OnePlus North test: test transformed!

When you take the device out of the box, you immediately recognize the OnePlus “paw” with its curves and also its switch to switch from ring mode, to do not disturb mode or to vibrate mode. The device is comfortable in the hand and light. No jack on this Nord and no way to add a microSD card either. On the screen there are two photo modules: one normal and the other ultra wide-angle. Finally, the fingerprint sensor is located under the screen.

Its strong point: the screen

The screen, precisely, is a success. Well calibrated from the start with the possibility of setting it as you see fit (thank you OxygenOS !) and especially with a 90 Hz refresh: navigation is very pleasant. A beautiful 6.44 inch (16.35 cm) AMOLED panel unfortunately with this big punch. It’s up to you to see if the ultra-wide-angle selfies are worth the sacrifice.

On the performance side, OnePlus trusted the very popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G (Oppo Reno4, Find X2 Neo, Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite…) with 8 or 12 GB of RAM. A very good power / price ratio since the latter will allow you to do just about anything you want: gaming or multitasking, the device shows no sign of weakness. Its AntTuTu score is 311,628 which is more than the POCO X3 NFC (303,123), but slightly lower than the Oppo Find X2 Neo (322,456).

The photo: could do better …

This OnePlus North has four photo sensors: the main one of 48 megapixels, an ultra wide-angle of 8 MP, a lens to manage the depth of field of 5 MP and a macro module of 2 MP. Let’s move on to the latter which is not used much. This is not a criticism leveled at OnePlus in particular: a 2 MP macro lens is pointless. The main lens is not bad with good light conditions, but still lacks a bit of detail. For better results, try 48 MP mode (it is 12 MP by default). When the light is lacking, it is a little worse with a lack of sharpness, but let’s not forget that this is a device at 400 or 500 €.

Night mode does not work miracles, but renders the scene well without too much smoothing or making in the pixel mush. The “tripod” mode which allows to lengthen the pose to improve the result is part of the game and the rendering is very convincing. The ultra-wide-angle lens does not sparkle: the details are concentrated in the middle, the distortion is felt and at night it is really not great. Again it’s the same with competing smartphones. Portrait mode works well with good clipping. As we mentioned above, the OnePlus Nord has a dual front sensor to have a larger field of vision for your group selfies for example. Both modules are correct as long as you do not use the device in the dark of course.

On the video side, it is possible to go up to 4K at 60 fps… in selfie mode. Strange since it will be necessary to be satisfied with 30 fps (but stabilized) with the dorsal lens (or 1080 at 60 fps)

Fast flagship charging

The OnePlus North is fishing a bit in terms of its autonomy with its 4115 mAh battery. In this category of affordable 5G smartphones, the Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite does much better, but you’ll still hold out for the day. The good news is that the fast charge present on the OnePlus 8 is part of the game: a full charge in 1 hour and a gain of 8% to 60% in 23 minutes. It is not bad at all.

Our verdict:

The OnePlus Nord is a very good 5G device with a very nice design, a solid chip, a 90 Hz screen and a powerful fast charging. We can advise it with 2 small caveats: the photo capacities are lower compared to the competition and it is not really cheap: 500 € for the model with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage is the same price as the Oppo Find X2 Neo for example and it is 100 € more than the Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite.

Tests taken