The OnePlus Nord 5 may have stayed under the radar until today, but trust me, it’s a total hidden gem. In this review, you’ll find out if it’s actually worth your money or just another overhyped mid-ranger. Ready to be tempted?
Design
You can get the OnePlus Nord 5 in three colors: Phantom Grey, Dry Ice, and Marble Sands. I personally loved the Marble Sands color, which has a marble-like pattern on it and doesn’t pick up fingerprints at all.
On the glass back panel, up in the top left, there is a vertical camera module with 2 sensors and a flash right below them, and the camera bump is actually pretty minimal. The front panel is made of Gorilla Glass 7i. But the design is a bit weird. Why? Because the frame on this model is plastic, whereas the Nord 4 had an aluminum frame! The Nord 5 is 8.1mm thick, which makes it 1mm thicker, and at 211g, it’s 11.5g heavier than the Nord 4.
This phone also has an IP65 rating, which I think you all know by now means it’s dustproof and handles everyday splashes really well.
The front panel is 90% display, which is absolutely awesome, and you can see the tiny punch-hole selfie camera up top. It’s a relatively large phone, but it feels really good in the hand. Although, if you aren’t a fan of big phones, you probably shouldn’t go for it.
Display & Audio
The Nord 5 has a 6.83-inch Swift AMOLED display. Its refresh rate is 144Hz, it supports HDR10+, and it shows a billion colors. It’s just insanely cool. I can honestly say it has everything you need. With its great brightness, superb quality, and high speed, I honestly can’t find any serious flaws with it, and with those super slim bezels, you’ll definitely enjoy looking at this screen.
The Nord 5 has stereo speakers that get really loud, but when you crank the volume all the way up, the sound separation isn’t that great.
Battery & Charger
The Nord 5 has a massive 6800mAh battery in the global version and a 5200mAh battery in the European version, meaning it easily lasts a day and a half with moderate to heavy use, assuming you aren’t gaming 24 hours a day. In my tests, an hour of Call of Duty drained about 8%, and an hour on Instagram took off about 7%, which is genuinely good.
As for charging, unfortunately, there isn’t an adapter in the box, but it supports up to 80W fast charging and fully charges in a little under an hour. The battery performance is great, but the charging speed is a bit of a downgrade from the previous generation since the Nord 4 supported 100W charging.
The Nord 5 gives you 1300mAh more capacity than its predecessor. This extra capacity is what makes the phone a bit heavier, but I think it’s totally worth it. When you use a heavy phone for a couple of days, you get used to the weight, but you can never ignore how good it feels to have a phone that just keeps going.
Camera
Unlike some brands that I won’t name, the Nord 5 doesn’t useless sensors. It only has two: a 50MP main sensor and an 8MP ultrawide.
The 50MP main sensor is truly good. It takes nice pictures that are right up there with Samsung mid-rangers like the Galaxy A56 or S24 FE. It doesn’t have any major issues, though sometimes if your hand shakes or the lighting isn’t great, it might miss out on some details. Still, I can confidently say it takes flawless photos 80% of the time.
Another minor issue with this sensor is the light metering. When it’s too bright, some spots get blown out and the dynamic range struggles a bit. But under the right conditions, you can snap some lovely shots.
Portrait photos are incredible. Most of the time, it separates the subject from the background perfectly, gives it a natural blur, and captures the subject with great detail. You don’t get much zoom since there isn’t a telephoto lens, but you can zoom in up to 2x nicely. The pictures you take with the 8MP sensor are good too, just don’t expect the world from it, but it’s totally okay.
For video, you can shoot 4K at 60fps with the main sensor, and the performance is solid for a mid-range phone. The footage doesn’t have much jitter, and it captures good details, colors, and lighting. It’s very satisfying for the price.
But the real ace up this phone’s sleeve is its 50MP selfie sensor. The selfies are just wow! The photos have excellent dynamic range, sharpness, and detail. I’d say it easily beats its competitors in this department. It also shoots 4K 60 fps video, so if you take a lot of selfies, you are dealing with an exceptional front camera here.
Performance
OnePlus used the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 in the Nord 5. Compared to the Nord 4, the chip has stepped up a generation, and the processing performance is really good. It’s super smooth in the user interface. You might experience a little frame drop in heavy games like Genshin Impact, or if you play Call of Duty for 50 minutes, but it’s not bad enough to annoy you. Plus, this chip is very power-efficient and doesn’t heat up.
You can get this phone in three versions, ranging from 256GB to 512GB of storage, and 8GB to 12GB of RAM.
