The OnePlus Nord 4 blends modern flair with a touch of nostalgia. Its metallic body brings back memories of metal phones from back in the day but its hardware hasn’t been compromised to achieve the same. The phone is powerful enough to play most mobile games with zero lag which makes it a worthy competitor of the POCO F6 and Realme GT 6T, and it also has enough substance to stand out in terms of the display and battery life. There are a few shortcomings though. The phone throttles in benchmarks but I didn’t see an adverse effect on day-to-day usage, but the mediocre ultrawide camera and lack of HDR support on a few streaming apps are troublesome.
The OnePlus Nord portfolio receives its annual refresh with the launch of the new OnePlus Nord 4, bringing a touch of nostalgia. Tugging at the heartstrings of OG tech lovers, the OnePlus Nord 4 boasts an all-metal unibody design that harks back to fan-favourite smartphones of the past, such as the beloved HTC One M8 and OnePlus’ own OnePlus 3T. Metal back phones fell out of favour because ensuring that the antennae required for faster 5G connectivity weren’t blocked is significantly harder. However, OnePlus has addressed this challenge with the Nord 4, bringing all-metal phones back into the present-day 5G era. So, we no longer have to look back on them fondly; they are now a reality.
Under its metallic exterior is a phone with solid hardware, packing high-end specifications like the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chipset, a 1.5 K AMOLED screen, a large 5,500 mAh battery, and much more. However, the competition in this price segment is cutthroat, with phones like the Realme GT 6T, POCO F6, and Motorola Edge 50 Pro, all vying for the top spot too. Let’s see how this metallic marvel fares against these phones in our detailed review.
OnePlus Nord 4 Review: Build and Design
Available in three unique colour variants, the OnePlus Nord 4 looks sublime across the board. I got the Mercurial Silver colour variant for review. There’s a subtle Obsidian Midnight (Black) colour, and what I assume would be a crowd favourite, an Oasis Green dual-tone colour variant. The Mercurial Silver colour variant I got is a looker as well with its sheet metal look. The lower two-thirds of the rear panel looks textured but it’s actually smooth to the touch, adding to the appeal.
A single metal sheet runs across the back and the frame of the phone, offering a seamless look. However, a thin sheet of glass is placed on the upper third of the phone’s rear panel, breaking up the monotony. Within this sheet of glass, you’ve got two cameras placed horizontally (much like Pixel phones) and a dual LED flash.
The OnePlus Nord 4 also features the iconic alert slider on the left side of the frame, which is extremely satisfying to use. The buttons are nice and tactile, and the in-display fingerprint sensor is accurate and fast. There are other niceties too such as an IR blaster and a dual stereo speaker setup. The phone is rated IP65, meaning it is fully dustproof and can withstand splashes of water without being damaged.
The in-hand feel of the phone is premium, albeit slightly slippery due to the smooth metal texture. Its contours curve perfectly against your palm which makes it very comfortable to hold over longer periods. All in all, this is a svelte, classy design, one that OnePlus should continue using, maybe even on its flagship phones.
OnePlus Nord 4 Review: Display
The OnePlus Nord 4 features an expansive 6.74-inch flat AMOLED ProXDR display with 1.5K resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The bezels surrounding the screen are super slim, and nearly even all the way around. The display also supports HDR10+ and Widevine L1; however, HDR support hasn’t made its way over to Netflix and Prime Video so far, which is disappointing. The ProXDR AMOLED display is sharp and vivid, making the Nord 4 an excellent companion for content consumption. The colours are also very close to accurate right out of the box.
The screen is very bright too. It boasts a peak brightness of 2,150 nits that’s only applicable on some portions of the display when viewing HDR content. In HBM, we got a reading of 1,081 nits under bright sunlight, which should be more than enough for perfect legibility even on the sunniest days. Overall, this display is competent enough to go up against its competitors, but the Motorola Edge 50 Pro’s display could look a tad more colour-accurate.
How’s the performance and UI?
Powered by the zippy Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 processor, the OnePlus Nord 4 impresses with its performance chops. The day-to-day usage experience is excellent with smooth animations and speedy operations, with apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Google Maps, and others working flawlessly.
The phone is kitted with 8 or 12 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 128 or 256 GB internal storage. The 128 GB variant supports UFS 3.1 while the more expensive 256 GB unit supports the latest UFS 4.0. The segmentation irks me, and I think OnePlus shouldn’t have launched a 128 GB variant at this price at all; it is too low for users’ growing storage needs. However, multitasking and data transfer speeds were fantastic on my 12 + 256 GB unit.
Now, while the phone performs very well in real-world usage, its benchmark scores indicate some intentional throttling. As an example, the Realme GT 6T with the same chipset scores higher in nearly every CPU performance benchmark. The CPU Throttling Test shows that the phone throttles to 77 percent of its peak performance after 15 minutes of running the test. In contrast, the Realme GT 6T throttled to 80 percent, but the disparity between the benchmark scores is higher than this one.
In GPU benchmarks, the OnePlus Nord 4 does a good job, often surpassing the Realme GT 6T scores, but the POCO F6 still remains firmly in first place. The overall benchmark performance of the OnePlus Nord 4 lags behind the POCO F6 and Realme GT 6T but it manages to beat the Motorola Edge 50 Pro with ease.
Gaming is a smooth affair too. OnePlus has fitted the device with a large vapour chamber for cooling, which ensures the frame rates in games such as BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile remain stable. I didn’t feel the device heat too much even when I pushed it to the highest graphics allowed on these games.
As for the UI, the OnePlus Nord 4 comes with ColorOS OxygenOS 14.1 which sits on top of Android 14. The phone offers OnePlus’ longest-ever software support package – four years of OS updates and six years of security updates, which is a rarity at this price. It has also bagged the TÜV SÜD Fluency 72 Month A rating, which certifies that the phone won’t slow down or stutter for 72 months. The OS does have some bloatware in the form of a few games, some third-party apps, and OnePlus apps, but it is on the lower side, which is much appreciated.
AI Features and Digit AI-Q Score
The OnePlus Nord 4 has an array of AI features; however, some were not available for me to test as I used the device before launch. OnePlus’ Trinity Engine leverages AI to ensure smooth operations on the phone. There are also some useful AI features such as AI Audio Summary, AI Note Summary, AI Text Translate, AI Linkboost (for boosting the mobile network), AI Magic Eraser, Auto Pixellate, and more.
As I mentioned, not all of these were available for me to test, but the ones I did test such as AI Magic Eraser, Auto Pixellate, and others worked fine. I also tested the phone’s AI hardware capabilities by running a slew of benchmarks, and the phone got a total Digit AI-Q score of 33/100 which beats its competitors such as the Realme GT 6T and Motorola Edge 50 Pro.
OnePlus Nord 4 Review: Camera
The OnePlus Nord 4 boasts a 50 MP Sony LYT-600 primary camera with OIS support and an f/1.8 aperture. There’s a secondary 8 MP ultrawide shooter and a 16 MP selfie camera. While the setup stands up to the one on the Realme GT 6T, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro’s triple camera setup has an added telephoto lens which ups its appeal for photography enthusiasts.
Now, due to the heavy rains in Mumbai during my testing period, I couldn’t click as many camera samples on this phone as I usually do, but I will update this review when I have a few more to show off. Initial impressions of the primary camera are pretty positive though. The primary camera’s dynamic range is strong with good detail retention and decent colour accuracy. Low-light photos are also packed with detail thanks to OnePlus’ Night Mode algorithm.
However, the 8 MP ultrawide camera photos lack detail in the shadows and the corners of these photos are a bit noisy. Portrait photos come out looking decent, but skin tones and edge detection could be improved further.
The phone supports 4K video recording at up to 60 fps on the rear camera. Videos come out looking good but stabilization could be better when shooting active scenes. The front camera only supports 1080p video at 30 fps, which is substandard as both the Realme GT 6T and Motorola Edge 50 Pro support 4K at 30 fps video from the selfie camera.
OnePlus Nord 4 Review: Battery Life
Sporting a monstrous 5,500 mAh battery, the OnePlus Nord 4’s endurance is very impressive. The phone easily gives me a screen-on time of 11-12 hours on days with light usage, and 8-9 hours on days with lots of gaming mixed in. The phone is tested to survive 1,600 charging cycles with 80 percent battery health, as per OnePlus’ claims. While this is not tested by us, the claim does give users an added assurance of battery longevity.
In our tests, the OnePlus Nord 4 lasted over 15 hours in our standard 4K video loop test on VLC, which is brilliant. The phone lost 7 percent battery (58%-51%) running Google Maps for an hour, and 5 percent battery (42%-37%) when I played Call of Duty: Mobile for 15 minutes. Charging speeds are super fast too with the 100 W SUPERVOOC charging support. The device charged to full from an empty battery in just 29 minutes.
Should you buy the OnePlus Nord 4?
The OnePlus Nord 4 blends modern flair with a touch of nostalgia. Its metallic body brings back memories of metal phones from back in the day but its hardware hasn’t been compromised to achieve the same. The phone is powerful enough to play most mobile games with zero lag which makes it a worthy competitor of the POCO F6 and Realme GT 6T, and it also has enough substance to stand out in terms of the display and battery life. There are a few shortcomings though. The phone throttles in benchmarks but I didn’t see an adverse effect on day-to-day usage, but the mediocre ultrawide camera and lack of HDR support on a few streaming apps are troublesome. Overall though, I think OnePlus has knocked it out of the park with the OnePlus Nord 4 – the metallic design stands out, the colour variants are gorgeous, and the performance is more than satisfactory.
OnePlus Nord 4 Key Specs, Price and Launch Date
| Release Date: | 16 Jul, 2024 |
| Market Status: | Launched |
Key Specifications
Storage
256 GB
-
Battery capacity (mAh)
5500
-
Rear Camera Megapixel
50 + 12 + 5
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Screen size (in inches)
6.7
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Dhriti Datta
Perpetually sporting a death stare, this one can be seen tinkering around with her smartphone which she holds more dear than life itself and stuffing her face with copious amounts of bacon. View Full Profile
