A true flagship performing mid-ranger which makes a good option!!
The OnePlus Nord series has been popular in the mid-range and premium mid-range segments, borrowing features from the flagship OnePlus number series, along with clean software, good hardware, and aggressive pricing. The Nord CE series has been the people's choice in the budget and mid-range segment, whereas the OnePlus Nord series is a mix of both the Nord CE series and the flagship number series.
With the soaring competition in the premium mid-range segment from various manufacturers, the OnePlus Nord 5 faces some serious competition. Last year's OnePlus Nord 4 (Review) brought in some very good specifications, of which a striking part was the design with the unibody metal finish that feels premium. With the OnePlus Nord 5, OnePlus has brought in a few upgrades in terms of the newer Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, a larger battery and slightly upgraded cameras.
With each Nord lineup, the prices have been increased, and this time, it is no different. So, how good of an upgrade is the OnePlus Nord 5 over its predecessor, and is it worth the asking price?
Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus Nord 5 Design:
The OnePlus Nord 5 has a different design approach when compared to last year's OnePlus Nord 4, which had a premium unibody metal design. The back of the OnePlus Nord 5 has a glass panel with a matte finish, which does not catch many fingerprints, which is good since the back of the OnePlus Nord 4 did catch smudges and fingerprints. The rear cameras are placed in a vertical order along with an LED flashlight in a capsule-like module.
The camera module does not protrude much, which means the smartphone will not wobble when kept on a flat surface. The OnePlus Nord 5 is available in three different colours - Marble Sands (white), Dry Ice (Blue), and Phantom Grey. The back of the smartphone is flat and is curved around the edges, which makes it easy to hold in the hands. The smartphone has an IP65 rating, which makes it dust and water-resistant.
The OnePlus Nord 5 weighs around 211 grams, which is slightly heavier than the OnePlus Nord 4, which weighs around 199 grams, since the former houses a larger 6800mAh battery, which does add to the weight. Around the sides, the smartphone is thicker at 8.1mm, but this time, instead of the aluminium frame, there is now a polycarbonate frame, which is a slight downgrade.
The polycarbonate frame houses the OnePlus Plus Key on the left, which provides multiple functionalities, whereas the right side has the volume buttons along with the power key. The top of the smartphone houses the IR Blaster along with a secondary noise-cancelling microphone and secondary speaker output, whereas the bottom houses the dual SIM card tray, a loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone and a USB Type-C port.
There is no additional slot for microSD card expansion, and as usual, no presence of a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display with minimal bezels on the sides, making it look premium. The front display is a flatter one and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, which is good. However, the display is now a larger 6.83-inch one. Overall, the build and design are good but not so impressive as its predecessor, i.e. OnePlus Nord 4.
OnePlus Nord 5 Display:
The OnePlus Nord 5 sports a larger 6.83-inches display compared to the 6.74-inches display of the OnePlus Nord 4, and even in terms of screen resolution, the display of the OnePlus Nord 5 has a 1.5K (1272x2800 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. This display is a 10-bit one so you get excellent colour reproduction along with great viewing angles.
Another small display upgrade is the 144Hz refresh rate, but it is a small gimmick. The 144Hz refresh rate works for certain games only, like Call of Duty Mobile, Genshin Impact, BGMI, etc., as OnePlus has whitelisted these games only. Other than that, the display usually refreshes at 120Hz, which is the highest refresh rate on the OnePlus Nord 5 for most applications.
Talking about refresh rates, there are three different settings to choose from - Auto Select, Standard, and High. The display usually refreshes at 120Hz when you choose either High or Auto Select, except that when the display is set to High, it drops to 60Hz when idle or not in use, but maintains a 120Hz refresh rate in most applications.
Auto-Select, on the other hand, ensures the display switches between different refresh rates depending on the content on the display. The Standard mode provides a 60Hz refresh rate, which ensures solid battery life. Combined with this, you get a 300Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses on the display, and while playing games, there is an instantaneous 3000Hz touch sampling rate ensuring smooth gameplay.
In terms of display brightness, the display can reach a peak of 1800 nits, which is slightly lower than its predecessor, i.e., OnePlus Nord 4, but it is still bright enough when watching content or viewing it under direct sunlight. The display can reach 1400nits of brightness in High Brightness Mode. Under normal conditions, the display brightness hovers around 600-700 nits.
The display has great visibility under direct sunlight, and like all OnePlus smartphones, there is an Extra Brightness Mode for enhanced brightness. The colour reproduction on the display can be calibrated, as there are three different settings to choose from - Vivid, Natural, and Pro, where if you choose Vivid and Pro modes, the colours look punchier and cover the DCI-P3 colour gamut.
If you choose Natural mode, the colours look slightly muted when compared to the other two modes, which cover the sRGB colour space. The display has support for HDR, ensuring that streaming HDR content over YouTube or any other application is a breeze. There is support for Widevine L1, so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms. The display has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner, which works fast and is accurate.
OnePlus Nord 5 Performance:
The OnePlus Nord 5 houses a flagship-grade Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, which is an underclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and has an octa-core setup, which includes 1x3.0 GHz Cortex-X4 core with 4x2.8 GHz Cortex-A720 cores and another 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A520 cores, which is based on a 4nm process and is coupled with a powerful Adreno 735 GPU.
When compared to the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chipset, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset is a slight upgrade. In terms of all activities like scrolling through webpages, streaming social media, playing games, etc., the smartphone handled all these without breaking a sweat. All heavy games like Call of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc., ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings without any stutters or frame drops.
In BGMI, the smartphone could easily run at Smooth graphics with Extreme+ frame rates. Genshin Impact could easily run at 120fps without any frame drops, also. After longer gaming sessions, i.e., 3-4 hours, the back of the smartphone felt slightly warmer, but the dedicated vapour cooling system, called "Cryo Velocity VC," dissipates heat faster since it has a larger surface area of 7300 mm2.
In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone achieved sustained performance of around 70-80 per cent, which is good, with minimal throttling. The scores came out really well in benchmarks, also. In terms of network connectivity, you get support for good carrier aggregation, and almost all bands of 5G are supported.
The OnePlus Nord 5 is available in three different storage variants - 8GB RAM with 128GB storage, 12GB RAM with 256GB storage, and another 12GB RAM with 512GB storage, all of which have RAM configuration of LPDDR5X, and the storage speeds are of UFS 3.1.
OnePlus Nord 5 Software:
The OnePlus Nord 5 came with OxygenOS 15, based on Android 15 out of the box, but now it has been updated to Android 16 and is running the latest OxygenOS 16. OxygenOS 16 brings a few new additions to the list with enhanced animations throughout the user interface, newer AI features, etc. The Plus Key makes daily usage much easier as it comes in handy.
Some of the newer AI features include the AI Portrait Glow, which adjusts the background lighting in most scenarios and also removes shadows, and then there is the AI Perfect Shot, which is great for selfies as it also changes the facial expressions to match the background. AI Summary works well in summarising the contents while using the Notes application, and there is live transcription, which works well for audio recordings.
The MindSpace works extremely well, as when you take a particular screenshot, it analyses the screenshot and provides a small summary if there is some written text in the screenshot. However, the interesting part is that now there is the Google Gemini integration with MindSpace, which allows you to create any content easily. The Circle To Search is available, which provides a good amount of information easily.
As always, OxygenOS provides a bloatware-free experience except for a few applications, which can be uninstalled easily. In terms of software updates, the OnePlus Nord 5 will receive four years of Android updates and six years of security patches, which is good, so it will support till Android 19, as currently it has received one major update to Android 16.
OnePlus Nord 5 Cameras:
The OnePlus Nord 5 has a triple camera setup, which includes a 50MP f/1.8 Sony LYT-700 sensor for the primary camera and an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera. On the front, there is a 50MP f/2.0 Samsung JN5 sensor for selfies. This is almost the same camera setup as seen on the OnePlus Nord 4, except the newer chipset does provide different image processing results.
During daylight, the images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background. The colours look natural without any kind of oversharpening in the background. The contrast and white balance are handled very well. The 50MP images have slightly softer details and decent dynamic range when compared to the regular 12MP images.
The 2x zoomed images from the primary camera come out with sharper details, have good dynamic range, and less noise in the background. At night, the images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and a wider dynamic range. The noise is very low in the background with no oversharpening present. The details in shadows look good, and the white balance is handled very well.
All these results were captured with the Auto Night Mode turned on. Without the dedicated Night Mode, the images had slightly softer details with some noise present in the background. The 2x zoomed images taken at night do have softer details with more noise around the corners. The dynamic range is wider and colours look natural without any kind of oversharpening.
The images from the ultrawide camera came out with softer details and have limited dynamic range. There is a lot of distortion around the edges with some oversharpening in the background. The colours do look punchier when compared to the results on the OnePlus Nord 4. At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with softer details, limited dynamic range and more noise in the background.
There is no dedicated macro camera, so you have to rely on 2x digital zoom from the primary camera for detailed macro images. In terms of portraits, the primary camera does a good job in terms of edge detection, and there is proper separation of the subject from the background. Even the human skin tones look natural, and the noise is also very low in the background in portraits. The dynamic range is wider also.
On the front, the 50MP selfie camera does a great job, producing sharper selfies with a wider dynamic range and almost no background noise. The human skin tones look natural with no oversharpening. You also get a wider field of view, and now this selfie camera has autofocus, which means selfies at night come out with sharper details and have almost less noise in the background.
In terms of video recording, both the primary and selfie cameras can record 4K videos at 60 fps, whereas the ultrawide camera can record 1080p videos at 30 fps. The videos from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background. At 1080p videos at 60fps, the videos came out with excellent dynamic range and sharper details with no noise in the background.
There is an Ultra Steady Mode, which works really well for 1080p videos. The videos taken at night come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with some noise in the background. The colours look natural in videos shot both during the night and during the day. The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with softer details, have a limited dynamic range and a lot of noise in the background.
The 4K videos from the selfie camera came out with sharper details and a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background. There is the Ultra Steady Mode, which works well at 1080p at 30fps, resulting in excellent dynamic range and sharper details with no noise in the background.
OnePlus Nord 5 Battery Life:
The OnePlus Nord 5 sports a larger 6800mAh battery, which is more in capacity when compared to its predecessor, i.e. OnePlus Nord 4, which had a 5500mAh battery. With the powerful Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset built on a 3nm process and the larger battery size, we do expect better battery life, and it clearly reflects on the daily usage of the smartphone.
In terms of normal usage, which includes streaming social media, scrolling through webpages, or any random multi-tasking between applications, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for two and a half days with some charge left, which is really good. The standard screen-on time came around 8.5-9 hours, which is excellent and by far the best numbers in the premium mid-range segment.
With heavy usage that includes playing heavy games, taking images and videos using the camera, rendering videos, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for one and a half days with some charge left. The standard screen-on time came around 4-4.5 hours, which is good. In terms of charging, the OnePlus Nord 5 is bundled with an 80W SuperVOOC charger inside the box.
This is a slight downgrade compared to the OnePlus Nord 4, which came with a 100W fast charger. However, the 80W fast charger takes the OnePlus Nord 5 from 0 to 100 per cent for a full charge in around 45-50 minutes, which is good considering the huge battery capacity.
OnePlus Nord 5 Audio Quality:
The OnePlus Nord 5 sports a dual stereo speaker that sounds equally good from both the earpiece at the top and the bottom loudspeaker grille. The audio quality is not so deep, but the vocals, along with bass levels, are good. There is the OHaptics, which provides solid haptic feedback while using any application. For enhanced sound output, Dolby Atmos is present.
Verdict:
As an overall packages, the OnePlus Nord 5 continues to impress just like its predecessor i.e. OnePlus Nord 4. You get a good build and design except that you miss out on the metallic build of the OnePlus Nord 4, then there is the 144Hz AMOLED display along with stereo speakers which is great for content consumption, the powerful Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset provides excellent gaming capabilities and daily performance.
The larger battery present under the hood is a great companion along with the powerful chipset as it provides solid battery life and to top that up the 80W fast charger charges the smartphone quite fast. The cameras remains unchanged from the OnePlus Nord 4, but still both the primary and the front camera do a good job in terms of videos and images. The ultrawide camera is the one which is an average performer.
OxygenOS has been one of the best user interface in the Android side of things and this is no different here also as you get a cleaner software experience with almost no bloatware and a strong software update cycle is an added advantage considering the good track record of software updates provided by OnePlus in the past. There are few areas where OnePlus Nord 5 holds back and could have been better.
In terms of design, there is a slight let down with the glass back instead of the premium metallic finish of the OnePlus Nord 4 which may not be a concern to much out there, then the ultrawide camera is not so good when compared to other two cameras as it struggles a lot. Even the primary camera is not a newer sensor when compared to the OnePlus Nord 4, so there is not much of an improvement in terms of images and videos.
The OnePlus Nord 5 feels heavier for some considering the huge battery underneath. So as an overall package if you want the best performance along with good gaming capbilities, a strong battery life along with a great display for multimedia consumption, then the OnePlus Nord 5 is a great buy but you do have to sacrifice on the camera performance out there. With all the smaller upgrades except the design, the OnePlus Nord 5 is a good upgrade over the OnePlus Nord 4 thus making it worth buying.
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