OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G hands-on review

Camera

The OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G has a triple camera system on the back consisting of a 64MP f1.7 primary camera, 8MP f2.2 ultra-wide camera, and 2MP f2.4 macro camera. There is also a single 16MP f2.4 camera on the front. The front camera is the only major hardware difference between the Nord CE 2 5G and the Oppo Reno7 5G, as the latter has a 32MP front camera.

The camera application is carried over from Oppo phones running ColorOS. We find this app a bit less convenient to use compared to the older OnePlus camera app; the latter had a convenient slide up drawer for camera modes whereas the Oppo app buries additional modes inside the More option at the end of the sliding list, which is harder and more inconvenient to get to.

Aside from that, the app is mostly full-featured, with all sorts of features, such as a night mode, portrait mode for photos and videos, an AI image enhancement mode for photos and videos, beautification mode for portraits, a dual-view video mode that can capture the front and rear camera feed at the same time, a text scanner mode, and Expert mode.

Camera UI

The Expert mode is as you'd expect for the most part, featuring manual controls for exposure, white balance, shutter speed, ISO, and focus. However, in a rather inexplicable twist, there is no RAW capture mode available, meaning you can only ever capture compressed JPEG images in this app.

Before heading on to image quality, we'd like to point out that capturing images and especially video outdoors under the sun can cause the phone to overheat quite easily. This is usually followed by aggressive dimming of the display, to the point where it's nearly impossible to see the contents of the screen. The strange part is that the phone doesn't even seem particularly warm to the touch but it still struggles to function. On a few occasions, the phone got so hot, it started speaking Chinese.

Now for the image quality, let's start with the main camera. In daylight, the 64MP camera captures surprisingly good quality images. The images are well-exposed with really good color accuracy. Detail and resolution is also impressive for a 16MP image, although there is some oversharpening present.

Main camera samples

The issues with the image are primarily regarding contrast and dynamic range. OnePlus has a tendency to crush shadow detail to produce more contrasty images but it's not the best practice if you want maximum dynamic range out of your images. Unfortunately, there is no RAW capture, so we can't even see what the sensor is actually capable of.

Since there are no telephoto lenses on the phone, all zooming is done digitally. The 2x toggle in the camera app produces pretty good results, which stand up to scrutiny. Zooming in further, however, reduces image quality significantly.

1x vs 2x digital zoom

The phone provides an option to shoot in the full 64MP resolution. However, this turned out to be fake 64MP, as the images are simply upscaled from the 16MP images and thus don't offer any additional detail. There is also a 108MP mode, which is even more bogus.

16MP • 64MP • 108MP

Moving on to the ultra-wide camera, we appreciate the significantly wider field of view that is on offer here. However, image quality is mediocre at best, with less than satisfactory detail and resolution from the measly 8MP sensor.

Ultra-wide camera samples

Color accuracy from this camera is usually good but when it misses it misses by a wide margin. Weirdly enough, dynamic range is often better on the ultra-wide, as there is less of the shadow crushing that we see on the main camera.

Lastly, there is the 2MP macro camera. There is no resolution or detail to speak of and the color accuracy is poor. There is no autofocus, so you have to physically move in close to the subject, which not only casts a shadow on the subject from the phone but also distorts the subject since this is essentially a wide-angle lens shooting from a close distance.

Macro camera samples

These low quality macro cameras have become a staple of OnePlus mid-range smartphones and we see little point in having these around other than inflating the spec sheet. If you have to capture something from a close distance, perhaps the fine print on a packaging that would otherwise be unreadable, then we would begrudgingly recommend giving the camera a shot if you are not getting the results you want from the main camera. Otherwise, you are better off pretending there is no macro camera on your phone.

Before talking about the video, we quickly want to mention the AI mode for stills capture. The AI mode in this camera app isn't very good as it's often slow to recognize the scene and most of the time just gives up trying. More often than not, it just applies a generic saturation boost, which may or may not improve the image or even be noticeable. It also has a tendency to apply skin smoothening if it detects faces in the frame, even if you have the beauty mode turned off. We recommend keeping it off.

The Nord CE 2 5G can record up to 4K video at 30fps. You can also record 1080p and 720p video in 30fps and 60fps. There is an AI mode for video, which can only record in 1080p 30fps. The portrait mode for video can only record in 720p at 30fps. There is also an ultra-steady mode, which only records in 1080p at 30fps. All of this applies to the main 64MP wide camera; if you're using the ultra-wide camera there's just one option available, which is 1080p 30fps.

The 4K video from the main camera is nearly unusable. The image quality is fine, but there is absolutely no stabilization. The resulting footage is incredibly shaky, even if you do your best job of impersonating a tripod. Unless you are using an actual tripod, there is no point shooting in 4K on this phone.

The 4K footage also has another issue, which is incorrect color space usage. For whatever reason, the 4K video from this phone is saved in BT.2020 color space, which is often only used for HDR video, except in this case the video is still SDR. These videos somehow look fine on the phone itself but viewing it on other devices will cause the colors to look either oversaturated or completely off. Even on YouTube, where they get converted to BT.709, the videos still look oversaturated.

Next is the 1080p 30fps video, which is significantly better. Not only is it stable thanks to EIS but is also saved in standard BT.709 color space, so it looks just fine on any device. The image quality itself is not as good as the 4K video as there's just not enough resolution, even before you upload it to YouTube or social media where it will degrade further. But compared to the shakycam 4K footage, at least the 1080p video is usable.

Unfortunately, the 1080p 60fps video from the main camera as well as the 1080p 30fps video from the ultra-wide camera suffer from the same lack of stabilization as the 4K video, and are thus mostly unusable if you don't use a tripod or gimbal.

The phone does offer an ultra-steady mode, which is shot on the main camera at 1080p 60fps only. It is more stable than the standard 1080p 30fps video but crops in even further, making the image look worse. We think the standard 1080p 30fps mode should be fine for most use cases.