OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G hands-on review

Software

The OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G runs on OxygenOS 11.3 running on top of Android 11. It's disappointing that four months after the public release and ten months after the initial beta release of Android 12, OnePlus is still launching new phones with Android 11.

As much as we prefer facts over conspiracy theories here, it's easy to see why the company would choose to launch phones this way. The Nord CE 2 5G will be getting two major Android updates over its lifetime. This means it will be getting Android 12 and eventually Android 13. You can see how launching with Android 11 means the company now has to bother with one less Android version in the future. Had it launched with Android 12, OnePlus would be forced to commit to providing Android 13 and then Android 14 as part of its two update promise.

Of course, OnePlus is far from the only company who does this and it's a systematic problem with the Android ecosystem.

Moving on, the version of OxygenOS on the Nord CE 2 5G is identical to the one found on the Nord 2 and the OnePlus 9RT. It is a stop-gap solution between the OnePlus developed OxygenOS 11 and the Oppo-fied OxygenOS 12. OxygenOS 11.3 has ColorOS codebase underneath but visually still looks a lot like OxygenOS 11.

OxygenOS 11.3

Most of this applies to aspects such as the launcher, which is still the same as the one found in older versions of OxygenOS 11. It should be familiar to anyone used to OnePlus phones and is simply designed with a good number of features, including applying custom icon packs.

Other aspects of the UI, such as the notifications, shortcut toggles, multitasking UI, always-on display modes, and some of the custom apps are also from older versions of OxygenOS. They all look reasonably clean and simple but are starting to get long in the tooth.

The places where you'd notice the ColorOS influence is in things like the Settings app, which is a mishmash of old OxygenOS UI and ColorOS elements. Then things like the Camera app are taken straight out of Oppo phones. For the most part, the combination is not jarring and it still mostly feels like using a OnePlus phone, unlike OxygenOS 12, which feels entirely like ColorOS.

Settings app

Our review unit had a smörgåsbord of pre-installed apps, most from Google but with some from OnePlus and then a few third-party apps such as Netflix and Spotify. The good thing is that OnePlus allows uninstalling almost all of these. We just wish there was an option to delete multiple apps at once like in MIUI, instead of just one at a time.

Not everything can be uninstalled, however. The OnePlus Red Cable Club takes up a prime spot inside the settings app and inundates you with offers every time you open the app. OnePlus also think you need three file managers for some reason and doesn't let you uninstall any of them.

Other features like the company's cloud backup service, international roaming service, Nearby Charging Stations service, etc. can also not be removed and will occasionally bother you with notifications. The Oppo-fied version of OxygenOS also has a lot more system-level notifications than before and constantly keeps bothering you with tips and suggestions.

OxygenOS features

OnePlus' gesture navigation continues to be awful. While on other Android phones you need to do a deliberate swipe gesture from the right edge to go back, on OnePlus phones any sort of movement around the right edge is considered as a signal to go back. It is so frustrating when all you're doing is scrolling through a webpage or your Instagram feed with your right thumb and the phone just launches you back to the previous page or the homescreen because it is too dumb to tell the difference between a side swipe gesture and vertical scrolling. Every other manufacturer seems to have figured this out but OnePlus continues to make our life difficult.

There were minor bugs here and there on our review unit running the A.09 build but nothing particularly notable. We expect most of them to be ironed out in the day one update.

We did find one peculiarity with media playback, and that was with the AV1 decoding. Running a MediaTek Dimensity 900 chipset, the Nord CE 2 5G is capable of decoding AV1 in hardware. Yet, neither YouTube nor the Netflix app were able to detect the AV1 codec. Even when we checked through the DRM Info app, we couldn't see any mention of AV1 decoding. Yet, when we played an AV1 file in the Gallery, it played just fine. We are not sure if this is intentional or a bug.

Interestingly, the phone does support LHDC Bluetooth codec, even though OnePlus had previously said that Nord phones won't be supporting it. The company does not advertise it for some reason but we were able to verify its presence during our testing.

Performance

The OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 900 chipset. It features an octa-core CPU design with 2x Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.4GHz and 6x Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.0GHz, along with Mali-G68 GPU. On the memory side, OnePlus has opted for the slower LPDDR4X with a choice of 6GB or 8GB and UFS 2.2 storage with just 128GB as standard. You can expand the storage further using microSD cards.

The Dimensity 900 offers respectable performance in every day usage. Opening and scrolling through apps was mostly a fast and smooth experience. Multi-tasking was also not a problem, as even the base model comes with a decent amount of system memory.

Like the other Oppo-fied OnePlus phones, the Nord CE 2 5G includes a performance mode in the battery settings. This sets the A55 cores to their maximum 2.0GHz clock speed and the A78 cores can swing between their maximum clock speed of 2.4GHz to a new minimum of 1.8GHz. Preventing the cores from clocking down during downtime can help improve responsiveness in some cases as the time to ramp up to full clock speed is essentially zero since the cores are always operating at max or high speed.

High performance mode off • High performance mode on

However, while we didn't feel any real improvement to real world performance from this feature, there is a very real impact on battery life from having the cores running at high clocks all the time. As such, we think it's mostly a pointless feature as any good CPU scheduler should already have the CPU clocks where they need to be without significant delay without destroying your battery life. However, OnePlus is known to have a very conservative CPU scheduler to save battery, so maybe in some fringe cases there could be an advantage to having this feature enabled.

Moving on to GPU performance and gaming, the Mali-G68 does okay here. Most of the popular titles do have good performance and outside of more demanding games like Genshin Impact, we weren't really left wanting for additional GPU performance.

As is usual for all OnePlus phones, the Nord CE 2 5G is incapable of running most games above 60Hz. Except for a handful of whitelisted titles, almost every popular game you'd be running on the Nord CE 2 5G can only run up to 60Hz, and not the 90Hz limit of the display. We have brought this up many times with the company in the past and they simply have no interest in changing this aspect of their phones.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord 2
  2792
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  2621
• Poco X3 Pro
  2574
• Realme 9 Pro+
  2335
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  2157
• Realme 9 Pro
  2020
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  1848
• Realme 8s 5G
  1842
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  1812
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  1797
• Realme 8 5G
  1784
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  1696
• Realme 8 Pro
  1678
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  1673
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1277

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord 2
  814
• Realme 9 Pro+
  814
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  813
• Poco X3 Pro
  735
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  728
• Realme 9 Pro
  694
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  641
• Realme 8s 5G
  616
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  608
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  597
• Realme 8 5G
  569
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Realme 8 Pro
  566
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  543
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  505
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  361

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord 2
  598022
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  436640
• Realme 9 Pro+
  416031
• Realme 9 Pro
  401894
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  391770
• Realme 8s 5G
  383409
• Realme 8 5G
  361505
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  353663
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  302859
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  222125

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord 2
  30
• Poco X3 Pro
  26
• Realme 9 Pro+
  17
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  15
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  11
• Realme 9 Pro
  11
• Realme 8 Pro
  11
• Realme 8s 5G
  9.7
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  9.7
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  5.7
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  5

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord 2
  21
• Poco X3 Pro
  17
• Realme 9 Pro+
  11
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  10
• Realme 9 Pro
  7.8
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  7.5
• Realme 8 Pro
  7
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  6.4
• Realme 8s 5G
  6.2
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  5.8
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  3.3

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  27
• OnePlus Nord 2
  26
• Realme 9 Pro+
  16
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  14
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  13
• Realme 9 Pro
  12
• Realme 8 Pro
  11
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  10
• Realme 8s 5G
  8.9
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  8.7
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  4.4

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord 2
  20
• Poco X3 Pro
  18
• Realme 9 Pro+
  10
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  9.4
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  8.8
• Realme 9 Pro
  8.2
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  7.6
• Realme 8 Pro
  7.2
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  6.7
• Realme 8s 5G
  5.8
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  2.9

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  42
• OnePlus Nord 2
  38
• Poco X3 Pro
  38
• Realme 9 Pro+
  27
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  19
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  17
• Realme 9 Pro
  16
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  16
• Realme 8 Pro
  16
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  15
• Realme 8s 5G
  14
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  13
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  13
• Realme 8 5G
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  8.1

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  48
• OnePlus Nord 2
  46
• Poco X3 Pro
  45
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  24
• Realme 9 Pro+
  23
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  19
• Realme 9 Pro
  19
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  19
• Realme 8 Pro
  18
• Realme 8s 5G
  16
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  16
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  16
• Realme 8 5G
  15
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  9.3

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  67
• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  61
• OnePlus Nord 2
  57
• Realme 9 Pro+
  41
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  35
• Realme 8 Pro
  31
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  30
• Realme 9 Pro
  29
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  26
• Realme 8s 5G
  24
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  23
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  23
• Realme 8 5G
  22
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  13

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  81
• OnePlus Nord 2
  75
• Poco X3 Pro
  75
• Realme 9 Pro+
  45
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  40
• Realme 9 Pro
  35
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  34
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  29
• Realme 8 Pro
  28
• Realme 8s 5G
  27
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  26
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  26
• Realme 8 5G
  25
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  15

3DMark SSE ES 3.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  3722
• Realme 9 Pro
  2946
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  2801
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  2638
• Realme 8s 5G
  2567
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  2453
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2166
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1323

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  3661
• Realme 9 Pro
  2773
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  2617
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  2509
• Realme 8s 5G
  2439
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  2290
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2012
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1371

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Oppo Reno6 Pro 5G
  4236
• OnePlus Nord 2
  4224
• Poco X3 Pro
  3401
• Realme 9 Pro+
  2296
• OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G
  2036
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  1232
• Realme 8s 5G
  1231
• Realme 9 Pro
  1211
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  1185
• Realme 8 5G
  1104
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  1103
• Realme 8 Pro
  1051
• Motorola Moto G51 5G
  970
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  811
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  686

The Dimensity 900 has somewhat weak media playback abilities. The chip is capable of encoding and decoding 4K video but only up to 30fps. Even then, some 30fps 4K clips did stutter on playback. 60fps 4K YouTube clips were out of the question and the best you can do is 1440p.

Since we are on the topic of media playback, the Nord CE 2 5G does have a headphone jack, which is a convenient thing to have, especially for some of us who still buy and prefer wired IEMs and headphones.

However, what the phone gains in terms of headphone audio, it loses in terms of speakers. The Nord CE 2 5G has just a single loudspeaker on the bottom of the phone, which, after getting used to so many stereo speaker enabled phones on the market today, felt very lopsided and distracting. While there's no issue while watching TikTok or Instagram videos in portrait mode, watching YouTube videos in landscape just feels jarring now with the sound coming out from just one side of the phone. This is one of those areas where we think OnePlus should not have cut corners.