OnePlus Nord 2T 5G Review

If you have not read our Unboxing and Quick Impression, please Click HERE to read it.

And yes, over the past few days I have been excited with the newly launch and comeback of the OnePlus models towards the local market. So as some may know, OnePlus is not some new brand, but a brand that is been trying to push phones and accessories with competitive pricing to meet the local consumer needs. So let’s just start off with the review with the OnePlus Nord 2T 5G, a super mid tier spec Android Smartphone featuring MediaTek SOC.

Design

The OnePlus Nord 2T 5G design is balance from size, form factor and weight. Starting from the back of the device it shows the whole smooth and gloss glass like appearance to it, which is elegant and matches well with the island camera setup which is surrounded by mirror like style to it, reflecting you and the device that mesmerized even placing it on the table, sparkling it’s uniqueness overall.

Upon that, towards the right you will spot a physical switch for toggling mute, vibrate or ring mode, which is something we rarely seen on an Android phone and convenient , followed by the power button. Towards the right side is your usual volume buttons while on top there is a microphone. Following below there is a Dual Sim slot, a microphone, USB C for data and fast charging and lastly a speaker which also combined as a stereo speakers in combination with the speakerphone on top of the main AMOLED screen display which is protected with Gorilla Glass 5.

Display & Audio

Display wise, the OnePlus Nord 2T 5G houses a 6.43inch AMOLED display which is HDR10+, running at a fast dynamic 90Hz rate that is fluid when comes to color accuracy, contrast and smooth scrolling over web browsing, movies and gaming where most game developer are picking up support for fast refresh rates while it will tune down to 60Hz when it’s idle or not intensive. On top of that the phone also supports L1 Widevine CDM which gives Full HD streaming for apps such as Netflix with dual stereo speakers tuned via Dirac, which when we tested it, audio quality is reasonably load with a small exception that certain music may not give the treble needed, however you still can tune it if you want, overall I am good with it.

Camera

Now over to the camera of OnePlus Nord 2T 5G. Starting from the rear you get a main 50MP Sony IMX766 sensor with PDAF and OIS, followed by a 8MP ultrawide and 2mp camera sensor, with dual LED flash. This combines give a clear shot during day or night with good contrast and balance, with some soft colors and shadows could sometimes inaccurate but that depends on the overall environment, however the AI does the job well on correction and enhancements. The 32MP wide selfie shooter does a formidable job as well with it’s capability of taking wide angle and portrait shots with clarity and good color reproduction.

A few sample shots were taken with a mix of 10x digital zoom, normal, 50MP and automatic shots taken which you can take a look as above, and overall even leaving the settings to default will get the most of the enhancement and good quality out of it from both rear and front camera.

On video recording you get support up 4K at 30FPS or 1080P at 60FPS, both of it actually records at a very reasonable pace with very minor stutters during recording, otherwise its all good in part thanks to the gyro-EIS that is actively balancing the footage.

Performance & Interface

Specs wise, the OnePlus Nord 2T 5G is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 1300 Octa Core SOC with the choice of 8GB/128GB or 12GB/256GB memory and storage space respectively. You can also extend the memory with RAM extension up to 5GB. The OS is powered by Android 12 with OxygenOS 12.1 that carries customised enhancement and updates for the phone while retain most of the AOSP features intact. This makes any standard or new users can quickly pick up the pace of familiarizing the phone in an instant manner. The usual such as 5G support, VOLTE, WiFi 6 Dual band, NFC and Bluetooth 5 is all readily available with OnePlus mention of support of firmware updates, enhancement, security updates and fixes up to 3 years.

Over to the gaming side, it is best to be set around medium mixed with high on the graphical settings which is the sweet spot for the SOC and GPU, where games like Genshin Impact and Mobile Legends for example will just run with a very minimal stutters, yet this will also maintain the temperature and battery life to last longer during gameplay.

Benchmarks

Benchmark performance is indicating a formidable mid tier ranger with good scores and average for multitasking, multimedia, gaming and work productivity that with a combination of the processor and memory, this phone can get you far without much of performance hiccups.

Battery performance wise, you will get around 12 hours of it, a mix of calls, surfing, email, streaming, and a few Mobile Legends matches . Turn on the battery saving mode under 20% will get you around extra 3.5 hours of conservative usage. Charging up with 80w SuperVOOC adaptor can get you from empty to fully charged in less than 45min with 4500mAh capacity battery.

Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion 

The OnePlus Nord 2T 5G is one that sets the balance for pricing, value, performance, optics. A phone that is well categorized as a super mid ranger that one could still enjoy certain flagship features in a compact form factor that’s fun to use, good enough on multitasking and the Dimensity 1300 is also a choice for most mainstream mobile gaming that still serve as a capable camera shooter for fast content uploads.

The OnePlus Nord 2T 5G is now selling at RM1899 for the Jade Fog Color 8GB +128GB and RM2099 for the Gray Shadow 12GB + 256GB variant via OnePlus Official Lazada Online Store.

Special Thanks to OnePlus for providing us the review unit.