OnePlus Nord N30 / OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G smartphone review – Good, but also special? Reviews

Speedy charging. The Nord N30 is a mid-range smartphone which is marketed as the Nord CE 3 Lite in certain countries. Some aspects of what originally made OnePlus so unique as a brand have sadly been lost. Find out whether the smartphone is still worth purchasing in this review.

Florian Schmitt, 👁 Florian Schmitt (translated by Daisy Dickson), Published 06/25/2023 🇩🇪

Note: The manufacturer may use components from different suppliers including display panels, drives or memory sticks with similar specifications.

The OnePlus Nord N30 comes in black and light green – the back of the phone’s case is shiny, which means that grease or fingerprint marks quickly become a real problem for the device. Both camera openings are identical in size and are positioned below one other. A matte plastic frame surrounds the phone’s case.

The front side features a small “chin” below the screen – in general, the device has quite slim bezels, meaning that 87 % of its surface is taken up by the display. Gorilla Glass 5 protects the Nord N30’s screen. 

Corners are nicely rounded off and all-in-all, the phone feels quite ergonomic. If you feel the corners on the front of the device, the transition does feel a little rough, which overall worsens the feel of the build quality a bit. At 195 grams, the phone weighs the exact same as its predecessor, the Nord CE 2 Lite. There are definitely lighter phones in this price category, but with regard to its screen size, we find the weight to be acceptable. 

The phone’s case is stable, can hardly be twisted and only strong pressure gets through to the liquid crystal. In total, the phone has a high-quality feel.

      Xiaomi Poco X5       OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G       OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G       Motorola Moto G53       Realme 10       DIN A6 165.88 mm / 6.53 inch 76.21 mm / 3 inch 7.98 mm / 0.3142 inch 190 g0.4189 lbs165.5 mm / 6.52 inch 76 mm / 2.99 inch 8.3 mm / 0.3268 inch 195 g0.4299 lbs164.3 mm / 6.47 inch 75.6 mm / 2.98 inch 8.5 mm / 0.3346 inch 195 g0.4299 lbs162.7 mm / 6.41 inch 74.7 mm / 2.94 inch 8.2 mm / 0.3228 inch 183 g0.4034 lbs159.9 mm / 6.3 inch 73.3 mm / 2.89 inch 8 mm / 0.315 inch 178 g0.3924 lbs148 mm / 5.83 inch 105 mm / 4.13 inch 1 mm / 0.03937 inch 1.5 g0.00331 lbs

OxygenOS 13.1 is based on Android 13 and shares a software base with ColorOS, FuntouchOS and the realme UI. At the time of testing, the last safety patch was from May 2023, so relatively up-to-date. The device is set to receive two big Android updates and 3 years of smaller patches.

Many of the pre-installed apps are doubles of functions taken care of by Google apps, such as the photo gallery or the proprietary browser. You can deactivate some of them, but you can’t delete them entirely. Even so, the manufacturer has chosen to not install any third-party sponsored apps.

The phone supports WiFi5 and thus, it has similar transfer rates to those of its competitors. During our test, data was transferred consistently and without any hitches. Near the router, the phone keeps a good signal and internet pages are loaded quickly. With a ten-metre distance to the router and with three walls in between, however, you only get about half of the original signal and it takes quite a bit longer to load pages. 

The Nord N30 is a 5G smartphone that supports lots of frequencies, meaning it is perfect for taking with you on trips. Although, it isn’t entirely a world phone. Its signal strength always lay a little behind that of high-end smartphones – but the signal never cut out entirely in bigger cities. 

Outside, our phone was quickly located within a 3-metre accuracy. All the big satellite networks used for locating are supported, as well as SBAS for even more precise locating.

During our test bike trip and using the Garmin Venu 2 as a comparison device, the Nord N30’s performance was a little disappointing when it came to determining our position. The phone recorded our route in a way that suggested we sometimes cycled straight through houses and gardens, instead of on the road. 

In tight alleyways within the Old Town, this worked a little better and the phone’s accuracy was acceptable. If you occasionally use your phone to navigate, you will be just fine with the Nord N30. If you require extremely precise locating, then you will likely need to turn to using a different device for this.

The OnePlus Nord N30 uses Android’s standard telephone app.

While on a call, you can turn the internal earpiece’s volume up quite far, but voices never quite sound totally clear and you also start to hear a bit of background noise. Even so, you can still understand the person you are talking to and the microphone transmits your voice well, even when you talk quietly. 

The built-in speaker outputs callers’ voices much more clearly and precisely. The hands-free microphone also does a great job. 

Image Comparison

Choose a scene and navigate within the first image. One click changes the position on touchscreens. One click on the zoomed-in image opens the original in a new window. The first image shows the scaled photograph of the test device.

Main camera flowerMain camera landscapeMain camera low light

In terms of image sharpness, the main camera did well in our laboratory test – at only 1 lux lighting brightness, the subject was still just recognizable, but it was very grainy.

Next to a USB cable and a fast charger, the phone also comes with a SIM tool and a silicone bumper. On OnePlus’ website, you can buy the iconic sandstone bumper case which the brand is well-known for. 

The phone comes with a standard one-year warranty in the US.

The OnePlus Nord N30 can be operated very smoothly thanks to its 120-Hz display, which samples the screen for touch inputs up to 240 times a second. The whole display is sensitive right up to the corners and inputs are acted upon quickly.

You can also choose to unlock the phone biometrically. The fingerprint sensor is integrated into the standby button and practically unlocks the phone instantaneously, even if it was in standby mode before. You can also unlock the phone via a facial recognition function which uses the phone’s front-facing camera. It works quickly and reliably, but it isn’t quite as safe.

* … smaller is better

Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)

According to our measurements using CalMAN and a spectrophotometer, the phone’s color reproduction is not on the typical level of OLED displays and shows a slight blue cast in light gray tones. Especially bright blue tones are depicted somewhat distorted, but its overall color accuracy is sufficient for private use.

Display Response Times

Outside, the display struggles with reflections – in the sun, the screen is very difficult to read from. In bright conditions without direct light, it works just fine.

The viewing-angle images show no color or brightness differences when you view the display from flat angles.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 shows no progress over the phone’s predecessor, the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite, as this processor was already used in the last phone. Our test device was about the same as other phones within this price range in our benchmarks.

In everyday use, this should prove to be enough power for almost all apps. Only using lots of programs at the same time could push the phone toward its limits.

In our graphics benchmarks, the phone behaved just like a typical mid-range phone: Average benchmarks in Full HD were completed at 30 fps but rendering in 4K was only possible to do very slowly.

If you just want to game occasionally using the phone’s native resolution, then you will have no problems if you use medium settings. The phone doesn’t have much more in reserve.

Internet pages load quite quickly, but you occasionally have to wait for pictures. Scrolling through the pages works very smoothly thanks to the 120-Hz display.

The phone was also very fast in our browser benchmarks, which might partly be due to the newer version of the Chrome browser.

* … smaller is better

Modern UFS 2.2 memory can be found in many mid-range phones. However, the storage controller has to be able to use the high possible data throughput rates of the flash devices, which only works really well in realme 10. The OnePlus Nord N30 is on par with many similarly priced phones, but it cannot stand out in terms of storage speed.