The OnePlus Nord CE 5 proved a safe bet smartphone after weeks of testing – here’s why that’s a good thing

Introduction

The cheap phone gauntlet has really been thrown down recently, with big names standing out with impressive specs and standout styling. The OnePlus Nord CE 5 sits somewhere in the middle, not doing anything especially radical in any one area. But when affordability is your top priority, could an everyman handset actually be the best bang for buck?

Essentially a diluted down version of the Nord 5, the CE 5 has the OLED screen, high pixel count camera and generous battery capacity to tick most boxes – even if its MediaTek CPU isn’t the fastest around, and the design isn’t much of a head-turner. It faces off against the Samsung Galaxy A56, along with more leftfield choices like the Nothing Phone 3a and Poco X7 Pro. Here’s where it bests them – and also where it falls short.

Design & build: marble marvel

Side-by-side with the Nord 5, you’ll struggle to tell which is which – both lean into OnePlus’ new design direction, with flattened sides and an offset camera island. I would’ve called it generic, had I not been sent the distinctive Marble Mist model for testing. The pearl-like finish adds a little character that the Black Infinity version lacks.

The materials are a giveaway that this is the cheaper of the two, with the rear panel being made from polycarbonate plastic as well as the central frame. It still feels firm enough, and at 199g is reassuringly weighty in your hand. The pearl design and matte metal-effect frame also keep fingerprints at bay. I appreciate the IP65 rating, which is more than you’ll get from some budget smartphones. That said, the Poco X7 Pro has superior IP68 protection.

You don’t get the Nord 5’s Plus key here, meaning no customisable shortcuts for launching apps or waking the camera. I like that OnePlus has kept microSD expansion around, though, in case you want to supplement the 128 or 256GB of onboard storage (depending on which model you buy). There’s also an IR blaster, for controlling non-smart appliances from your phone.

The under-display fingerprint sensor is quick and accurate enough for a budget smartphone, and the front-facing camera can handle basic face recognition as well. It can’t authenticate your banking apps, but that’s also true of pretty much every other budget Android phone.

Screen & sound: shine on

The 6.77in Nord CE 5 isn’t quite as much of a palm-filler as its 6.83in bigger brother, and its 2392×1080 resolution is slightly lower, but that doesn’t mean it’s a distant second place on image quality. Text still looks sharp enough, even up close, and OnePlus gets brownie points for keeping the bezels so skinny – it’s something not every budget phone is able to pull off.

You’re still getting an AMOLED panel underneath, with fantastic contrast, practically perfect black levels, engaging colours and superb viewing angles. There are four colour modes, three temperature settings, and a colour wheel to give you maximum control – though I thought colour tones struck a good balance between realism and vibrancy right out of the box.

Other ways OnePlus has separated the two Nords? Brightness doesn’t climb quite as high here, with a claimed 1430 nits peak, and the refresh rate tops out at 120Hz rather than 144Hz. In practice, though, it still got bright enough for outdoor use in all but the sunniest of conditions, and could still give HDR content plenty of fizz.

It’s audio that lets the side down a bit, with just a single down-firing speaker. It gets fairly loud, but is too easily muffled by your hands and there’s basically nothing in the way of bass. Headphones are a must here.

Cameras: one and done?

It misses out on the high pixel count selfie cam, but otherwise the Nord CE 5 has a largely identical sensor setup to the pricier Nord 5. That means you’re getting a 50MP lead lens with optical image stabilisation and the ability to take cropped 2x shots that are virtually lossless in good light.

8MP ultrawide sits in a distant second place, with a weaker dynamic range overall and a level of detail that can’t stack up to the main camera. At least there’s little in the way of edge distortion or fish-eye effect, but I did find that colours and contrast could be a little out of line with what the lead lens was able to capture.

It’s able to put in a generally good performance across the board, with decent amounts of dynamic range – though it can still overexpose harshly lit subjects, like its bigger brother. I like OnePlus’ natural-leaning colour treatment, which still manages to preserve more vibrant hues when you encounter them in reality. Contrast is quite high across the board.

At night and in low light, the main camera continues to put in a good showing. You’ll want to ease off the 2x zoom shots here, as noise becomes more obvious and the image processing has to work harder to preserve detail, but the optical image stabilisation means 1x snaps are mostly clean and sharp.

Finally, the 16MP front camera puts in a good showing, albeit a step behind the Nord 5’s sharper, more defined shots. It’s no class leader, but selfie fans won’t be too disappointed.

Software experience: clean… mostly

The CE 5’s version of Oxygen OS is basically identical to the one seen on the Nord 5. OnePlus’ Android 15 treatment is more pared back than others, though it’s not short on own-brand apps that essentially dupe Google’s defaults. Most of ’em have been given an AI injection to justify their inclusion.

That means transcribing and summarising your voice recordings, reformatting your text notes and expanding short sentences into longer paragraphs, and removing reflections or deleting distracting background elements from your photos in the image gallery. They don’t stand out to me as significantly better or worse than versions I’ve seen on other smartphones, but are a welcome inclusion for this kind of money.

I still hate to see third-party bloat staring back at you the very first time you open the app drawer, though admittedly this isn’t unusual among budget phones. If you’re not a fan of booking dot com or AliExpress, you can uninstall them easily enough. The rest of the UI is brilliantly customisable, with a stripped back version of OnePlus’ Open Canvas multitasking letting you create app pairs for quick split-screen working.

Picking the more affordable CE 5 over the Nord 5 doesn’t do you out of any extra years of software support. Both phones are due to receive four years of Android generational upgrades and six years of security patches, which is a very good showing for a budget handset.

Performance & battery life: no surprises

OnePlus hasn’t exactly skimped on the Nord CE 5’s hardware – but a MediaTek Dimensity 8350 Apex chipset isn’t exactly pushing the boat out, either. Not when the rival Poco X7 Pro has silicon from the tier above. Synthetic benchmarks put it behind the Nord 5 and its Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 CPU by some margin, though it does go beat-for-beat with the competition using the more mid-tier Snapdragon 7S Gen 3. It comfortably outpaces the Galaxy A56.

My review unit had 8GB of RAM, which is still pretty common among budget-minded phones, though you can get a version with 12GB if you spend a little extra. I didn’t feel especially short-changed in everyday use, with most apps opening in good time and no dramatic pauses or slowdowns when opening the camera or loading games. It’s a middle of the road showing, which feels like a job well done given the CE 5’s everyman status.

OnePlus Nord CE 5 benchmark scores
Geekbench 6 single-core	1326
Geekbench 6 multi-core	4055
Geekbench AI	3268
PCMark Work 3.0	13615
3DMark Wild Life Extreme	3027
3DMark Solar Bay	4953

This phone puts in a particularly good showing for 3D titles, which can be a bit of a slog to run smoothly on some affordable smartphones. As long as you don’t expect maximum details and 120fps motion in every game, you’ll be reasonably happy with the performance on offer here. My less demanding casual games were pretty much flawless. And while the phone does get toasty after prolonged use, OnePlus has managed to maintain performance over time, for the most part. That means game frame rates stayed consistent, even after a long play session.

The Nord CE 5 also gets a thumbs up for its battery life. Only India gets a version with a colossal 7100mAh cell, while the rest of the world sticks with a more mainstream 5200mAh, but combining it with a chipset that isn’t massively power hungry means this phone can comfortably last a full day of fairly heavy use. After spending most of my morning taking photos and videos, then catching up on YouTube subscriptions and gaming in the afternoon, I still had over 30% remaining at the end of the day. That’s more than its bigger brother, the Nord 5, could manage.

I like being able to top up to full in just under an hour over USB-C, with support for 80W wired charging. This isn’t the fastest around for the price, but it’s pretty close.

OnePlus Nord CE 5 verdict

OnePlus has always pitched its CE-branded handsets as all-rounders, and the new Nord is no different. It doesn’t have especially flashy styling, the very best performance for the price, or the biggest battery – but there are no major weak points either.

The lead camera is a highlight, as is the big and bright display. While I’d like to see fewer preinstalled apps, the operating system is as streamlined and customisable as I expect from OnePlus. I can’t really fault the everyday responsiveness or longevity, either. If you’re a OnePlus fan on a budget, I can see why you’d want to pick one up.

Brand-agnostic shoppers wanting to stretch their wallet as far as possible might be better served elsewhere, though: the Nothing Phone 3a has more personality and a cleaner zoom camera, while the Poco X7 Pro is more potent and has an even bigger battery.

OnePlus Nord CE 5 technical specifications

Screen	6.77in, 2392×1080, 30-120Hz AMOLED
CPU	Mediatek Dimensity 8350 Apex
Memory	8/12GB
Cameras	50MP, f/1.8 w/ PDAF, OIS + 8MP, f/2.2 ultrawide rear 16MP, f2.4 front
Storage	128/256GB
Operating system	Android 15
Battery	5200mAh w/ 80W wired charging
Dimensions	164x76x8.2mm, 199g