OnePlus Nord 2 5G Unboxing and First Impression (Indian Retail Box) By TecworkZ

Hey Guys it’s Sagar, and today we are going to unbox and take our first look at the OnePlus Nord 2 5G. This the successor of the OnePlus Nord which was launched last year. And it was OnePlus’s re-entry into the mid-budget smartphone segment. This time I was really underwhelmed with the OnePlus’s flagship lineup, because I don’t think OnePlus gave us enough things with the OnePlus 9 Pro and the OnePlus 9.9R which actually costs less than the 9 arguably offered you more value the the OnePlus 9. So I was really looking forward to this years Nord series phone. Little over a month back, they launch the Nord CE which was again really disappointing, but finally the Nord 2 is here and it seems to be OnePlus’s best offering of this year so far.

They have even included more 5G bands in this Nord 2 than their entire flagship OnePlus 9 series phones combined. I don’t want this video to be too long, because I am working on a lot more videos about this Nord 2 and the POCO F3 GT. But before we get to the unboxing part, I am definitely going to ask the new viewers to hit the subscribe button and turn on all the notifications for the channel, so you don’t miss out when a new video goes live. I am trying to get the channel to 200K subscribers by the end of this year, and I need your help to get us there. Coming back to the OnePlus Nord 2.

This phone is available in 3 colours, Blue Haze which has a glossy glass back, Gray Sierra which has a frosted matte glass back, and the Green Woods colour which has a leather like finish and will only be available in India. This green colour isn’t available now, it will be coming sometime later next month. There are 3 RAM and storage options to choose from.6GB RAM and 128GB storage option is priced at Rs.27,999. But this isn’t available right now, it will go on sale in limited quantities at the end of next month. Just like last year, this variant is only there so OnePlus could say that they launched the Nord 2 at starting price of Rs.27,999. We know what OnePlus does, this base variant won’t be available for long, and the 8GB RAM and 128Gb storage variant which is available for Rs.29,999 should be considered as a base variant for this phone. There is also a 12GB RAM variant with 256GB of built in storage and it is being sold for Rs.34,999. I went with the Gray Sierra colour with 8GB Ram and 128GB of internal storage.

And this is the retail box that the Nord 2 comes in. This box is similar to Last year’s Nord’s box, but the Nord text now plays with light and changes colour when you look at it from various angles. The Teal accent is still there, which I think looks cool. The first thing that you see when you open the box is the phone itself. Let me keep it aside, while we look at other things in the box.

After the phone, we have this envelope which holds the SIM tray ejection tool, Quick Start guide, safety information, membership card to the Red cable club, and a few Nord stickers. Then there is a flexible TPU case, which looks similar to the one that we got with the original OnePlus Nord. Then there is the signature red usb type C cable for charging and data transfer. Now how cool would it be if like all the accents, OnePlus would make this Cable also in Teal colour. Hit the like button if you also want OnePlus to include a Teal cable with next Nord series phones.

Finally we have the 65 watt warp charger in the box, which chargers the battery inside this phone at an insanely fast speed. Those are all the things that we get in the box. Let me keep all this aside, so we can get back to the phone. Let me remove the plastic and the IMEI sticker from the back, so we can have a good look at the phone. It looks very similar to the OnePlus 9, it’s just a bit smaller.

One Plus could have very well called this a OnePlus 9 mini or something like that. The design is not new, but I am really liking this gray colour. This is a matte back, means it doesn't shine as much or gather as many fingerprints as the phones with glossy backs. It is not too big, so it fits comfortably in my hands. Although the frame is made of plastic, we do get gorilla glass 5 at the front and back, and that makes it feel premium in your hands.

At about 190grams, it is not exactly as light as some of the other phones that I have tried in recent times, but the weight is very well spread out across the whole body, so it doesn’t feel top or bottom heavy. I would like to use it without a case but if you want to add protection to your phone, the case that comes in the box, will provide good all round protection to the phone. It’s corners are raised, so the screen stays protected even if the phone falls flat on its face. It also comes with a screen protector pre-installed, but I don’t like how these gather scratches over time. So I am going to order a tempered glass one from OnePlus to use with it.

Taking a look around the phone, there is a power button on the right side, and the OnePlus signature alert slider above it. At the top there is just a noise cancelling microphone. On the left side there are volume up and down buttons and at the bottom, there is a speaker grill, USB type C port, a microphone and the SIM tray. This SIM tray can hold 2 nano SIM cards. At the back, other than the OnePlus Logo there is a triple camera setup and a flash.

At the front Nord 2 gets a 6.43 inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400x1080 pixels, and this display supports 90Hz refresh rate. With so many phones costing much less than the Nord 2, coming with 120Hz AMOLED displays, some people will be disappointed to hear about the 90Hz refresh rate display on this phone. Brightness levels seem to be really good in these indoor artificially lit lighting conditions, but I will have to use it outside and see how it holds up against the bright sun. This time OnePlus went the Mediatek way and has used their flagship Dimensity 1200 processor to power this phone. I haven’t used any phone with this processor yet, so I am exited to test its performance in day to day life.

As I mentioned towards the beginning it comes with 6,8 or 12 GB of LPDDR4X RAM and you have the option to choose between 128 or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There’s a 4500mAh dual cell battery inside which should be enough for most users, and thanks to the 65watt warp charger, it can charge really fast. So in terms of battery we are not only getting higher capacity compared to the original Nord but even the charging speed is over 2 times faster. This Nord 2 finally has more than 2 5G bands, so if you get this, you wont have to worry about 5G performance. On paper and in benchmarks this processor performs much better than the Snapdragon processor on last years OnePlus Nord.

I don’t rely too much on benchmark scores, so I will have more to say about its overall performance after using this phone for a few more days. Software wise, it is running on the latest version of Oxygen OS which is built on top of Android 11. Now this is my first time checking out a OnePlus phone after they have merged the OnePlus OS with Colour OS in the background. OnePlus said that all changes would be behind the curtains, but if you have used any OnePlus phone before this for even a short time, you can straight away tell that it is not the Oxygen OS that we know and love. The design elements are heavily borrowed from the Colour OS, and the biggest change could be found in the camera app.

It is is straight out of a Realme phone. I really wish OnePlus let Oxygen OS be as it is, after all many people went with OnePlus phones just because of that. I just hope they don’t change it too much going ahead. The good thing about the software experience is that, it is still clean and minimal to a large extent. And you also wont see nay heavy bloat ware out of the box.

Other than the Google apps, there are very few other apps like Netflix that are pre installed. Coming to the cameras. There is a triple camera setup at the back. The main camera gets a 50 megapixel Sony IMX 766 sensor, F/1.88 aperture and OIS. Now this is the same sensor that I really liked on the OnePlus 9 Pro.

This one was used on the 9 Pro’s wide camera, and I thought its details and colours were better than its main camera. Altough it is the same sensor, the lens elements in front of it is different, and the processor is also different so the image processing pipeline has also changes. So it will be interesting to see how well OnePlus has optimised this sensor with the mediatek processor. Next camera gets an 8 megapixel sensor, F/2.25 aperture and an ultra wide lens. And finally there is a 2 megapixel Monochrome camera with F/2.4 aperture. At the front, this time we get a single 32 megapixel camera with F/2.45 aperture. I am going to make a very detailed camera review of this OnePlus Nord 2, but this time I might take some time with it.

I will wait to get 1 or 2 software updates and give OnePlus some time to refine the cameras. I will also make a detailed camera comparison with the POCO F3 GT and the Mi 11X, so make sure you have the notifications for the channel turned on. Now in conclusion, my first impressions about this phone are a bit mixed. The design is nothing out of the ordinary, but I really like this colour and the matte finish to the back. It fits well in my hands, but it definitely feels a bit on the heavier side, specially if you are using it with a case.

I feel the fingerprint sensor is a tad slower, and it is again placed a bit too low on the phone. I cant say much about the performance or the battery life because I haven’t used it for long enough. And software wise, I am a bit disappointed to see OnePlus move away from their clean UI and more towards colour OS. The biggest disappointment yet has to be the whole UI of the Camera app. I am happy to see the battery capacity going up and warp charging speeds are always a good thing to have on your phone.

Finally there is a OnePlus phone which I am somewhat satisfied with that came out this year. Well these are my initial thoughts, and they might change as I use this phone for a longer time. So make sure to stick around the channel to hear my final thoughts about this phone in its full review which will come after a few weeks. That is pretty much it for this unboxing and initial impressions video. I will use this phone and put it through rigorous testing, so I can tell you guys more about its performance, battery life and cameras.

If you guys want to know anything more about this phone, or if you want me to make any specific video about it, then let me know in the comments. That is it for this quick unboxing and initial impressions video for now. Please hit the like button if you enjoyed this video, and subscribe to the channel for more quality tech videos like this. You can also check out some of the other videos from this channel. This has been Sagar, and I’ll catch you guys in the next video.

Take care.

Source : TecworkZ