OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite 5G hands-on review

Display

The Nord CE 2 Lite 5G has a 6.59-inch, 120Hz 2412x1080 resolution LCD. The display has full coverage of sRGB and Display-P3 color spaces.

Through the display settings, OnePlus lets the user pick between the Vivid (Display P3) and Natural (sRGB) presets. You can also manually adjust the white point with a slider.

Display settings

While we didn't do any official color testing, it was clear that the default white point was too cool and did not adhere to any particular color standard. Using the slider to make the display warmer also didn't work, as even the warmest setting was still too cool to reach 6500K. Therefore, it's basically impossible to get perfectly accurate colors on the phone using the available options.

The device has some HDR capability. While you cannot play HDR content in apps like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, we were able to transfer some HDR10 files and play them locally on the device. Given the limited nature of the LCD panel, the HDR videos looked pretty much like SDR, so we don't think the lack of HDR support in streaming apps is a big loss.

As for the refresh rate, OnePlus has a rather loose definition of what it considers 120Hz. Sure, the panel can go up to 120Hz and it can even maintain that in many apps. However, most of the apps we used caused the display to permanently switch to 90Hz while the app was open.

This included popular apps like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Telegram, Gmail, Spotify, YouTube, and even the default Google Messages and Phone apps. As long as you are in the app, the display will stay at 90Hz.

Things get even worse with some other apps, which are only limited to 60Hz. This includes basically every browser except Chrome (which runs at 120Hz), Google Photos, Maps, and Amazon Prime Video.

Oddly enough, some other apps worked just fine at the full 120Hz. This included Netflix, Apple Music, Flamingo, and every other app that comes pre-installed. It's basically a game of roulette every time you install an app because you have no idea what frame rate it would run at.

The only good thing about all of this is that unlike other OxygenOS 12.1 phones we have seen so far, the Nord CE 2 Lite 5G does not fluctuate its refresh rate within an app as you use it. It sets the refresh rate as soon as the app launches and sticks to it. This means scrolling through apps like Instagram was actually smoother on this phone than it is on the OnePlus 10 Pro, which, as we have covered in a dedicated article, has major issues with its display refresh rate.

Another good thing about the Nord CE 2 Lite 5G display is that it also supports 48Hz and 50Hz refresh rates. The display will then identify when you are playing 24fps or 25fps video content and automatically change its refresh rate to match it, so you get consistent and correct frame pacing. Funnily enough, this is the only OnePlus phone to have this feature and it's the cheapest one they make.

The implementation is a bit iffy because it doesn't change the refresh rate right away and may occasionally snap out of it and set itself incorrectly to 60Hz but most of the time it works. We tried it with YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video and it worked in all of them.

Finally, the display has good viewing angles and a decent contrast ratio for an LCD panel. The brightness is usually adequate but can get washed out under very bright sunlight.

Overall, the actual display on the Nord CE 2 Lite 5G is perfectly adequate for the price. However, OnePlus has once again messed up the refresh rate algorithm on its phone, which results in a subpar experience.

Battery

The Nord CE 2 Lite 5G has a 5000mAh battery. While we didn't do any official battery life testing, the phone would easily last over a day in our testing.

The phone supports 33W SuperVOOC fast charging and comes with the respective charger in the box. In our testing, the phone took 75 minutes to charge from 1%-100%, with the phone charging exactly 50% in the first 30 minutes and 20% in the first 10 minutes. It's obviously not the fastest charger on the market or in its own segment but we think it's adequately quick.

Audio

The Nord CE 2 Lite 5G has a single loudspeaker on the bottom of the phone. The speaker does not sound very good with a thin, reedy sound that also has audible distortion in it upwards of 70% volume.

The phone also has a headphone jack. The audio quality through the jack is good but there isn't a lot of power coming out of it. This leaves out most big headphones and even with some IEMs we were approaching close to 80% volume. Still, it's a good thing to have and something we have come to sorely miss on basically every other phone these days.

Unlike more expensive OnePlus phones, the Nord CE 2 Lite 5G does not get Dolby Atmos. Instead, it has Real HD Sound by Dirac. It has similar presets for video, audio, and gaming content as Dolby Atmos and can work for both loudspeakers and wired/wireless audio.

However, even though there is no official Dolby Atmos software processing feature, we were able to playback video files with AC3 and Dolby TrueHD codec, meaning the device still had the codecs installed.