Hi everyone, I’ve been curious about the Nord series for a while so I got my hands on the Nord N20 5G, Unlocked US Variant, for a short bit. Here are my personal thoughts.
Price: When it comes to smartphones, you definitely get what you pay for. With the N20 currently being listed for just under $250, on certain sites, it’s a decent budget smartphone, if you can get by with some of its quirks.
Design: While this is an out of the ordinary design for OnePlus, I actually liked it and enjoyed the lighter, flatter, build materials.
Ram/Storage: At 6/128, it was plenty for me, no complaints here. It was nice to see a budget phone with more than 64gb.
Battery/Charging: While the phone does sport a 33w quick charge and 4500mah battery, it does drain a bit fast on minimal use. The device may result in multiple charges throughout the day if used more often.
Display: AMOLED, 1080*2400 (FHD+). I didn’t notice any issues with the color and brightness of the display, however there have been reports of it being a bit harder to see in direct sunlight.
60Hz Refresh Rate. Going from a 120Hz on a previous device, I did notice a bit of a difference but nothing that would be a deal breaker when looking into a budget phone.
Fingerprint is located under the display, just the way I like. No issues encountered with the sensor reading my finger. I also went ahead and set up facial recognition, while it’s not a feature I usually use, it worked fine.
Camera:
- Rear - Megapixels: 64
- Macro Lens - Megapixels: 2
- Monochrome Lens - Megapixels: 2
- Front Camera - Megapixels: 16
I didn’t get to spend too much time with camera but what little time I did, it took “just ok” photos. A lot of the reviews through out the internet will agree with me here. The biggest drawback I noticed was the lack of ultra wide lens. You can spend an extra $50-100 and get a phone with a much better camera system.
Performance/Chip: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 695 5G. This is one area that is sacrificed to get the cheaper price. This lower chip set resulted in response delay, notification delay and hang ups when switching apps and accessing notifications menu. Most apps, including light games, ran smoothly without crashing or much lag.
The device is preloaded with Android 11, big let down, when most devices of this time are at least preloaded with Android 12. Software update news is all over the place, some say the device will not even see Android 13, while others say it will. At my time of use, the Android 12 update time frame was unknown as well.
Connectivity, another drawback…While they released the “Unlocked” variant, it’s not really unlocked when it doesn’t work on Verizon and doesn’t currently work with At&t 5G, only LTE. The only way to get full connectivity use, is to still use it on T-Mobile, like their locked version.
Final Thoughts: I ultimately decided not to keep this device because of the lack of Software Support, At&t 5G Support, Quick Drain Battery and Performance Hang Ups.
