I gotta start off by saying that I really love this phone. The OnePlus Nord 3 is essentially a phone that reuses the Nord CE 3 Lite’s body but is packed with flagship specs from yesteryear. I’m talking about the Dimensity 9000 chipset and also 16GB of RAM. While that is already enough to entice a lot of people, there is actually more to it than just the specs. OnePlus made the right choices and cut the right corners – and that is the reason why I love this phone.
Let’s get started with the review.
Design
Taking a look at the phone, it’s obvious that this phone is 100% identical to the Nord CE 3 Lite. It’s just in a different color that they’re calling Misty Green and that instantly reminded me of the grey-green color of the Galaxy Z Fold4. They’re very similar, and I love it.
And surprisingly, we have the alert slider on this phone too! It’s the same as their flagship OnePlus 11. There are 3 levels, either ring, vibrate, or complete mute. I absolutely love this feature.
Then if we take a look at the top of this phone, we have a black, glossy dot. This is an IR blaster and I am surprised to find this on a OnePlus phone, honestly. OnePlus also included another app to help you control your devices via this IR blaster too. The app is simple to use – and if you’re familiar with Xiaomi’s IR blaster then it practically works the same here.
Software
Let’s continue to talk about the software. This phone comes with OxygenOS 13.1 on top of Android 13 and it is pretty much the same as what we’ve talked about before. OxygenOS is very clean, with no bloatware – maybe except for the inclusion of Netflix which can be deleted really easily – and a few OnePlus apps.
I like the Shelf feature even more since we can add IR blaster remotes onto the Shelf directly, but I still think having the ability to add homescreen widgets to the Shelf will be even better.
By the way, OnePlus is also upping its software update policy too. The OnePlus Nord 3 will have 3 generations of Android OS upgrades and 4 years of security patches. While it is not the best, it is still a very good step forward.
Now, if we head back to the “about device” page, you can see something peculiar. 16GB RAM. Yes, this phone comes with 16GB RAM of real RAM. I doubt we can actually use more than 10GB of RAM, so having so much RAM seems like a waste. We did a video talking about RAM usage on phones too – link at the top right corner there.
Truthfully speaking, I think only the ROG Phone 7 with the background mode feature will be able to take advantage of more than 8GB RAM consistently. The RAM expansion feature is something that we won’t talk about here since it is much slower than the real RAM.
Performance
That leads us nicely into the performance section of this phone. The Dimensity 9000 chipset is still a rather powerful one to this date, ad we can play Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings and still get above 40fps. The temperature is even better as it never reaches 45°C.
But, there is one thing that I need to repeat again. You see, this phone comes with a 120Hz screen and the OnePlus Nord 3 can run some games can indeed run at 120fps. Some, because most games are literally not allowed to go beyond 60fps.
That seems to be a limitation from OxygenOS part as I have specifically selected PUBG New State to run at 90fps but it only goes 60fps at most.
I do want to highlight that the speaker position on this phone is very good. I never block it at all when I was playing games on it. Good job.
Screen
Now, let’s talk about the screen then. This is a relatively skinny and tall 6.74-inch AMOLED screen with a higher-than-usual resolution of 2772×1240 pixels and goes up to 120Hz refresh rate, like what we’ve said earlier.
Of course, we also tested the capabilities of the screen too. Our colorimeter reports that it covers 99.87% of sRGB and 98.91% of DCI-P3 color gamuts while having a maximum ΔE of 3.28. Rather high, but I doubt anyone will notice it anyway.
As for the maximum brightness, it can go up to nearly 1050 nits and obviously – you won’t have any issues using this screen outdoors.
My only issue with it though, is the placement of the under-display fingerprint scanner. It’s too low and it’s just not ergonomic to use.
Cameras
Now then, the cameras. There are triple cameras on the phone but one of them is a macro camera so we’ll be skipping over that. However, by just looking at some pictures taken with the OnePlus Nord 3, I think it’s easy to tell why I love this phone so much.
To take a look at all the photos taken by the OnePlus Nord 3 5G.
Battery
Now then, what about the battery life? The OnePlus Nord 3 comes with a total of 5,000mAh in a dual-cell configuration. From our battery life test of PCMark 10 at 100 nits brightness, it can last nearly 11 hours and I’d say that it will last you through one full day if you’re just a bit more conservative.
Charging time
That dual-cell battery though, is actually to further increase the charging speed and efficiency.
There is an 80W charger in the box and we can charge the phone from 15% to completion in about 30 minutes only. That is surprisingly quick.
Unfortunately, this is a proprietary charging standard and does not support USB-PD standards. When I plugged in our Ugreen 140W GaN charger, the OnePlus Nord 3 only takes in a maximum of 18W and takes about 3 times the time required to charge from 15% to completion. I really do hope more brands will adopt USB-PD standards instead of fully relying on their own proprietary charging standard.
A few more things to mention
Okay, a few more things to mention here. The OnePlus Nord 3 does not have an audio jack and does not have any microSD card slot either. It is also rated to have IP54, and as per mentioned earlier – it has both an IR blaster and an alert slider.
This phone is still using a USB 2.0 port so you won’t be able to connect it to a larger screen or your TV via that USB-C port. Transferring a gigabyte also takes about 2 minutes – which is extremely slow. This is obviously a way to keep the price of the phone low.
Should you buy the OnePlus Nord 3 5G?
And that’s everything we have to share with you about the OnePlus Nord 3. It’s an interesting phone nonetheless – a flagship phone from a year ago remade as a mid-range smartphone. The performance is magnificent, the main camera is good, the screen is good, both battery life and charging speed are good, and even the software is objectively better than some of its competitors. However, I truly worry about the price the most.
As of the time of recording this video, we do not have the price yet. We prodded OnePlus to share the price but they said it’ll be a surprise. I really do hope they price this phone reasonably because it will show all the other smartphone manufacturers how to make a great phone.
You know what, let’s do wish. I wish this phone is priced at RM1,999 even though I know it is quite impossible because of that 16GB RAM. I do think that the 16GB RAM is just unnecessary, honestly. 8GB is plentiful and 12GB is already excessive. Again, watch our video at the top right corner or in the description to know why.
I think the maximum price to pay for this phone will be RM2,499. Anything higher will kind of defeat the purpose of this phone is a “OnePlus experience for less money”.
We’ll update this review again when we have the price. From what we’ve seen, Malaysia will only get the 16GB RAM variant with 256GB storage and will cost RM2,199. It’s a really good price, though I do think OnePlus can opt for 8GB RAM and price it at RM1,999. That’ll be even better.
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