OnePlus Nord 5 5G has finally come to India. The Nord series has always been one that is seen as an entry to the OnePlus ecosystem at an affordable price. No one looks at a OnePlus Nord phone and thinks it is premium. Yes, the Nord 4 was amazing, strong build and unique design, but it still doesn't look like an out and out premium. But in 2025, the OnePus Nord 5 does. Let me tell you about the phone.
Watch Now - OnePlus Nord 5 Unboxing
OnePlus Nord 5 5G Review: Design
OnePlus Nord 5 5G’s design is what stood out to me. The moment you take it out of the box, you know you have a solid looking premium phone in your hands. The symmetry of bezels, the flat display, the choice of finish and the colours on the back, and the metal sides, all make for a beautiful phone. Not going to lie, but I will long remember the Nord 5 for its design.
The Plus Key is a new for a Nord phone. In fact, this is only the second phone in the country apart from OnePlus 13s which comes with a customisable button on the left, which is the Plus Key. The camera bump is particularly pronounced and the bump is layered with the same colour metal covering, which is a good design decision in hindsight.
No matter from which angle, you will see a premium phone. To be honest, the pricing doesn’t disappoint. Because this is not just a performance oriented phone, it is also design oriented, and that’s something OnePlus should be given credit for.
Rating - 9/10
OnePlus Nord 5 5G Review: Display
OnePlus Nord 5 5G has a large 6.83-inch 1.5K Swift AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of up to 144Hz, making it the smoothest OnePlus display yet. The peak brightness supported by the phone is 1800nits. This is cool. One of the best things about the display is the support for 3840Hz PWM dimming. Watching content when the room is dim is so comfortable because of this.
I like the display, honestly. I set the screen to 144Hz refresh rate, and then also fixed the resolution to the highest mode. I don’t have to worry about battery with this one as there’s a massive battery inside (more details on it below).
OnePlus has not forgotten to add the Aqua Touch 2.0 support on the display of Nord 5. This allows users to use the display, even with wet fingers. The display doesn’t work, it runs. It is “buttery smooth” and the Trinity Engine ensures that animations work consistently. The display is right where any device should be in this price range (more price details).
The other thing that I must mention about the display from a design perspective is the bezels. The symmetry is just mindblowing. It is really satisfying to look at. There’s actually so much more that I can say about the display because of the intricate small settings present, but we will leave it to this here.
Rating - 9/10
OnePlus Nord 5 5G Review: Performance
The Nord 5 packs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor. In the Geekbench tests that I ran, the device scored 1926 in single core performance and 4904 in multi-core performance. The AnTuTu score came at 1,411,1756 or 1.41 million, which is decent. OnePlus claims it to be slightly higher than this, but I don’t really mind as these tests are just benchmarks, the real is always slightly different.
For the first time, there’s Open Canvas support in a Nord device. Open Canvas is OnePlus’s productivity tool which allows users to multi-task conveniently. Of course, when we talk about performance, we will have to talk about AI (artificial intelligence), battery, and overall software along with gaming. Let’s take it one by one.
In AI, OnePlus has brought the OnePlus AI Suite that it announced with the OnePlus 13s to the Nord 5. There’s the Plus Key which will allow users to access Mind Space on the go. If you don’t know what OnePlus’s Mind Space is, we will tell you more about it in the future via videos or articles, so stay tuned for that. Features like AIVoiceScribe, AI Call Assistant, and more are available for users to leverage.
The OnePlus Nord 5 has a 6800mAh battery. This is much larger than what you get in the OnePlus 13. The battery is supported by 80W SUPERVOOC charging. It charges fast, and lasts long. It naturally has to. The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is quite efficient too. To ensure things go fast, there’s LPDDR5X RAM.
Gaming is one area no one wants to compromise on. The OnePlus Nord 5, in fact, supports gaming at 144fps with titles such as CODM, BGMI, and more. I don’t think I care after a certain point whether it is 120Hz or 144Hz, but the device is pretty smooth in the gaming department. It has a 7300mm Cryo-Velocity VC cooling chamber, yet, the device does get hot sometimes. But it also cools down pretty quickly.
The users can enable Bypass charging also when they are on extended gaming sessions with the phone. This allows the device to stay cool and the battery health also doesn’t get affected.
The OxygenOS 15 is simply brilliant. There are actually more things I want to cover about the phone in the performance segment, but not like this, and not here. I will share more details on network connectivity, and other things about the device soon. So stay tuned for that.
For now, let’s move on to the camera segment.
Rating - 9/10
OnePlus Nord 5 5G Review: Camera
The camera is good. It is good enough to be honest. There’s up to 20x zoom available. The phone does the job when it comes to clicking photos and taking videos. The front camera is also pretty accurate in taking colours, but of course, there are some touch ups, which you can disable.
Camera samples don’t come out really great when shared here on the website because they get compressed. However, you can still take a look and understand what you get with the camera.
I wouldn’t recommend this for taking zoom shots. But you can’t really expect more than this at this price.
Rating - 8/10
OnePlus Nord 5 5G Review: Price and Overall Rating
OnePlus Nord 5 is a pretty great phone. The pricing details are as follows:
- 8GB+256GB = Rs 31,999
- 12GB+256GB = Rs 34,999
- 12GB+512GB = Rs 37,999
There's a Rs 2,000 discount with select bank cards on this device along with lifetime display warranty.
The phone will get four Android OS updates and six years of security updates. It definitely makes for a good purchase for the long run. Whether you are a gamer, a student, or a professional, this phone can get your things done for you. Stay tuned for more details about the phone in the future.
Overall rating - 8.7/10
