to be applied manually from the personalization menu.
Performance of OnePlus Nord 2T 5G
OnePlus Nord 2T 5G performs well in benchmark tests for a midrange device. The phone scored 6,15,487 points on AnTuTu. On Geekbench, it scored 672 and 2,614 points in single and multi-core tests respectively. These scores are in this price range iQoo Neo 6 Which scored 7,29,331 points on AnTuTu and 983 and 3,074 points in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests respectively.
The gaming performance of the phone is good and the phone does not get too hot while playing. I tried playing Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends in it. Both the games ran smoothly in default settings. There was no reduction in performance even after maximizing the graphic settings. The display’s 180Hz refresh rate remained adequate even when playing fast-paced titles.
The phone has a 6.43 inch AMOLED panel whose refresh rate is 90Hz. The company says that it is HDR10+ certified. The display produces saturated colors at the default Vivid color setting. Colors look real on Natural mode. The display gets the right amount of brightness outdoors but its ambient light sensor dims the brightness a bit too much once indoors and I had to go to the bar and turn the brightness up after coming inside.
Its HDR10+ certification did not seem of much use. Display not detected HDR rated in apps like Netflix. Color banding was noticeable while watching HDR content on YouTube. SD content looked sharp and blacks looked quite deep. The sound from the stereo speakers was good but at high volumes the sound was slightly crackling.
The battery life of OnePlus Nord 2T 5G is good. The phone can comfortably last two days in normal use, which also includes some gaming. In heavy usage, the phone lasts for one and a half day with 2 hours of gaming and half an hour of camera use. The phone lasted 22 hours 55 minutes in the HD video loop test, which is quite impressive. With the charger that comes with it, the phone charged from 0 to 55 percent in 15 minutes and was fully charged in 30 minutes.
Camera of OnePlus Nord 2T 5G
OnePlus Nord 2T 5G has three rear cameras. It has a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 primary sensor which supports OIS. There is also an 8 megapixel ultrawide camera and a 2 megapixel monochrome camera. The phone has a 32-megapixel camera for selfies. The camera interface is similar to recent OnePlus phones. Some options are hidden in mini slide-out menus in the ellipsis button. This is similar to what is found in recently launched Oppo and Realme devices.
Photos taken in daylight were sharp and clear with good dynamic range, but details were less in dark areas. Colors looked accurate but it depended on the color profile I had set as to how the colors looked. These looked oversaturated when set to Vivid. Its 2X digital zoom is quite astonishing, which took very clear shots in adequate lighting. Ultrawide camera takes photos with less details. Purple tints were visible at the edges of the photo in brighter areas.
The primary camera can’t replace a dedicated macro camera, yet I took good close-up shots of flowers with the primary camera from a distance, which looked quite sharp. Sharpness was a bit excessive in selfies but overall dynamic range was good. In selfies, edge detection was good in portrait shots, but dynamic range was limited and the background was getting overexposed.
The ultra-wide camera takes usable photos in low light. The primary camera also takes sharp photos with good detail and dynamic range. I had to use its dedicated night mode only in very low light. All I can say about this is that the low light performance of the phone was not always impressive. In night mode, it captured images with better dynamic range and less noise but the sharpness was a bit high. I have seen better low-light camera performance from the Realme 9 Pro+ 5G.
The phone records 1080p video at 30fps which had some softness but the stabilization was amazing. Less details were found in 60fps 1080p video. Best results were achieved when recording video in 4K at 30fps. At the same time, best results were obtained in 4K while recording video in low-light. 1080p footage looked soft in low-light and there was shaking while moving.
our decision
OnePlus Nord 2T 5G offers everything a user can expect from a mid-range phone at its price of Rs 28,999. It neither goes up nor down from this. The phone performs within its limits, be it the processor (extremely midrange), the camera (no macro feature) or the display (limited to 90Hz). But whatever it performs, it does well. At this price it comes as an all-rounder. However, its 12GB RAM variant (Rs 33,999) seems more useful because Nothing Phone 1 Like smartphones at this price are offering more features like wireless charging and IP53 rating.
If you are looking for other options apart from Nord 2T 5G, then there are brands like iQoo and Realme which are offering more value for money smartphones. iQoo Neo 6 has a powerful Snapdragon 870 SoC, a 120Hz AMOLED display, and a 4,700mAh battery. It comes for Rs 29,999. The Realme 9 Pro+ 5G has the Dimensity 920 SoC, the same primary camera, a macro camera, and the same 90Hz AMOLED panel but it starts at Rs 24,999 for the 6GB variant.