OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite hands-on review

Design

As with previous Nord CE Lite phones, the design of the OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite follows similar themes as the more expensive model, in this case, the Nord CE4.

Like the Nord CE4, the Nord CE4 Lite has a pill-shaped arrangement for the cameras and flash on the back. But one cool design trick here is that even though it might look like a separate raised piece from some angles, the area surrounding the camera is flush with the back and just a pattern within the plastic panel. It even has a reflective pattern to it that is different from the rest of the back along with a fake chamfered edge.

Speaking of the back, our review unit came in the Mega Blue shade that is said to be inspired by Mega Man. OnePlus also pointed out that this is the most vibrant shade ever seen on a OnePlus device. We'd go one step further and say this is probably the most vibrant shade of blue we have ever seen on any phone. It's hard to capture or describe the sheer electric nature of this color and how striking it can be in any lighting conditions. As a bonus, the back panel is also very good at repelling fingerprints and smudges so you don't have to clean it all the time.

Despite using plastics for the frame and the back, the Nord CE4 Lite feels well-built and put together in hand. It's also rated for IP54 dust and water resistance, which isn't great but better than nothing. The issue with the design is the awkwardly large size along with the boxy shape, which feels ungainly even with relatively larger hands. It's not a particularly comfortable phone to hold and carry around and even things like the power and volume buttons are placed too high for such a large phone, which also adds to the cumbersome ergonomics of the device.

And since we are on the topic of buttons, it's worth mentioning that once again OnePlus has launched a phone without its signature alert slider.

Display

The Nord CE4 Lite has a 6.67-inch, 2400 x 1800 resolution, 120Hz AMOLED display. This is the first Nord CE Lite phone with an AMOLED display, which means aside from outgoing models there are no more LCD models in the OnePlus lineup.

The display on the Nord CE4 Lite claims to support up to 1200 nits in high brightness mode outdoors and up to 2100 nits peak brightness. It's not clear how the peak brightness figure is achieved as there is no HDR support on this phone.

The new AMOLED display is a notable improvement over the previous generation's IPS LCD panel, with better contrast, viewing angles, and motion performance. It's also significantly brighter and much easier to see outdoors.

The color performance of the display is decent. You can pick between Natural and Vivid modes, with the former being clamped to sRGB color space and the latter to Display P3. Unfortunately, OnePlus rarely does full factory calibration for its Nord phones, so once again the default white point for both modes is a bit too cool. What's worse, is that preset warm and cool options barely make a difference and even the color wheel only makes a minor change.

Still, the overall image quality of the display is good and it's a shame OnePlus opted not to implement HDR functionality.

The display supports 60Hz and 120Hz refresh rates. Unlike with the previous generation model, there are no refresh rate shenanigans here. You can just manually set every app to either 60Hz or 120Hz and it will stick to it. This excludes games as even when set to 120Hz they still run at 60Hz.

The Nord CE4 Lite supports OnePlus's Aqua Touch feature, which allows the touchscreen to be usable even when it is wet.

Finally, the display includes an optical fingerprint sensor. The sensor on this phone is a bit slow and you're better off also enabling face unlock for faster screen unlocks.

Battery and charging

The Nord CE4 Lite ships with either a 5500mAh battery (in India) or a 5110mAh battery (internationally). OnePlus boldly claims that this phone has the longest battery life in the company's history and we are inclined to believe it knowing Snapdragon 695 is one of the most frugal chipets out there.

While we are not doing a complete battery life test in this hands-on, our Indian-spec review unit phone did just seem to go on forever, with two days of usage being a given.

For charging, the Nord CE4 Lite supports the company's 80W SUPERVOOC fast charger, which comes in the box in India but has to be purchased separately in all other markets. You could also use any USB-PD charger but the charging power will be limited to 55W.

With the provided 80W charger, OnePlus claims a 1% to 100% time of 52 minutes but in our tests, it took around 58 minutes. Either way, the number is on the higher side compared to the competition suggesting the charger isn't pulling 80W from the wall for more than a few minutes.

The phone features a smart charging mode, which automatically adjusts charging patterns based on your charging habits. There is also a charging limit feature, which stops the charging when the battery reaches 80%.

The phone also supports 5W reverse wired charging through USB so if you have an accessory or another phone then you can charge it if you have a USB cable with Type-C connector on both ends. However, this means you can't use the cable that comes with the phone as it has a USB-C connector on one end.

Speakers

The Nord CE4 Lite has a pair of stereo speakers in the earpiece and at the bottom of the phone. The speakers can get loud but sound fairly tinny throughout the volume range. Also, past about 60%, the sound gets muddled and somewhat incoherent, so it's best to stick below that level.

The good thing is that the phone comes with a headphone jack, which sounds perfectly fine so if you are still holding on to your precious wired earbuds (as you should) then you would definitely appreciate OnePlus keeping this feature around. If nothing else, the Nord CE4 Lite makes a great media device with its large AMOLED display, long battery life, and headphone jack.