ONEPLUS NORD CE 2

With OnePlus now duking it out with Samsung at the upper end of the price spectrum, you might think it had forgotten its roots as a value champ. Not true – that spirit now lives on in the Nord CE 2.

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Price from ₹23,999 / oneplus.in

CE stands for Core Edition, which roughly translates to ‘all the hardware you need, with none of what you don’t, at a price your wallet can appreciate’. It’s the line-up’s new entry point, but carries over much of what makes the Nord 2 such a compelling mid-ranger – notably a display that’s excellent compared to many rivals, a 6.43in AMOLED with fairly smooth 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. It has a Full HD resolution, which is what you’d expect at this price point.

Design: sturdy The camera ‘blob’ that curves seamlessly around the lenses and into the rear of the phone might look a little familiar. The Nord CE 2 has certainly taken a little design inspiration from sister company Oppo’s Find X3 Pro. Unlike that mega-pricey handset, though, the OnePlus is plastic all the way. Thankfully it doesn’t lack sturdiness as a result.

The Dimensity 900 might not be the flashiest silicon that MediaTek makes, but it’s near the top of the pile, so comfortably runs Android 11 underneath OxygenOS without any slowdown; 8GB of RAM gives it a leg up on the multitasking front, while storage is slightly slower than the Nord 2’s, not that you’d notice: performance isn’t obviously ‘budget’ and everything zips along well. OK, so frames are dropped in some games, but that’s what you’d expect for such a cheap phone.