One step forward, two steps back: my review of the OnePlus Nord 2

A few months ago, I reviewed the OnePlus Nord 2, which was the latest phone from OnePlus at the time. I loved that phone and appreciated all of its features, but I couldn’t help but think about what OnePlus Nord 2 could do to make their phones even better. After hearing about an announcement regarding the release of their newest phone on Sunday, July 29th, I couldn’t wait to see what they had in store. Would they learn from past mistakes? Could they finally fix their charging port issue? As it turns out, no, no they could not.

The Good

I’ve been a loyal OnePlus Nord 2s customer for years now, with the OnePlus Nord 2 6 being the first of the company’s smartphones that I’ve owned. This changed when I decided to purchase the OnePlus Nord 2; my review will be one of that ‘ more bang for your buck kinda reviews which is a little ironic given that it’s $849! Let’s start with some of the reasons why this phone was created.

I’ve been an admirer of Google’s innovations regarding software. The search giant consistently pushes updates that completely change how we interact with our phones and tablets. Some changes are small such as moving to a gesture-based unlock system while others are more drastic like moving to a ‘divide and conquer approach when it comes to having multiple windows open on your device.

There have been rumblings over at OnePlus Nord 2 HQ that they were thinking about making some design changes; however, it wasn’t until late 2018 that these became reality. These new changes are purely software related but I’ll come back to them later on in my review!

First things first – design. The OnePlus Nord 2 6 is an absolutely beautiful device; it’s perhaps one of the favorite-looking phones that I’ve ever owned. It features a nice curved glass display with slim bezels and a metal frame which make it feel like a premium device. Despite having more expensive materials than their previous devices, it’s incredibly light!

It weighs 4 grams less than its predecessor despite being slightly bigger! If you take a look at some pictures you’ll notice that there’s no notch on the phone; however, if you look closely at the display you’ll see that there are in fact ‘notches’ at either end of your screen.

The Bad

But first, the bad. The OnePlus Nord 2 Nord 2’s speakers were terrible and their build quality was mediocre. I know that I should expect a laptop to have poor speakers and build quality at this price point because the price is so low; but still, if I’m paying over $500 for a laptop that can’t get any work done on it due to its audio defects, I’m going to be pretty mad about it.

In addition to the poor quality of sound coming from the speakers, the battery life was way too short for what someone who wants to use their computer as more than just an extra-large phone would want it to be.

Now that I’ve got all that complaining out of my system, it’s time to talk about some positive aspects of the Nord 2. The overall build quality and aesthetics were above average compared to other laptops in their price range. It also runs an offshoot of Android called iNordOS which is incredibly impressive and makes using your laptop much more enjoyable than it would be on any other platform.

However, while using a touchscreen-enabled operating system like Windows or macOS allows you to be far more productive than you’d be on any phone operating system or even most tablet operating systems, there are still plenty of basic things missing from iNordOS that make it very difficult to accomplish tasks that I take for granted in Windows and macOS.

Final thoughts

Reviewing the OnePlus Nord 2 was a great reminder of how much of a disappointment the OnePlus 7 Pro is. The now three-year-old phone in the Nord 2 is more affordable than the newcomer by far. It might not have all the bells and whistles that you would get with the latest release but it does have some features to boast about.

For example, even though it doesn’t have curved edges on its display it still feels just as immersive to hold as a device like the OnePlus 7 Pro or iPhone XR or other phones that feature this. This is likely because of its unibody metal design and what OnePlus claims is peak wave ceramic glass on its front and back which provides optimum protection without losing any transmittance or sensitivity in your touchscreen interface.

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