OnePlus Nord 3 5G Review: Capable Smartphone at Competitive Price Point

With the launch of the all-new OnePlus Nord 3 5G smartphone, OnePlus — the leading Chinese smartphone maker — has made a strong comeback in India’s budget concise smartphone market. In India, this 5G smartphone was unveiled on Wednesday, July 5, in two variants — 8GB RAM + 128GB internal storage and 16GM RAM + 256GB internal storage. Moreover, OnePlus equipped this newest offering with MediaTek’s flagship SoC, a capable camera setup inspired by the OnePlus 11, and lasting build quality.

This 5G smartphone from OnePlus only weighs around 193.3 grams, doesn’t put much pressure on your hand, and seems very handy when using it. Since the phone has major design and feature upgrades, it would be interesting to review it. In this article, we will have an in-depth look at key specifications, ranging from mobile design, battery, camera, and chipset, to decide if it is worth your investment.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G Review: Short Overview

Pros

• Long-lasting battery life
• Exceptional performance
• Loudspeakers
• Triple camera setup

Cons

• No curved display
• Plastic rear body
• Basic IP rating

Customer Rating: 4.1/5

OnePlus Nord 3 5G Smartphone Price in India: Rs 33,999 for 8GB RAM plus 128GB internal storage and Rs 37,999 for 16GB RAM and 256GB internal storage.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G Detailed Review: A Great Deal Under Rs 40,000 Budget Range

Design

The newly launched OnePlus Nord 3 5G boasts a flat-edge design with a capable frame on the corners and a flushed display, while the predecessor packs a smoothly curved body. Furthermore, New Nord 3 seems solid and durable by build quality when held in hand. Despite having a great style and finish, the phone also provides a good grip.

Though this OnePlus mobile has a stylish and shiny design on the back, it's also prone to get fingerprints and smudges. It packs a Dragontrail glass shield on the front side, providing the necessary protection to screen from possible damage. For the back profile, OnePlus has incorporated Gorilla Glass.

This new offering from this leading mobile brand has an IP54 rating, ensuring protection against accidental water splashes. OnePlus Nord 3 5G continues to get a trademark alert slider on top of the power button, which seems convenient. The mobile gets a SIM tray, Type-C port, mic, and speaker on the left side.

Display

Regarding the display, Nord 3 has a 6.74-inch AMOLED display coupled with an adaptive refresh rate from 40 Hz to 120 Hz and HDR 10+. The display seems bright, vibrant, and punchy, even under sunlight. Moreover, buyers can tweak brightness levels and color profiles to get the desired user experience.

This OnePlus smartphone has a 93.5% screen-to-body ratio, ensuring minimum bezels across the display area to provide a premium look and feel that gets doubled with a hole-punch selfie camera cut out. Because of vibrant color and HDR 10+ support, the AMOLED display of Nord 3 can deliver delightful media consumption and video gaming experience. The mobile has 1000Hz of touch response, making it a capable machine to facilitate critical phases of video games.

OnePlus offers an in-display fingerprint reader that functions perfectly until your hands are clean and dry. Besides the in-screen fingerprint reader, the phone also supports pattern, face-based, and password-based mobile unlock features.

Performance

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G mobile packs MediaTek’s flagship Dimensity 9000 SoC, an octa-core processor with up to 3.05GHz CPU speed. It features an Arm Mali G710 MC10 GPU and comes mated with up to 16GB of high-speed RAM and 256GB of UFS internal storage. However, the company hasn’t offered any headphone jack or microSD card slot to expand the internal storage.

The smartphone gets a 5G, Bluetooth 5.3, and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity option. The OnePlus Nord 3 runs on Android 13-based OxygenOS 3.1 and comes only installed with popular third-party apps, which does not consume much storage. Overall, the user interface is easier and more convenient to use.

Since there is a minimum of 8GB RAM and expandable up to 16GB, the phone quickly loads social media applications, switches from one app to another, and runs graphic-intensive games like Asphalt 9 efficiently. OnePlus guarantees to provide up to three years of Android OS updates and up to four years of software security updates.

Camera

This newest 5G smartphone from the company has a triple camera setup, including a 50-megapixel primary sensor equipped with Sony IMX890 and Optical Image Stabilizer, an 8-megapixel wide-angle sensor featuring Sony IMX355 to cover a 112-degree field view, and a 2-megapixel macro sensor, coupled with LED flash. With the capable camera setup, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G smartphone takes brilliant photos during daylight while maintaining superior quality in low-light or night photography.

The camera can record 4K quality videos at 60 fps, full-HD 1080P videos on 60 fps ultra-steady mode, and the same quality video at 30 fps HDR. The Electronic Image Stabilization works properly while recording the videos; even if the hands shake, videos remain balanced and proper.

OnePlus has offered a 16-megapixel selfie camera on the front of the mobile. It captures high-quality shareable selfies by maintaining natural skin tone and necessary details.

Battery

OnePlus Nord 3 5G comes with a 5,000 mAh battery pack, delivering a day's battery life even on consistent use. This 5G smartphone from OnePlus can offer up to 8.5 hours of battery backup on moderate use, including web browsing, video streaming, and other multimedia tasks.

On days when I used to play video games like Call of Duty and Asphalt 9, the phone gave nearly 8 hours of battery life while it reached 21.25 hours of HD video stream. With its standard charger, the phone gets charged from 0% to 100% in around 40 minutes.

Conclusion

With the OnePlus Nord 3 5G smartphone launch, OnePlus has made a strong comeback in India’s budget concise smartphone market. The phone boasts several flagship-level attractive features, including a triple camera configuration, large battery pack, 6.74-inch Super Fluid AMOLED display, and MediaTek’s flagship Dimensity 9000 octa-core processor, making it one of the best smartphones to buy under Rs 35,000 of budget range.

If you want a solid and sturdy 5G smartphone under Rs 40,000, consider OnePlus Nord 3. Currently, it's one of the flagship offerings in the market with several design and feature upgrades, making it capable of meeting the most requirements of smartphone buyers.