OnePlus Nord CE5 Review: 30 Days of Use – Should You Buy?

OnePlus has long been celebrated for its “Never Settle” philosophy, consistently delivering smartphones that punch above their weight. The OnePlus Nord CE5 steps into this lineage as a more budget-friendly alternative to the flagship Nord series, aiming to make the signature OnePlus experience accessible at a competitive price point, starting around £299 ( ₹24,999 with bank discounts dropping it to ₹22,000). The question, however, is whether this “Core Edition” maintains the brand’s essence or if the necessary cost-cutting measures have led to too many compromises.

I’ve spent a full 30 days with the OnePlus Nord CE5 as my primary device, putting it through rigorous real-world testing. This wasn’t just about checking specs; it was about understanding how it performs in daily life – from navigating apps and capturing photos to handling gaming sessions and enduring a full day’s use. As an experienced tech reviewer, I’m here to cut through the marketing jargon and offer an honest, in-depth analysis to help you decide if this affordable smartphone truly delivers solid value.

Here’s my comprehensive OnePlus Nord CE5 Review – let’s uncover if this budget blower is the right fit for your pocket and your needs!

Unboxing and First Impressions

The OnePlus Nord CE5 comes with a practical in-box experience, reflecting its budget-friendly focus:

• Contents: The phone with a pre-applied screen protector, a transparent case, SIM ejector pin, 80W charger, and USB-A to USB-C cable.
• Charger Downgrade: The 80W charger is a step down from the Nord CE4’s 100W, but it’s sufficient for the massive battery.
• Design: Available in Hazy Blue, Obsidian Black, and Marble Mist, the phone sports a subtle, classy look with a flat plastic frame and curved plastic back. It resembles an iPhone from certain angles, which may appeal to some.

Downside: The included case shows rapid wear after a month, with visible aging, suggesting OnePlus should improve its quality.
Why It Matters: The unboxing sets a solid first impression, but the case’s durability is a minor letdown.

Design and Build: Sleek but Not Premium

he Nord CE5 presents a design that feels both familiar and practical, striking a balance between aesthetics and everyday usability.

• Ergonomics in Hand: Featuring a 6.77-inch display, the Nord CE5 is a substantial device that fills the hand comfortably. Despite its large screen, its notably skinny profile ensures it remains easy to grip and manage, preventing the unwieldy feel often associated with larger smartphones.
• Material Choices: OnePlus has opted for a glass back paired with a plastic frame. This combination is a standard and sensible choice in the mid-range segment. The glass back lends a more premium feel than an all-plastic construction, while the plastic frame offers a degree of resilience against minor drops.
• Aesthetic Options: The phone comes in two distinct finishes: “Black Infinity” for a classic, understated look, and “Marble Mist.” The “Marble Mist” variant, with its subtle, swirling pattern, adds a unique visual texture that helps it stand out from more generic designs, even if it evokes a nostalgic, “nan’s bathroom tiles” vibe for some!

Out-of-the-Box Protection: A thoughtful, user-friendly inclusion is the pre-installed screen protector. This immediately provides a layer of defense for your display, saving you the hassle and cost of purchasing and applying one yourself.

IP65 Splash and Dust Resistance: The Nord CE5 carries an IP65 rating, signifying good resistance against splashes of water and dust ingress. While it’s not designed for full submersion like some higher-priced competitors, this level of protection is more than adequate for everyday scenarios, offering peace of mind against accidental spills or light rain.

Downside: The plastic frame and back feel less premium compared to the Nord CE4’s design, and the iPhone-like aesthetic may not suit everyone.

Display: Bright and Functional

The screen is your primary interface, and the Nord CE5’s display offers a compelling visual experience that punches above its weight in the budget segment.

• Vibrant AMOLED Panel: The phone features a generous 6.77-inch Full HD+ AMOLED screen. While it may not possess the absolute highest pixel density or the “crispness” of flagship displays, it is more than sharp enough for all daily tasks, from browsing and messaging to photo viewing and video streaming. AMOLED technology ensures deep, inky blacks, excellent contrast, and punchy, vibrant colors.
• HDR10 Streaming Support: The inclusion of HDR10 streaming support means you can enjoy high-dynamic-range content from popular platforms like Netflix with enhanced contrast and a broader spectrum of colors, significantly elevating your cinematic experiences on the go.

Outdoor Visibility: The screen achieves a commendable level of brightness for comfortable outdoor use, even on sunny days and when wearing sunglasses. While some reports suggest it’s less bright than the standard Nord 5, its real-world performance is perfectly adequate for its price point.

Smooth 120Hz Refresh Rate: The 120Hz refresh rate is a standout feature, providing buttery-smooth scrolling, fluid animations, and a noticeably more responsive feel during general navigation, web browsing, and light gaming.

Eye Comfort & Aqua Touch: Standard eye comfort features are integrated to help reduce eye strain during prolonged screen time. The “Aqua Touch” smarts are a thoughtful addition, designed to improve touch responsiveness even when the screen is slightly wet, a practical benefit in humid conditions or after light spills.

Why It Matters: The display is bright and responsive, ideal for media and outdoor use, but the lack of AOD and unclear protection are drawbacks.

Performance: A Significant Leap

Under the hood, the Nord CE5 is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 8350 Apex chipset, complemented by a robust 8GB of RAM. This configuration aims for a balanced performance profile.

Under the hood, the Nord CE5 is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 8350 Apex chipset, complemented by a robust 8GB of RAM. This configuration aims for a balanced performance profile.

• Everyday Responsiveness: For typical daily tasks – including web browsing, social media, messaging, video streaming, and light productivity applications – the phone performs admirably. Apps launch quickly, and multitasking feels smooth, making it a reliable companion for most users.
• Gaming Capabilities:
  • Casual Gaming: For less demanding games or popular titles like BGMI at moderate graphics settings, the Dimensity 8350 Apex generally maintains a stable 30 frames per second (fps) for the majority of the gaming session, offering an enjoyable and consistent experience.
  • Demanding Titles: When pushing graphically intensive games (such as “Weather and Waves”) to higher visual settings or attempting to achieve 60fps, the phone begins to show its limitations. Frame rates can fluctuate noticeably, typically ranging between 30-45fps. While still playable, this indicates that the device is not engineered for sustained, high-fidelity gaming at peak settings. Occasional stutters might be apparent to avid mobile gamers.

Thermal Management: OnePlus has incorporated a substantial vapor chamber cooling system (over 7,000 square millimeters) to manage heat dissipation. While the phone can get warm under prolonged heavy load, it rarely becomes uncomfortably hot to the touch and, critically, avoids significant performance throttling, ensuring a relatively consistent performance output.

Connectivity: General connectivity, including Wi-Fi and mobile data, is reliable. Although minor reception dropouts were noted on a couple of occasions during commutes, the overall performance is robust enough for streaming video and staying connected on the go.

Downside: High temperatures in benchmarks and RAM management issues need software optimization.
Why It Matters: The Nord CE5 handles gaming and daily tasks well, competing with pricier phones, but software tweaks are needed for consistency.

Camera: Decent but Not Best-in-Class

The camera setup on the Nord CE5 is designed for straightforward use, aiming to capture everyday moments effectively without overwhelming features.

• Dual Rear Camera Configuration: The phone features a capable dual-lens setup:
  • 50-megapixel Sony LYT600 sensor: This serves as the primary camera, capable of capturing detailed and generally pleasing images with good color reproduction in well-lit conditions.
  • 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle shooter: This secondary lens provides a wider field of view, ideal for capturing expansive landscapes, architectural shots, or large group photos, offering a different perspective when needed.

Absence of Telephoto Lens: A notable omission for photography enthusiasts is the lack of a dedicated telephoto lens. Zooming on the Nord CE5 relies solely on digital cropping, which can lead to a noticeable loss of detail and sharpness at higher magnifications.

Camera Modes & Features: The camera app includes standard modes such as Portrait mode, a high-res mode for capturing full 50-megapixel images, and a dedicated Pro mode for manual controls. However, RAW shooting capabilities were not readily apparent.

Image Processing Characteristics: The Nord CE5’s image processing tends to brighten photos in an “iPhone-like” manner. While this often results in slightly saturated and visually appealing images, it can sometimes mean that truly vibrant subjects might lose a touch of their natural vividness. Nevertheless, most casual users will likely be satisfied with the results for social sharing.

Performance in Varied Conditions: The camera handles softer lighting and challenging high-contrast situations reasonably well. It can also manage subjects that are not perfectly still, though its capabilities diminish significantly in low-light environments. Night photography, as expected for a phone in this segment, comes with noticeable limitations in detail and noise control.

AI Editor Smarts: The OnePlus Photos app integrates several AI-powered editing tools:

• AI Eraser: This tool is surprisingly effective for seamlessly removing unwanted objects or even people from your photos, allowing for cleaner compositions.
• Recompose: Offers intelligent cropping and framing suggestions to improve your shots.
• While some AI tools (like the AI blur mentioned in the transcript) might be “borky” or less refined in their execution, the AI Eraser, in particular, proves to be a powerful and handy feature for quick on-device edits.

Video Recording Capabilities: The Nord CE5 supports 4K resolution video recording at both 30 and 60 frames per second. Visuals are reasonably crisp for casual home videos and sharing, although low-light video quality remains limited. The audio pickup during video recording is generally clear and adequate.

Selfie Camera: The front features a 16-megapixel selfie shooter, capable of 1080p Full HD video recording at 30 or 60fps. This makes it perfectly suitable for video calls, online meetings, and quick selfies, with clear audio transmission even when speaking from a fair distance.

Downside: Inconsistent colors and average selfie performance make the camera a weak point compared to rivals.
Why It Matters: The camera is serviceable for casual use but falls short for photography enthusiasts.

Battery and Charging: Massive but Could Be Better

The 7,100mAh battery is the largest ever in a OnePlus phone, offering solid endurance:

• Battery Life: Delivers 7–8 hours of screen-on time (SOT) with calls, messaging, social media, and casual gaming, but falls short of expectations for such a large capacity.

• Charging: 80W fast charging takes the phone from 14% to 100% in 66 minutes, which is fast but not class-leading.
• Connectivity: Jio SIM usage showed no call or internet issues. Includes a hybrid SIM slot (expandable to 1TB), Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and an IR blaster (now in the camera module).

Downside: Battery life could be optimized further, and the lack of NFC and eSIM limits modern connectivity options.
Why It Matters: The massive battery ensures all-day use, but optimization could push it further.

Software: Feature-Rich but Needs Polish

Running OxygenOS 15 based on Android 15, the Nord CE5 offers a clean, feature-packed experience:

• Software Support: 4 years of OS updates and 6 years of security patches, a significant improvement over the Nord CE4.
• AI Features: AI Search (fetches phone settings or info), AI Voiceribe (transcribes Zoom/WhatsApp calls with Hindi support), and AI Translate (real-time Hindi-to-Tamil translation).
• Bloatware: Minimal and uninstallable, with smooth app animations and a stock OnePlus dialer (no call recording announcements).
• Issues: Harsh haptics, missing haptic feedback on sliders and recent apps, and no O-Haptics integration. RAM management issues cause apps to close unexpectedly.

Why It Matters: The software is user-friendly and future-proof, but haptic feedback and RAM management need updates for a polished experience.

Pricing and Value

Launched at ₹24,999 (8GB/128GB), with bank discounts bringing it to ₹22,000, the Nord CE5 offers strong value:

• Variants: 8GB/256GB and 12GB/256GB (pricing not specified in transcript).
• Competitors: Matches the Nord CE4’s launch price but offers better performance, a larger battery, and longer software support.
• Trade-offs: The single speaker and average cameras are disappointing at this price, but the Dimensity 8350 and AI features add significant value.

Why It Matters: The Nord CE5 is a solid all-rounder for budget buyers, though it faces stiff competition from the Moto G85 Fusion and Poco F6.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Massive 7,100mAh battery with 80W fast charging.
• Powerful Dimensity 8350 Apex SoC for gaming and daily tasks.
• Bright 6.77-inch AMOLED display with 1,800–1,900 nits.
• Feature-rich OxygenOS 15 with 4 years of OS updates.
• IP65 rating for dust and splash resistance.
• Affordable at ₹22,000 with bank discounts.

Cons

• Single speaker downgrades multimedia experience.
• Average camera performance, especially selfies.
• Harsh haptics and poor RAM management.
• No NFC, eSIM, or seamless AOD.
• Case durability issues after 30 days.
• Unclear display protection requires extra investment.

OnePlus Nord CE5 vs. Competitors

• Moto G85 Fusion: Better camera colors and selfies, but limited to 4K 30FPS video and a smaller 5,000mAh battery.
• Poco F6: Comparable performance, but likely pricier with a smaller battery.
• Realme X7 Pro: Similar benchmark scores, but Nord CE5 excels in gaming stability.

Why It Matters: The Nord CE5 offers strong performance and battery life, but competitors may edge out in cameras or multimedia.

Who Should Buy the OnePlus Nord CE5?

• Budget Gamers: Smooth BGMI and COD Mobile performance at an affordable price.
• Heavy Users: 7,100mAh battery suits long days of calls, messaging, and social media.
• OnePlus Fans: OxygenOS 15 and long software support align with brand loyalty.
• Value Seekers: ₹22,000 price with bank discounts is competitive.

Who Should Avoid:

• Photography Enthusiasts: Average cameras may disappoint.
• Multimedia Lovers: Single speaker limits audio quality.
• Premium Build Seekers: Plastic frame feels less luxurious.

Buying Tips

• Get a Screen Protector: Unclear display protection makes a high-quality protector essential.
• Test Audio: Check the single speaker’s quality if multimedia is a priority.
• Compare Competitors: Try the Moto G85 Fusion or Poco F6 for better cameras or build.
• Use Bank Offers: Grab the ₹22,000 price with discounts on OnePlus.in.
• Wait for Updates: Software patches may fix haptics and RAM issues.

Top 10 Reasons to Buy OnePlus Nord CE5

Top 5 Reasons to Avoid the OnePlus Nord CE5

OnePlus Nord CE5 vs. Nord 5

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OnePlus Nord CE 5 Durability & Water Test

The OnePlus Nord CE5 is a compelling mid-range phone at ₹24,999, offering a massive 7,100mAh battery, strong Dimensity 8350 performance, and a clean OxygenOS 15 experience. Its bright AMOLED display, IP65 rating, and AI features make it a solid all-rounder, especially at ₹22,000 with discounts. However, the single speaker, average cameras, and haptic issues hold it back from being the best in its class. If gaming and battery life are priorities, the Nord CE5 is a great buy, but consider the Moto G85 Fusion for better cameras. Visit OnePlus.in to explore deals, and share your thoughts on X with #OnePlusNordCE5!

Publish Date: July 8, 2025
Last Updated: July 8, 2025

Author: Beebom official YouTube Channel

Source: OnePlus Nord CE5 Review