OnePlus Nord 2 Review: Do you even NEED a flagship? By PhoneArena

I've been waiting for this phone for a while. This is the OnePlus word two, and this is in case you haven't, heard it's a budget phone that doesn't feel like a budget phone it's made by a company named OnePlus, which is known for making great budget phones, and last year it really made a splash with the OnePlus word. The original this is the sequel OnePlus word 2 OnePlus has really listened to the criticism here and fixed exactly the few things people didn't like about the original, so this phone looks strikingly similar to the original 6.4-inch screen size on both look about the same in terms of screen size about the same in terms of weight, and the original was very blue. I like this color a lot. This one is not as blue. The color is called haze blue, but it still looks pretty nice, quick refresh on the design feels very well-made very solidly put together.

The back is actually glass, but the frame is not metal as on flagships, the middle frame is plastic. Now I don't mind it's not as durable as the metal foam, but still feels very sturdy. Nothing wobbles well constructed. Everything else is about the same. So some things you still don't get you still don't get a headphone jack.

You have an USB port on the bottom, no headphone jack. If you open the sim tray, you'll find dual sim card support, but no micro SD card support, so no expandable storage, and you also don't get an yip waterproof certification. But what you do get is the OnePlus mute slider. It's still here, it's actually physically just a tiny bit. Smaller still super convenient.

So you have three positions. You can set your phone to mute to vibrate or to ring easily switch between them very convenient. Now the display hasn't changed much. It's still 6.4 inches still OLED, which means you get those d, blacks, excellent contrast, excellent viewing angles, 1080p resolution, just as before. Nothing that you don't need everything that you do.

Colors haven't changed much. You can still fine tune them in the settings. The default is the vivid color mode. It looks slightly a bit more vivid. I like it, and one improvement that I do appreciate here in the screen department- is that the minimum brightness actually gets lower, so the phone is easier on your eyes at night, but the big upgrade and what you probably care most about is the camera.

Now the original word had four cameras in this pill shaped module this one here, two main cameras that really stand out and the third camera we'll talk about this in a second. So one thing I love about OnePlus is that it really listens to the feedback, and last year the original word came with the 2 megapixel macro camera, and that was garbage. It shot terrible photos. Now it's gone. It used to have the original word a depth sensor, which also did very little, so that's gone too, and the third camera that we have on the new phone is actually a monochrome black and white lens.

I still don't find it useful, but it's not at least annoying the macro camera on last year's word was just plain bad. This one is at least not annoying. The main sensor here is Sony mix 766 same sensors as the flagship, one plus, nine okay, the quality of the main camera is what matters the most, and it has improved a great deal. Colors are now better they're, more gentle, the dynamic range is better everything looks far less contrast. The blacks are not crushed as much as they used to be on the OnePlus word.

On the original, and especially in low light, you get a lot more light, a lot better exposure. Everything looks just improved the auto right camera here, eight megapixels, a ton of sharpness, but it's a bit of a compromise, and actually, when I looked at the pictures from the main camera on the north 2, I started wondering if there are really any reasons to consider the OnePlus 9, which cost 700 over this one, because the difference between the two is not huge. Well, the ultra white camera. You have a bigger difference, it's not quite as good here, but still does the job. Now, as for the front camera, you no longer have two cameras facing the front.

You have just one now. The original had a super wide selfie camera great for group shots, and then it had a close-up one. Now you just have one white camera that is kind of universal field of view, big improvements to low light selfies. Here they look a lot better. Overall, I don't mind having just a single selfie.

Camera looks great. Now, OnePlus made a bit of a gamble here. It didn't use a Qualcomm snapdragon processor like most phones, but instead it went with the MediaTek 1200 processors. So let me compare it to the original OnePlus. It used the Qualcomm snapdragon 765g, a mid-range Qualcomm processor, and it was okay, but you could notice a bit of a stutter.

When you have a video pop up on your Reddit feed or just browsing around you get a slightly heavier element, it would stutter a bit. It was okay most of the time, but you could definitely notice it. This the nor2 is much better. There is almost no stutter. It feels a lot smoother very refined, also thanks to oxygen OS.

But honestly, this processor is significantly faster, as you can see in the benchmarks. So once again, I was reminded that this phone is so similar to the flagships. Benchmarks show a pretty big improvement. Look at the charts. It beats almost every other phone in this price bracket, except for the iPhone SE, but that has its own problems like the very weak battery life.

In fact, this north 2 is almost as good as the galaxy s20 Fe, which is a 700 phone. Let me remind you, and it has last year's best processor, the snapdragon 865. So this is very impressive. Not it's not quite there, but almost also. I have to say that nor 2 uses UFS 3.1 storage, while the original word used the slower, UFS 2.1 storage standard. So this phone is indeed a beast, and it has the faster storage type and in gaming it's also doing a good job.

We rent a stress test, and you can see that the processor will throttle after about 10 minutes of play time, but still you get excellent results. I was playing asphalt, 9, almost no stutter everything looked great. Okay! Next up battery life, the original word had a very solid one-day battery. It is had a 4 100 William hour battery cell. The battery here is nearly 10 percent, improved again.

Another example of OnePlus taking user feedback and improving, what's already good, but could be better 4500 William hour battery here same as on the OnePlus 9, and it will get you through even more intense days, so we ran a few tests and got about 10 improved battery life, just as you'd expect. So this is great news. This is still not a two-day phone in my use, but maybe a day and a half. Also, it has exactly the same battery technology as in the flagship, one plus nine dual cell battery both sells charging simultaneously, so you get 65 watts, total power and yes, the charger is included for free in the box. Is this pretty bulky charger? We have the European version here full charge in just 30 minutes.

This is insane most flagships. Don't support those speeds, really, really impressive. With this phone, I found that I no longer need to charge my phone overnight. I can just give it a quick top up for 20 minutes during the day, and I'm all set up. It's a huge liberation.

It changes the way you use your phone in a very profound manner and did I also say that it has a custom case that you can buy separately this one. Furthermore, it looks really cool. I love this case just wanted to show it to you, but overall speaking of everything, the OnePlus word 2 is almost too good see OnePlus these days it has to sell flagships that cost seven hundred dollars the one plus nine and a thousand dollars the OnePlus 9 pro. This phone is half the price, and it's almost as good screen. Almost is good performance, very close camera just a bit behind, but not by much battery is good fast charging.

It has everything even dual loudspeakers. The original north has just a single loudspeaker which sounded pretty bad. It got the job done, but didn't sound great. This one is an improvement, still not quite flagship level, but again almost there. So there is very little reason to spend 700 on the phone when you can get almost the same thing for 400.

So why? Wouldn't you buy it? Well, if you want the very best camera which has kind of become the holy grail smartphones these days, I would personally wait to see the Google Pixel 5a that is coming in about a month and that one might have an even better camera, but if you just want an all-around great phone, I really like the word too. It's a no-brainer flagship killer at its best for just 400. It's awesome. Finally, there are cheaper north phones around. So now you have the word CE at about 330 euro a bit cheaper.

You have then the OnePlus n series and those are good phones, but with compromises, this one feels like it's on another level. It's almost too good. So I highly recommend going for this over the cheaper options. This one is no compromise. Okay, guys this will do it for this review.

OnePlus word 2 uh check the description box for more camera samples and camera comparisons and details. My name is Vic thanks for watching. Let me know what you think about this review, and I'll talk to you guys in the next one. You.

Source : PhoneArena