OnePlus Nord 4 5G launched in India back in July 2024. I have used this device quite a lot in this time frame. It wasn’t like I was using it every day, but I would definitely pick it up twice or thrice a week to do camera tests in different environments and also watch videos, play games, and test out its AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities. Using the OnePlus Nord 4 5G became even more fun with the OxygenOS 15 when the rollout took place in December 2024. After using the device for around six months, here’s my complete view on the device.
Two things that I have loved about this phone are – a) its body, and b) performance. Look, I will be very honest with you, I don’t utilise the AI (artificial intelligence) features a lot. We will get to the AI features at a later stage in this article, for now, let’s talk purely about the two things I mentioned, starting with the body.
OnePlus Nord 4 5G has a unibody metal design. One of the only phones in its price range to have such a body. Being a mid-range phone, it feels super premium on the hands. I have the Mercurial Silver colour, which looks the best in my opinion. The body is amazing, no doubt about that. Inside a cover, people may not be able to make out which phone it is, but without the cover, it definitely stands out and can be recognised easily.
About the performance, you can’t really go wrong with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 SoC. It is a flagship level chip, honestly. The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 is also built on TSMC’s 4nm process, and actually scores better than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in Geekbench single-core and multi-core scores. In fact, it was extremely close to the performance of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which powers devices such as OnePlus 11 and Galaxy S23 Ultra!
In my use, I have never felt the device slow down, or felt like it doesn’t have enough power to carry out multiple tasks. Especially with the OxygenOS 15, the experience has become super smooth due to parallel processing supported by the OS.
The 256GB variant has UFS 4.0 storage, which is better in my opinion than the 128GB which has UFS 3.1, as the price difference is minimal. There’s up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM. So you can also take a guess that the performance of this phone is pretty good.
But again, what makes all of this hardware come together in unision is the software. Yes, I did not like that there were some unnecessary pre-installed apps, or as well call them, bloatware on the OxygenOS, the good thing is, they can be uninstalled.
Do I love the AI with Nord 4 5G?
It has a host of AI features, most of which I have hardly used more than once. The once that I did use them, it was just to see what they do. But there’s one feature that I use quite a lot on flagship phones is Circle to Search. However, that feature is not present on the Nord 4. I don’t see a reason why, as the device is already running OxygenOS 15.
Read More – OnePlus Buds 3 Review: Simply the BEST
Sharing files to my iPhone has become easier with OxygenOS 15. I have used the photo editing AI features, but that too not a lot. But in terms of effectiveness, it is pretty good. I am personally not a fan of the AI features present currently, on almost every phone. They still feel more like a marketing tool, than a real use-case that’s solving a huge problem at scale. Sure, they are fun to have as features, but if they were not there, I wouldn’t miss them.
What Happened with Display and Camera?
I think there are hardly any devices which have a bad display at the price segment the Nord 4 is in. But there’s always an edge in having a display with high brightness and high PWM dimming. What I appreciate about the Nord 4 5G is that it supports 2160Hz of PWM dimming. This is important, especially when I am watching videos in a dark room, which I often do. The high brightness is 1100nits, and peak is 2150nits, and the device works comfortably under the sun.
Read More – OnePlus Nord CE 4 Review: Premium at a Budget
The Aqua Touch support is a great value addition. There are many times when I use the Nord 4 5G with wet hands, especially after getting out of the swimming pool (I swim a lot, and I love to take different phones to capture the pool), and frankly it doesn’t work as well as I thought it would, but it works, and that’s fine.
There’s a huge 5500mAh battery with 100W fast-charging. Believe my guys, since my primary device has switched between Pixel 8, OnePlus 12, and iPhone 15 Pro, using Nord 4 as a secondary device has showed me how good its battery life actually is. The device went up to 2 days or more at times without needing a charge. Whenever it did require a charge, it would hardly take a few minutes, thanks to the 100W fast-chaging.
Read More – OnePlus 12 5G Review: Better than Great
Coming to the cameras, I was a bit skeptical as to how would a smaller 50MP primary sensor do this time. Not that I expected lower res images or a poor quality experience, but wasn’t expecting something great either. However, the camera has exceeded my expectations. It’s partly because of the sensors, but more so because of choosing a great chip and software tuning from OnePlus.
I do feel there’s a scope to improve front camera in the coming generation Nord devices. But in the video recording department, I am happy with the results. Being super honest, at the Rs 30,000 range, if this is the quality of the phone I am getting, I will be super happy. It’s almost a flagship performance at this point! You could easily have looked at the Nord 4 as a flagship device three years back.
The fact that it will get four OS updates makes it killer value for the Indian consumer.
Found this useful? You can support us.
Support Telecomtalk
