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The mid-range smartphone market is more crowded than ever, with every brand competing to offer the best they can within the limitations of price and processing power. One of the recent debutants in this segment is the OnePlus Nord CE4, a predecessor to the Nord CE3 which was a crowd-pleaser.
Display
The first thing I notice about the Nord CE4 is the pastel green marbled finish at the back. The colour variant is called Celadon Marble, which definitely holds more aesthetic appeal than the glossy grey Dark Chrome variant. The smartphone has a sizeable 6.7-inch AMOLED with 2412 x 1080 resolution. It offers refresh rates up to 120Hz and supports HDR10 and HDR10+ standards to watch compatible content on OTT apps.
The smartphone has dual speakers which manage to deliver decent audio quality but are not well-rounded enough for me to abandon my headphones if I’m watching a series or listening to music. Instead of a Dolby certification, it has Oppo’s proprietary OReality Audio. This also gives me the option to choose the appropriate pre-set such as Movie, Gaming, and Music that offer slightly different sound stages.
Camera
The primary camera setup on the OnePlus Nord CE4 includes a 50 MP Sony LYT600 sensor with OIS along with an 8 MP wide-angle lens. Well-lit interior photos are sharp, with decent colour accuracy, although it tends to favour blue hues in most photographs. Pictures taken outdoors, even on a cloudy day, had the highlights blown up a little too much, resulting in loss of detail. While shooting videos on the move, the image stabilisation isn’t as effective as I’d like it to be, resulting in footage where shakes and bumps are quite obvious. The 16 MP selfie camera delivers snaps good enough for social media sharing. It was pleasant to see skin tone and texture both being retained to a great extent.
Tech Specs
The OnePlus Nord CE4 runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset. It features 8 GB RAM and only offers a choice in the storage capacity - 128 GB or 256 GB. For general usage such as looking at Instagram or YouTube, a bit of casual gaming, checking emails, and reading articles online were handled with ease. The Nord CE4 runs on OxygenOS 14, based on Android 14. There’s a fair amount of bloatware when I set up the device, but that’s to be expected in this price segment. The brand offers two years of OS updates and three years of security updates.
Battery
The battery life of the OnePlus Nord CE4 is one of the most impressive aspects of the smartphone. It comes with a 5,500mAh battery with 100W fast charging. With moderate usage, it went through more than a full day of usage. The company claims that the smartphone can be charged in just about 30 minutes and it lived up to the claim.
Verdict
The battery life of the OnePlus Nord CE4 is one of the most impressive aspects of the smartphone | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The design, battery life and some of the photography capability in this price range work in the Nord CE4’s favour. The overall look, feel and performance is typically what you’d expect of a mid-range smartphone. I just wish it had more attributes that stood out, without which, it feels lacking in the face of competitors such as the Nothing Phione (2a) or the Realme 12 Pro.
Price - ₹24,999 (8 GB + 128 GB) ₹26,999 (8 GB + 256 GB)
Pros: Appealing design on Celadon variant, fast charging, long battery life, decent set of cameras
Cons: Low light photos are grainy, two years of OS updates
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