Amia DalveyJuly 29, 2022, 20:03:16 IST
Positives:
Good build quality and refined design
A fair mix of performance and features
Good primary camera with optical image stabilization
Vibrant 90Hz Fluid AMOLED display
Good battery life with 80W fast charging
– value for money
Negatives:
Very few changes from North 2
There is still no 4K video recording on the front camera
The competition has moved forward since North 2
Rating: 4/5
price: 28,999 rupees onwards
Out of all the Nord phones that OnePlus has released so far, the Nord 2 has been the best out there. Now that its successor, the OnePlus Nord 2T is here, I have mixed feelings about it. Despite having a gap of more than three-quarters between the two phones’ launches, OnePlus didn’t do anything different. On the bright side, they didn’t spoil anything that was good in Nord 2. So let’s see if the OnePlus Nord 2T is worth your money.
OnePlus Nord 2T Design: Still Feels Premium and Great in Hand
The OnePlus Nord 2T looks good, but opinions are divided on whether it looks better than the Nord 2. We got the Jade Fog variant for review with a nice color shade and a glass back with a mirror finish that blends seamlessly into the plastic frame. The glossy edges tend to attract some smudge marks and so does the rear glass. In fact, the smudge marks are more noticeable here than in the ceramic-like finish of its predecessor.
Image Credit: Tech2 | Amia Dalvey
The build quality is very sturdy, and the phone feels comfortable while distributing the weight more evenly. It weighs 190 grams and is 8.2 mm thick. The rectangular camera island on the back is noticeably larger this time around, despite housing the same three cameras, and featuring the same tone as the back of the phone. You might be excused for thinking it only has two rear cameras.
You get an in-display fingerprint scanner that is responsive and works well, but unlike some OnePlus phones, it’s located near the bottom edge rather than an inch above where it’s easy to reach. There is a SIM tray along the bottom edge of the phone and can accommodate two Nano SIMs. Next to it is a USB-C port followed by a speaker. The volume key is located along the left edge and the power button is on the right edge along with an alert slider. All buttons are easily accessible without stretching too much.
OnePlus Nord 2T display: I was there, I saw it
OnePlus chose the same screen that was on the Nord 2, which I believe is borrowed from the first Nord. You get a 6.43-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and a refresh rate of 90Hz. About time they switch to 120 Hz on the north as well (non CE at least). The HDR10+ compatible display is well calibrated out of the box. It is protected from scratches by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
Image Credit: Tech2 | Amia Dalvey
Black levels and contrast on the Nord 2T display are excellent as well as color reproduction. You can get the Vivid and Natural modes here with a color temperature slider. Beyond that, there aren’t many manual calibration options. Ambient view is available and you can either leave it always on or set it to play temporarily when you move the phone a bit. I always prefer the latter as it saves some battery.
OnePlus Nord 2T performance: a little stronger than its predecessor
The OnePlus Nord 2T is powered by Mediatek’s Dimensity 1300 SoC, which is just a minor upgrade over the Dimensity 1200 found in the Nord 2. Having said that, it’s not a bad choice for this chip. It’s powerful enough for just about anything you want to do on the phone, including gaming. Our test unit had 8GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 internal storage to go with it. Daily operations were completely smooth and lag-free even when opening and switching multiple apps.
The gaming experience was very good and totally enjoyable at medium to high settings depending on the game. The phone did not heat up much after 30 minutes of playing. The dual speakers (earphone and speaker on the bottom) produce high quality sound with surprisingly good stereo effect. In addition to supporting aptX, aptX HD, and LDAC codecs over Bluetooth 5.2, the Nord 2T maintains LHDC codec compliance that many expensive OnePlus phones still lack. Call quality is quite good too.
In our usual synthetic benchmarks, scores on a football field were similar to Nord 2. Nord 2T scored 4563 and 1328 in the 3D Mark Wild Life and Wild Life Extreme benchmark respectively against 4218 and 1285 by its predecessor in these two tests. The average frame rate of the two phones was 27.3 and 8 fps versus 25.3 and 7.7 fps, respectively. There is a noticeable jump in PC Mark Works 3.0 scores from the former 8075 to the now 9355.
The results were a mixed bag on Geekbench 5. While the Nord 2T had a higher multi-core score (2858 vs 2762), it couldn’t keep up with the single-core performance of the Nord 2 (778 vs 815). Having said that, the difference isn’t huge in most tests, and you won’t feel any difference in performance in daily tasks between the two phones. While the performance isn’t in the same league as the Snapdragon 8 series SoCs from the past two generations, it’s perfectly acceptable for a phone selling around 30,000.
OnePlus Nord 2T Battery Performance: Good battery life and very fast charging
The battery capacity is exactly the same as its predecessor. The 4500mAh battery lasts for more than 30 hours of normal use which includes generous use of messaging and social media apps, browsing, a few calls, clicking a few photos, an hour of watching videos, and half an hour of gaming. Nothing wrong with these numbers at all. The company is now bundling an 80W Super VOOC charger with the Nord 2T instead of the previous 65W option.
Image Credit: Tech2 | Amia Dalvey
It charges the phone from 0 to 100 percent in just 33 minutes, which is the time it takes the 65W charger to charge the Nord 2 with the micro-capacity battery. While those numbers are still excellent, the 80W charger doesn’t seem to provide any significant benefit compared to its 65W counterpart. I tried using a 65W Super VOOC charger with the 2T and it took a few extra minutes to fully charge it, thus making the point even more.
OnePlus Nord 2T camera performance: Copy-paste from Nord 2, but no problem
The OnePlus Nord 2T has exactly the same camera setup as the Nord 2 camera – front and rear. On the back, you get a 50MP camera with a Sony IMX766 sensor with PDAF and optical image stabilization (OIS) that does most of the heavy lifting. This gives the company an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera with 120-degree FOV and a 2-megapixel monochrome camera. A 32MP selfie camera with Sony IMX615 sensor is housed in a perforated hole at the top of the screen.
The overall performance is quite similar to that of the Nord 2, which wasn’t too bad for the selling price. The primary camera takes some quality shots in good to medium lighting with good dynamic range. The colors look somewhat natural but are not 100% accurate. Clarity, saturation, and noise are all controlled, and the output feels just the right way. Since there’s no macro camera here, you might run into the weird focus issue when shooting at close range, but it captures a lot of detail in close-up shots as well.
Image Credit: Tech2 | Amia Dalvey
Portrait mode works well with good separation between foreground and background. The output is generally fine with human items or other objects. The Camera app allows you to adjust the background blur level. In normal mode, you get the usual zoom and ultra-wide toggle, but there’s no dedicated telephoto camera here. When using the zoom, the shots are digitally enlarged, but the 2X zoom shots look sharp and usable to perfection. Beyond that, it looks washed out.
Just like most 8MP ultra-wide cameras, the one here is average at best. The output is fine in good lighting conditions, and while the dynamic range is decent, photos are noticeably weaker in detail than those taken with the main camera. But again, they are pretty much usable. Low-light photography on the main camera is fine, and this is the only camera you should stick with when the light gets low.
It does a more than decent job even when not using the night mode. Noise is controlled and there is a great deal of detail in the captured footage. Night mode definitely improves things even further by improving the highlights in dark areas of the image; It takes a few extra seconds to capture the photo. The Ultra Nightscape mode in Nord 2 is missing here, but I didn’t really lose it. Avoid zooming in/out or using the ultra-wide camera in low light, the output is nothing special.
The 32MP front camera does a good enough job to impress selfie lovers. Captured images are sharp and skin tone looks natural. You can take portrait shots as well with the front camera, and they generally look fine. The front camera of the Nord series is still not capable of recording 4K videos, and you will have to content yourself with 1080p at 30 frames per second. You also get a Dual View video option where the front and rear cameras can be used simultaneously.
Nord 2T’s rear cameras can record videos up to 4K resolution at 30fps, and you can get 60fps for 1080p videos. Super Slow Motion videos see 4X improvement here with a max option of 480 and 960 fps on 1080p and 720p videos respectively. You can also record time-lapse videos in Full HD. 4K shots on the main camera look sharp and stable, thanks to EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) and OIS. 1080p videos captured on the main camera also look good, with the option of super stabilization mode at 60fps.
click here Some uncompressed shots taken with OnePlus Nord 2T.
OS and User Interface: OxygenOS 12 – Dealing with it (slightly longer)
OnePlus Nord 2T is running the latest version of Android 12 with OxygenOS 12.1. Enough has been said that this is more ColorOS than OxygenOS, and it’s all true. But what’s also true is that it’s pretty much usable, and even more so if you haven’t tried old iterations of OxygenOS. No, we’re not softening our stance on this issue but we’re done screaming. it is what it is; Treat! And maybe a little longer, we hope. OxygenOS 13 is right around the corner, and if it actually does what it promises, things can be expected to return to their old normal. lets see.
As of now, even without the glory of the past, OxygenOS 12 is completely usable. It offers quite a few tweaks to customize it further, and the learning curve isn’t steep. You don’t get ads or many unwanted notifications either, which is great. More importantly, the company has committed to two years of major Android updates and three years of security updates for this phone. This means that you can be sure to get OxygenOS 13 and later on the Nord 2T.
Final words: more of the same, but still offer solid value for money
The OnePlus Nord 2T can be purchased in India at Rs 28,999 for the 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant and Rs 33,999 for the 12GB RAM variant with 256GB storage. This makes it a thousand rupees cheaper than Nord 2, which is hardly available now. Although not significantly different from its predecessor, you do get a phone that has good design and performance and offers good value for money. Although it is still a good option under 30K, it has some stiff competition to deal with.
Image Credit: Tech2 | Amia Dalvey
Here are some names that immediately come to mind. The two new versions of the Xiaomi sub-brands top the list. We are talking about Poco F4 5G and Redmi K50i which offer more powerful processors and comparable cameras. Then you also have the Motorola Edge 30 with a more powerful imaging department, a 144Hz OLED screen and a better user interface. And finally, the iQOO 7 which offers a 120Hz AMOLED display and Snapdragon 870 at a similar price. While Nord 2T could compete well, life won’t be as smooth as it was in Nord 2 in 2021.