OnePlus Nord CE 3 5G

The camera performance of the OnePlus Nord CE3 5G closely matches that of the OnePlus Nord 3 5G. This smartphone boasts a triple rear camera setup, featuring a 50MP OIS Sony IMX890 primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, and a 2MP macro sensor. In daylight conditions, the primary sensor captures 12.5MP images with impressive details and well-saturated colours. However, there is a slight issue with the dynamic range, which can result in slightly blown-out areas and fewer details in shadows. Nevertheless, the overall image quality remains quite acceptable.The phone's secondary camera is a typical 8MP ultra-wide sensor commonly seen in this price range. It captures images with a 112-degree field of view (FoV) that have some distortion around the edges of the frame and slight inaccuracy in terms of colours. Moving on, the 2MP macro sensor produces usable shots, but the colours and details look quite average.In lowlight, the OnePlus Nord CE3 5G performs decently well. The focus speed isn't as good as the OnePlus Nord 3, which has a dedicated sensor for autofocus, but you can still expect a good shot with a respectable level of detail at least from the 50MP primary sensor. The phone's night mode is quite reliable too. As for its portrait mode, the edge detection is good but not great. There is a noticeable distortion on the subject if you zoom in on the subject.For selfies and video calling, the handset utilises a 16MP front-facing camera in the punch-hole setup. This camera captures near-accurate skin tones and offers a decent level of facial detailing.

Coming to performance, the OnePlus Nord CE3 5G is powered by Qualcomm's mid-range Snapdragon 782G SoC under the hood. The chipset contributes to the handset's decent performance on benchmarking sites, with scores of 643,348 on AnTuTu v10 and 1,118 and 2,767 on Geekbench's single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. However, during the CPU Throttle test, the handset throttles to 76 percent of its peak performance and gets a bit warm while handling 50 threads for a duration of 30 minutes.Fortunately, I did not encounter any of those issues during real-world usage. The handset executed every task seamlessly, allowing for smooth multitasking and gameplay, such as with BGMI using 'HDR' graphics and 'High' frame rate settings, with minimal lag or stutter. The handset's thermal performance also remained cool even during a half-hour gaming session.Furthermore, the RAM management for apps was commendable. The Nord CE3 5G retained most apps in the background with their last activity intact. For those who may not be aware, the Nord CE3 5G is available in two RAM and storage configurations: 8GB+128GB and 12GB+256GB. The RAM can be expanded virtually, while the storage can be bumped using a microSD card.The OnePlus Nord CE3 5G supports all the major 5G bands in India, including the n77 and n78. Here's a speed test done on the device using Airtel 5G Plus network in Faridabad, Haryana:Software-wise, the OnePlus Nord CE3 5G runs OxygenOS 13.1 based on Android 13 out of the box. The device is future-proof with two years of major Android updates and three years of security updates. The Oxygen OS 13.1 UI looks pretty much the same as OPPO's custom Android ColorOS skin but with no third-party pre-installed apps or ads.

The OnePlus Nord CE3 5G houses a 5,000mAh battery, capable of comfortably lasting a full day. The device achieved a score of 14 hours and 23 minutes on the PCMark battery test. In my usage, which encompassed activities like browsing, scrolling through social media apps, gaming, and streaming movies and TV shows, I consistently attained nearly 6 hours of screen-on time.When it comes to charging speeds, the handset can fully recharge from 0-100 percent in about 30-40 minutes with the 80W SuperVooc fast charging solution. A compatible power adaptor is included in the box.