OnePlus Nord N30 review: Should you buy it?

The OnePlus Nord N30 hopes to condense a very powerful elements of the premium OnePlus expertise into a price bundle. It checks the bins for Oxygen OS, speedy SuperVOOC wired charging, and a pointy major digital camera whereas slicing a couple of corners to maintain the value in test. OnePlus even managed to maintain the Nord N30’s value pegged to that of its predecessor, floating proper below the $300 barrier.

Unlike most price range telephones, which are likely to crib their designs from flagship counterparts, the OnePlus Nord N30 stands by itself. It sports activities a fingerprint-loving shiny plastic again panel with a matte — however color-matching — body, paired with the sweeping 6.72-inch Panda Glass show and its 120Hz refresh price. Instead of the cumbersome digital camera bump that marks the previous couple of OnePlus flagships, the Nord N30 carries every of its three lenses in small round cutouts that give the telephone a a lot cleaner look. OnePlus hasn’t adopted the favored development of stacking buttons on one aspect, both. The energy button and fingerprint reader are on the precise aspect, whereas the quantity buttons maintain down the left edge. The Nord N30 additionally has a headphone jack on the underside edge and expandable microSD storage within the SIM slot.

Our OnePlus Nord N30 got here operating Android 13 out of the field, full with the Oxygen OS 13.1 pores and skin. Oxygen OS is now not the sunshine, clear Android pores and skin it as soon as was, although the most recent model appears to have a greater stability of options and magnificence. There’s not a lot bloatware (at the least on the unlocked mannequin I examined) — solely Netflix, which you can uninstall — although OnePlus has added a couple of pointless duplicates of apps. Its basic Zen app now exists as Zen Mode and O Relax, and the previous nonetheless locks your telephone down whereas the latter appears to be a white noise machine. While a couple of further apps don’t matter a lot, OnePlus’ weak replace dedication does. The Nord N30 will solely get a single Android replace and three years of safety patches, which lags far behind Samsung’s replace insurance policies for its rival price range telephones.

Inside the Nord’s plastic shell, you’ll discover a couple of acquainted parts. In a uncommon transfer for OnePlus, the Nord N30 depends on the identical Snapdragon 695 chipset as its predecessor. This was seemingly achieved to economize and apply upgrades elsewhere, but it surely implies that the Nord N30’s most important efficiency bumps come from higher reminiscence administration by way of its extra 2GB of RAM. It nonetheless runs fantastic, because the Snapdragon 695 provides respectable efficiency for on a regular basis wants and light-weight gaming, however I hoped to see some gen-on-gen enchancment right here. You nonetheless get 128GB of storage which you can increase because of the microSD slot — a rarity in 2023. The chipset isn’t the one holdover from the OnePlus Nord N20, with the Nord N30 solely providing Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1 help. Unfortunately, the Nord N30 stored its predecessor’s weak haptics, too. There’s not a lot response when unlocking the gadget or typing quite a lot of phrases.

One of the Nord N30’s most important upgrades (at the least on paper) is the brand new 108MP major digital camera, which OnePlus hopes is sufficient to land among the many greatest low cost digital camera telephones by itself. It’s giant, in cost, and delivers fairly good element at its base 1x zoom — not like its supporting solid. The OnePlus Nord N30 nonetheless packs 2MP macro and depth sensors, each of which go away one thing to be desired. I recurrently discovered the Nord N30’s shutter lagging, giving me picture outcomes that clearly didn’t course of till I used to be already decreasing the telephone. Also, as an alternative of itemizing the macro focus as one of many digital camera app’s default toggles, it’s hidden below the More menu, suggesting that OnePlus doesn’t suppose you’ll use it very a lot both. OnePlus claims that its major digital camera has lossless zoom as much as 3x, which is a crop from the 108MP sensor, however outcomes are likely to fall off rapidly after that time as much as the utmost of 6x zoom. You can take a look at our full gallery of digital camera samples at this Google Drive hyperlink.

Like many OnePlus launches, the colour profile leans in direction of punchy, and post-processing takes it even additional. The course of isn’t speedy, so you can watch the Nord N30 ship your colour saturation that a lot greater if you faucet your gallery proper after snapping an image. Unfortunately, the OnePlus Nord N30 isn’t a superb possibility for video, both. It tops out with 1080p decision at 30fps on each back and front, which means you’ll should look elsewhere for 4K high quality or easy frames.

The greatest motive to choose up the OnePlus Nord N30 is its battery and charging setup. Not solely does the 5,000mAh cell chug by every day duties when paired with the Snapdragon 695, however 50W SuperVOOC wired charging is among the many greatest you’ll discover on US-bound price range telephones. I had no points reaching a day and a half of utilization throughout my testing, with most of my time centered round testing the digital camera and scrolling social media by a weekend of stormy climate. The Nord N30 landed between journeys, which meant I might dig into some gentle gaming and waste the hours away on social media moderately than chew up my battery with navigation and ridesharing. When you lastly want the included 50W charger, the OnePlus Nord N30 takes about 50 minutes to achieve a full battery.

Despite its speedy wi-fi charging, the OnePlus Nord N30 comes with its share of omissions — a few of which is likely to be sufficient to tempt you elsewhere. Here are a couple of different telephones to think about if the Nord won’t be for you:

• Google Pixel 6a ($349 at Amazon): While it’s a yr older, the newly-reduced Pixel 6a provides loads of flagship options that the Nord N30 can’t match. It has a flagship-grade Tensor chip inside, which provides considerably extra picture processing punch, and Google’s replace dedication simply beats that of OnePlus.
• Samsung Galaxy A14 5G ($199.99 at Amazon): Samsung’s budget-friendly providing is available in a full $100 cheaper than the Nord N30 and has a powerful checklist of benefits. It additionally provides a greater software program dedication, although Samsung’s 15W charging is among the many slowest in the marketplace. If you need a price range telephone that appears like a flagship, the Galaxy A14 5G follows intently within the Galaxy S23’s footsteps.
• Motorola Moto G Power 5G ($279 at Amazon): Motorola introduced 5G to its Moto G Power for the primary time and created a Nord N30 rival within the course of. The Moto G Power 5G is extra sturdy than the Nord because of its IP52 score, its battery will go the space, and its 256GB of storage out of the field means you can wait longer earlier than tapping into its expandable storage.
• OnePlus Nord N300 ($228 at OnePlus): If you’re after probably the most reasonably priced OnePlus expertise, the Nord N300 is an effective starter smartphone. It drops the devoted macro digital camera and doesn’t provide fairly as a lot storage, however the 33W wired charging nonetheless outpaces Samsung and Motorola. You’ll save a bit extra money, however you’ll additionally should make do with a 90Hz refresh price, HD+ decision, and the identical underwhelming replace help.