The OnePlus Nord N30 5G is an efficient funds cellphone, even when it’s not fairly the cellphone I wished it to be. 

Battery life is great, and processing efficiency is properly above common for its $299 price ticket. There’s quick wired charging — as a result of that’s OnePlus’ factor — and loads of considerate touches you don’t at all times see in a funds cellphone, like stereo audio system, loads of RAM, and NFC for contactless funds. These are all undeniably good issues.

However it’s not all positives. The N30’s display screen is an enormous, high-refresh-rate 6.7-inch show. However it’s additionally an LCD, which is a departure from the 60Hz OLED on final yr’s mannequin. On a cellphone this low cost, you possibly can have one or the opposite, and OnePlus picked refresh price this time round. The digicam system is one other wild card. Usually, it’s simply positive. However there’s some funkiness with its new 3x crop zoom characteristic, and relying on the Google Pixel 6A’s on-sale standing as you’re studying this, you are able to do a lot better for not much more cash.

The OnePlus N30 is the US variant of OnePlus’ Nord CE 3 Lite, positioned to take a seat on a wi-fi provider’s cabinets simply above one Samsung A-series cellphone and beneath one other. It’s prone to be a “free cellphone” for lots of people buying and selling in an outdated machine, and if that’s the case, then I believe it’s a worthy selection. In case you’re paying out of pocket and the aforementioned Pixel 6A is offered, properly, then I believe it’s a distinct story.

The N30 options the flat edges and display screen which can be in vogue now (and which I personally favor to a slippery curved edge). The show is roofed by Panda Glass, whereas the rear panel and exterior body are manufactured from plastic. I’ve positively used funds telephones that really feel cheaper and flimsier, and I just like the matte end on the N30’s rails. 

I don’t take care of the shiny plastic again. Most individuals will use a case, however I don’t, and the again panel shortly changed into a smudgy mess of fingerprints. There’s additionally a major scuff on my overview unit. I’m positive I by no means dropped it, so the cellphone will need to have come up towards my keys or a tough floor that wasn’t form to it — all of the extra cause to make use of a case. And also you received’t discover an IP ranking for mud or water resistance right here, both — they’re not too widespread in telephones round $300 anyway.

The display screen is a 6.72-inch LCD with 1080p decision, which is juuuuust sufficient pixels to cowl this enormous display screen. Its high refresh price is 120Hz, however it could possibly alter to one in every of 5 slower refresh charges relying on what you’re doing to avoid wasting on battery life. It makes use of quicker refresh charges to make scrolling and animations look tremendous easy, and it offers the N30 a pleasant stage of polish and responsiveness that you just don’t get with a regular 60Hz display screen.

On the draw back, the colours displayed by this LCD aren’t as wealthy as an OLED, and it’s a bit onerous to make use of in direct daylight. Like all OnePlus telephones, the N30 comes with a display screen protector utilized, however I discovered the show a bit simpler to make use of as soon as I eliminated it. It’s a bit reflective, and mine was already beginning to bubble up.

The N30 consists of 128GB of built-in storage (expandable by MicroSD) and makes use of a Snapdragon 695 5G chipset with 8GB of RAM, which is loads of processing energy for a funds cellphone. OnePlus didn’t skimp on these specs, and it exhibits: day-to-day efficiency is excellent. I’ve been utilizing some high-end Android telephones currently, together with the Google Pixel 7 Professional. The N30 feels only a beat slower if I’m actually paying consideration, however for day by day stuff, it retains up very properly. The cellphone chugs a bit with heavier duties like working Pocket Metropolis 2, however that’s above and past what I’d hope for from a $300 cellphone. 

And might I speak about haptics for a second? I actually just like the N30’s haptics. Price range telephones can really feel a bit buzzy and jarring, however I’d name the N30’s haptics well mannered but reassuring. It’s a bit factor, but it surely provides as much as a very good impression as you employ the cellphone.

Battery life is one other of the N30’s sturdy fits. There’s an enormous 5,000mAh battery right here, which simply lasted a day of reasonable use for me, and sometimes properly into the following day. I believed nothing of it after I left house with a half-full battery on a day I’d be utilizing the cellphone on the bus and coordinating a day meetup with my husband. Positive sufficient, the N30 lasted the total day, even streaming some video on my bus experience. You may comfortably get 4 hours of screen-on day trip of this battery, and I noticed over 5 hours by the point I used to be right down to single-digit battery life.

If you do must plug in, there’s quick 50W wired charging to offer a major battery enhance in just some minutes. In my testing, it took the battery from about 5 as much as 35 % in simply 10 minutes. Like most different charging techniques, it’s designed to cost extra slowly because it will get nearer to one hundred pc to guard its general longevity. And that is, in spite of everything, an enormous battery, so a full recharge from zero to 100 takes about 45 minutes. Nonetheless, simply 10 minutes on the charger will take you from oh-shit-where’s-an-outlet territory to cruising via the remainder of your day freed from battery anxiousness. There’s no wi-fi charging out there, however that’s uncommon within the under-$300 class anyway.

In different information, there’s an actual, stay headphone jack on the N30, praised be. OnePlus says the built-in stereo audio system go to 11 will flip as much as 200 %, which is an inherently foolish idea that I refuse to have interaction with any additional. All I can say is that, sure, it is vitally loud.

The N30 ships with Oxygen OS 13.1, primarily based on Android 13. That’s nice information since loads of funds telephones are nonetheless on earlier OS variations, however the much less excellent news is that the N30 is simply scheduled to get one OS improve with three years of safety assist. That’s sadly typical for a funds cellphone, but it surely’s actually a disgrace right here as a result of the N30’s processing {hardware} will in all probability be capable to sustain for longer than that. 

The N30 can be offered by T-Cellular and its Metro pay as you go model, however the unlocked model will work on all three main US carriers’ 5G networks. That’s extra nice information as a result of the N20 couldn’t entry Verizon’s community, so it was solely actually an possibility for AT&T and T-Cellular prospects. I can confidently say that the N30 does work on Verizon — I’ve seen my overview unit (with my Verizon SIM) entry 5G, together with the nice mid-band Extremely Wideband 5G. I’m glad OnePlus sorted that out.

I’ve good and unhealthy information in regards to the N30’s digicam. The excellent news is that it’s good within the ways in which all fashionable smartphone cameras are good: pictures in vibrant gentle present loads of element and good coloration. The N30 makes use of a 108-megapixel principal digicam with an f/1.7 lens that bins 9 pixels for higher light-gathering in low-light circumstances and outputs 12-megapixel photographs. 

It additionally makes use of this similar digicam for 3x “lossless zoom,” which is a more moderen expertise that makes use of the pixels on the very heart of the sensor for magnification quite than counting on digital zoom and upsampling. There’s a 16-megapixel selfie digicam, in addition to 2-megapixel macro and depth sensors — the latter helps out in portrait mode, and the previous isn’t actually price anybody’s time.

In idea, I really like having the 3x lossless zoom possibility right here — no ugly artifacts from digital zoom, and also you get two cameras for the value of 1. In actuality, it doesn’t fairly work out that properly. Photographs are typically very mushy, virtually as if the digicam missed focus or one thing has gone flawed within the processing pipeline. I observed this taking place in conditions with loads of gentle and static topics, so it’s both a bug or simply an impact of this being sort of a V1 characteristic. 

In any case, I did handle to get some good pictures out of it, and also you’re not going to discover a correct optical telephoto digicam on nearly some other $300 cellphone on the market. Finest to consider it as a bonus, not a characteristic to depend on.

Again at its common 1x focal size, the N30’s principal digicam struggles in dim lighting, particularly with transferring topics. It tends to drop shutter speeds right down to 1/thirteenth and 1/tenth of a second, which leads to loads of blur even when your topic isn’t transferring that a lot. Particulars and colours additionally get a bit crushed beneath noise and noise discount. I wouldn’t anticipate stellar low-light efficiency or tack-sharp portraits in dim indoor gentle from this funds cellphone, however I did anticipate a bit higher, particularly from OnePlus, which has delivered surprisingly good funds cellphone cameras previously. 

Video recording is proscribed to 1080p or 720p, each at 30fps. Clips in good gentle look positive, with succesful digital picture stabilization to easy out bumps from footsteps. Movies in dim indoor lighting endure from the identical issues as nonetheless photographs in the identical circumstances, however they’re acceptable.

I had excessive hopes for the N30, principally as a result of I favored the N20 rather a lot. And there are particular methods by which it’s the cellphone I hoped it could be. For day-to-day duties, it performs extra like a $500 cellphone than a $300, with loads of RAM to maintain duties flowing easily. Battery life is so spectacular that I give up charging it in a single day as a result of it simply wasn’t needed. It’s additionally simply typically good to make use of: the haptics are nice, and scrolling appears to be like easy on the 120Hz display screen.

The place the N30 lets me down is its digicam and its display screen. I like what OnePlus is doing with the 3x telephoto, and I believe the following iteration of this characteristic will in all probability be a lot better. And the issues this digicam system struggles with are issues that almost all funds telephones wrestle with. 

However there’s one other cellphone crowding in on this area that makes the N30 tougher to advocate: final yr’s Google Pixel 6A. It’s been marked right down to $349 with the discharge of the Pixel 7A. If it’s nonetheless in inventory and the additional $50 is doable, then the 6A is the cellphone to purchase. Its digicam system is rather more dependable, and it comes with midrange perks like an OLED display screen and an IP67 ranking for sturdy mud and water resistance. And despite the fact that it’s a yr outdated, it’s scheduled to get two extra OS upgrades and safety assist till July 2027, which is yet another yr in every class than the brand-new N30 presents. The 6A doesn’t have the ultra-impressive battery lifetime of the N30 or the quick wired charging, however personally, I’d take a greater digicam and stay with charging my cellphone each night time. 

That mentioned, if the Pixel 6A isn’t fairly inside attain or T-Cellular is providing you a free N30, I believe it’s a positive possibility. It’s loads of cellphone for the cash — even when it’s not fairly every thing it may very well be.

Images by Allison Johnson / The Verge