Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G Review: A strikingly familiar all-rounder

When the Realme 11 Pro launched in India, it was an easy recommendation for me given the great design, dependable performance, and improved camera. The Realme Narzo 60 Pro, priced starting at ₹23,999, offers the exact same experience – so I cannot say that I don’t love the device. The Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G is truly fantastic for the price; one that will draw in most people’s attention. However, it makes it difficult to decide which one to recommend to people now, since they sport the exact same specifications. If you are going for the 12 GB + 256 GB variant, it would be prudent to go for the Realme Narzo 60 Pro since it is cheaper than the same storage version of the Realme 11 Pro. And of course, if you need a LOT of storage, go for the Narzo 60 Pro since it comes with that 1 TB model for ₹29,999. 

The Realme Narzo 60 series is finally here; the company has launched two phones in this lineup – the Realme Narzo 60 and Realme Narzo 60 Pro. I got the latter for review and upon opening the box, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the phone feels very familiar. In fact, all the specifications were also oddly familiar. Finally, it hit me that the phone shares the exact same specifications as the newly-launched Realme 11 Pro (review). Save a few. For instance, the Realme Narzo 60 Pro comes with a 1 TB storage variant unlike the Realme 11 Pro and it sports a slightly altered design. When we recently spoke to a Realme executive about the latest Narzo 60 Pro, they denied that the phone is a rebranded Realme 11 Pro, you can read that interview here. However, it certainly looks and feels like a rebrand, in my opinion. With that said, the world of smartphones is no stranger to redesigned/rebranded phones, but let’s see if the Realme Narzo 60 Pro is actually worth its asking price.

Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G Review: Build and design

The design of the Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G is extremely eye-catching for the price. Then again, as with all other specifications, the design is very reminiscent of the Realme 11 Pro. The phone is available in two colourways – Mars Orange and Cosmic Black. The former, which we got for review, sports a luxurious-feeling vegan leather back, while the Black variant comes with a matte-textured rear panel. 

The vegan leather material looks very premium, and we’re seeing more and more phones adopt this texture on their mid-range offerings. There’s a circular camera module – much like the Realme 11 Pro – which houses two camera lenses and a flash. The words “100 MP OIS Camera” are etched on the bottom of this lens module. The design is beautiful but it misses out on an IP rating, which could be an issue for some. 

The sides of the front and the back are curved, adding to the premium factor. The phone’s leather variant weighs 189 g, so it is quite comfortable to hold for hours on end. The display has minimal bezels and they look well-balanced. There’s a small punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera. The curved display, however, is prone to some mistaps being registered.

Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G Review: Display

Moving on to the display, let's dive into the details. The Realme Narzo 60 Pro boasts a 6.7-inch curved AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz and a touch sampling rate of 360 Hz. The display is protected by AGC DragonTrail Star glass. Realme claims a 1,260 Hz instantaneous touch sampling rate. The optical in-display fingerprint sensor, although slightly slower than ideal, performed adequately during testing.

With its FHD+ resolution, the display offers plenty of crispness for its price point. The colours are vibrant, and the details are crisp. The display supports over 1 billion colours, ensuring a rich visual experience and overcoming the colour banding issues found in its predecessor. The AMOLED panel is surrounded by thin bezels, providing an immersive viewing experience.

Brightness levels are impressive, leaving little room for complaints. Realme claims a peak brightness of 950 nits, and in our tests, we measured a reading of 923 nits under direct sunlight in Auto-Brightness Mode. This is quite impressive. Additionally, the AMOLED display can dim significantly, allowing comfortable usage even in low-light conditions.

The Realme Narzo 60 Pro supports HDR10+. Although HDR10+ is a welcome addition, it's worth noting that some streaming services like Netflix do not currently support HDR on the Realme Narzo 60 Pro. 

Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G Review: Performance

Priced below ₹25,000, the Realme Narzo 60 Pro delivers decent performance. However, the overall performance is significantly hindered by excessive bloatware. The number of pre-installed apps is quite overwhelming. On top of that, there are excessive pop-up notifications, unremovable "suggested apps" folders, and more, resulting in an unpleasant user interface experience.

The phone runs on Android 13 with Realme UI 4.0 on top. Realme promises 2 years of OS updates and 3 years of security updates, which is commendable. Now, let's delve into the hardware that powers the phone.

The Realme Narzo 60 Pro is equipped with the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 SoC – the same as the Realme 11 Pro. It is manufactured using the 6 nm process and clocked at a maximum speed of 2.6 GHz. The phone comes with up to 12 GB RAM and up to 1 TB storage. This is one of the first, if not the first, phones to offer 1 TB storage at this price, so that’s commendable. Considering its price range, the processor delivers admirable performance, outperforming a couple of similarly priced alternatives. We compared the Realme Narzo 60 Pro to the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite and POCO X5 Pro.

In both the AnTuTu and GeekBench Single-Core tests, the Realme Narzo 60 Pro outperformed the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite and POCO X5 Pro. However, in the Multi-Core test, the POCO X5 Pro pulled ahead. One area where the Realme Narzo 60 Pro excelled was in the PCMarkWork test, which simulates day-to-day tasks such as spreadsheet usage and photo editing. The Realme Narzo 60 Pro easily outperformed most competitors in this benchmark.

In GPU tests, the Realme Narzo 60 Pro falls behind the POCO X5 Pro, which achieved better scores in GFXBench and 3D Mark. Nevertheless, real-world gaming performance was smooth. We experienced consistent frame rates at High Graphics settings, and the phone didn't heat up significantly during extended gaming sessions. 

Realme has done a decent job in terms of thermal management. Even under peak load, the phone exhibited minimal throttling, maintaining 83 per cent of its peak performance in the CPU Throttling Test. Overall, the Realme Narzo 60 Pro delivers smooth and reliable performance in the sub-₹25K price segment. While it may not be a game-changer, it provides a decent experience, albeit one marred by excessive bloatware and push notifications. 

Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G Review: Cameras

The Realme Narzo 60 Pro features a 100 MP Omnivision camera paired with a 2 MP depth lens – the same as the Realme 11 Pro. The primary camera comes with Optical Image Stabilisation support, and Realme heavily emphasizes its 2x lossless zoom or "in-sensor zoom" feature. The phone also offers an Auto Zoom feature that crops onto a subject and centres it in the frame.

For selfies, the phone sports a 16 MP Sony IMX471 lens. The 100 MP camera defaults to saving 12 MP shots, and in daylight, the photos look fantastic for the most part. The dynamic range is solid, detail retention is good, and colours appear vivid, albeit slightly oversaturated, which some users may enjoy.

The 2x lossless zoom shots are packed with detail, although they can appear a bit oversharpened. There's also an option to capture full-resolution 100 MP shots, which produce natural colours but exhibit slightly inadequate dynamic range.

Portrait images, assisted by the 2 MP depth lens, generally look good with decent edge detection, but the accuracy of skin tones could be improved. Selfie photos from the 16 MP shooter appear slightly soft and struggle with dynamic range in challenging lighting conditions.

In low-light conditions, the 100 MP camera performs impressively. The colours remain good, the dynamic range is decent, and the level of detail is adequate. Some noise is present, although it is not excessive considering the price range. Enabling Nightscape mode reduces noise but can introduce a slightly unnatural look to the photos.

Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G Review: Battery Life

The Realme Narzo 60 Pro is equipped with a 5,000 mAh battery, the same as the Realme 11 Pro. It boasts 67 W fast charging. Wireless charging is absent, but that is not surprising for a mid-range smartphone.

The battery life of the phone is impressive and long-lasting. In our 4K video loop test, the device lasted 14 hours and 12 minutes on a full charge. During 15 minutes of Call of Duty: Mobile gameplay, the battery level dropped by only 6 per cent and an hour of GPS navigation on Google Maps resulted in a 6 per cent drop. Charging the phone from zero to full using the bundled 67 W charger took 46 minutes, while reaching 50 per cent charge only required 18 minutes.

Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G Review: Verdict

When the Realme 11 Pro launched in India, it was an easy recommendation for me given the great design, dependable performance, and improved camera. The Realme Narzo 60 Pro, priced starting at ₹23,999, offers the exact same experience – so I cannot say that I don’t love the device. The Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G is truly fantastic for the price; one that will draw in most people’s attention. However, it makes it difficult to decide which one to recommend to people now, since they sport the exact same specifications. If you are going for the 12 GB + 256 GB variant, it would be prudent to go for the Realme Narzo 60 Pro since it is cheaper than the same storage version of the Realme 11 Pro. And of course, if you need a LOT of storage, go for the Narzo 60 Pro since it comes with that 1 TB model for ₹29,999. 

If you are simply looking for another powerful device under ₹30K, and don’t care about the storage, the POCO F5 is a fantastic performer and great for gaming. Overall, the Realme Narzo 60 Pro is a great device, but it seems like the company is just pitting its own products against each other. Honestly, if you’re just confused between the two, scour Flipkart and Amazon before buying (Narzo 60 Pro is on Amazon and Realme 11 Pro is on Flipkart), see which one has a better discount or better offers, and go for that one.

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Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Review: Good bang for your buck

The Samsung Galaxy M34 gets a lot of the basics of a smartphone right. You get speedy performance, astoundingly good battery life, and a decent primary camera that should cover all your basic needs. Priced below ₹20,000, the Samsung Galaxy M34 offers great bang for your buck and stands strong in the face of competition. Its battery life is near unparalleled, and if that is your primary concern when buying a smartphone, don’t hesitate to buy it. There are a few misses though – the dynamic range of the primary and ultrawide lens could be better, there’s no HDR support on the display, there’s plenty of preinstalled bloatware, and the teardrop notch looks extremely dated at this price in 2023.

Samsung’s 2023 portfolio of smartphones has been fascinating to review. The company is consciously attempting stylistically homogenize its various smartphone series – be it their budget offerings or their premium launches. The newly-launched Samsung Galaxy M34 5G is a prime example of that. The design language – of the rear panel, at least – is extremely reminiscent of the flagship S series. The Samsung Galaxy M34 5G is impressive. It features the tried and tested Exynos 1280 SoC, it houses a ludicrously large 6,000 mAh battery, and its primary camera produces some impressive results in daylight. But the overbearing question remains – how does the phone perform and is it worth your hard-earned money? I answer that and more in my detailed review of the Samsung Galaxy M34 5G.

Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Review: Build and design

As I mentioned before, the Samsung Galaxy M34 fits right into the 2023 portfolio of Samsung phones – you’ve got that recognisable, distinct look with the vertically-placed circular camera modules that sets it apart from most others in the market. However, while I appreciate the consistency, I still do not believe that this is the best design on a smartphone in its price range.

The rear panel of the Samsung Galaxy M34 is made of polycarbonate that looks very similar to glass but the surface is an absolute fingerprint and smudge magnet. We found it extremely tricky to keep the rear panel clean enough to take good product shots. The fingerprints accumulate within seconds of cleaning the device, which is aggravating. The camera modules look classy, just as they do on other Samsung devices we’ve reviewed this year. The Samsung branding on the bottom is also nice and subtle.

The sides of the phone are made of plastic as well. The bottom houses the USB C port, 3.5 mm jack (yay!), and the sole Dolby Atmos-enabled speaker. The speaker is loud but doesn’t compare to the experience you get with stereo speakers. The right side houses the volume rockers and power button. The power button also doubles as a capacitive fingerprint sensor, which proved to be speedy and accurate. The left side has the SIM tray which can hold 2 nano SIMs, or 1 nano SIM and an SD card. We’ll talk about the front of the device in the next section.\

At 208 g, the phone is pretty hefty by 2023 standards. It is also 8.8 mm thick. Samsung has done a good job distributing the weight though and the phone is quite comfortable to hold. It is awfully slippery though, so we advise buying a protective case since Samsung doesn’t provide one in the packaging.

Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Review: Display

The Samsung Galaxy M34’s aesthetic appeal takes a major fall when you look at the screen. The outdated waterdrop notch and chunky chin bezel make it look like a phone from the yesteryears – or at least ₹5-10K cheaper than it is. This is a shame because this shell houses a gorgeous 6.5-inch Super AMOLED FHD+ display with 120 Hz refresh rate support. There’s no HDR support though, which is disappointing, but you do get Widevine L1 support to view HD content on streaming platforms. The display is topped with Gorilla Glass 5 for protection against scratches and accidental drops.

The M34’s screen packs a punch with vibrant colours and good viewing angles. The screen is quite bright as well, rated at 1000 nits of peak brightness. In my testing, the phone maxed out at 802 nits of brightness under sunlight with Auto Brightness turned on. So, screen legibility in sunlight is a non-issue. Content consumption on this device is good and the screen is capable of producing stunning and immersive visuals. But the immersion is marred by the massive teardrop notch.

Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Review: Performance

Housing the Exynos 1280 SoC, the Samsung Galaxy M34 5G is a speedy performer. This is a 5 nm chipset that comes with two Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.4 GHz and six Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2 GHz. I found this chipset to provide a good mix of power and efficiency. My review unit came with 6 GB LPDDR4X RAM (+ 6 GB Virtual RAM) and 128 GB of onboard UFS 2.2 storage with the option to expand it via a microSD card.

The phone performed admirably well in benchmarks against competitors such as the iQOO Z7 and the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite. In AnTuTu, the Samsung Galaxy M34 flew past the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite’s score and it even did slightly better than the iQOO Z7. The Galaxy M34 proved its mettle in the Geekbench as well – scoring considerably higher than both the iQOO Z7 (review) and OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite (review) but these phones beat it out in the Multi Core test, as you can see below. But it regained its lead in PCMark Work, meaning it will do a great job at productivity tasks such as Excel sheets, photo editing, and more.

In GPU Benchmarks, once again, the Samsung Galaxy M34 showed off its dominance scoring higher than the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite in both 3D Mark Wild Life and GFXBench tests. The Galaxy M34 beat the iQOO Z7 in 3D Mark Wild Life but the iQOO Z7 slipped slightly ahead in GFXBench tests. Overall though, this proved to be a beast of a phone in the sub ₹20K price segment; excelling at both CPU and GPU benchmarks. However, in storage benchmarks, the Galaxy M34 falls behind since it is using the older UFS 2.2 memory standard, so transfer speeds won’t be as fast as the iQOO Z7 or OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite.

In real life, the phone is smooth and fluid in day-to-day tasks with no lag whatsoever. 120 Hz refresh rate makes actions such as scrolling between screens feel even more fluid and seamless. Gaming is also stutter-free on the Galaxy M34 on Medium Graphics at High Frame Rate. We played COD: Mobile for over half an hour and didn’t face any major frame drops, however, the phone did heat up slightly. In the CPU Throttling Test, the phone got a great result – it throttled to merely 85 per cent of its peak performance, so it can sustain heavy workloads without throttling too much.

Moving on to software, the Samsung Galaxy M34 comes with Android 13 out of the box with Samsung’s OneUI 5.1 skin on top. OneUI has plenty of features and customisations, and the overall aesthetic is pretty decent as well but it is rife with bloatware in the form of Samsung or third-party preinstalled apps. There’s also the annoying Glance feature that shows up on the lock screen. You can disable it, but it’s hidden deep in Settings under Wallpaper Services.

The best thing about the latest Samsung phones is the updates cycle where the company even has Google beat! The phone promises a whopping 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates, which is fantastic.

Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Review: Camera

The Samsung Galaxy M34 5G packs a triple rear camera stack consisting of a 50 MP primary camera with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) support, an 8 MP ultrawide shooter, and a 2 MP macro camera. The primary camera usually snaps detailed photos in daylight or bright indoor light with vibrant colours and decent dynamic range. The camera tends to prioritise highlights and sometimes crushes shadows in the process though. In fact, we even saw some instances where the highlights were overblown. Here are a few image samples; do note that they've been compressed for the web.

Close-up shots look great with a natural-looking bokeh effect. There are some instances when these shots can get a bit soft, usually when the light levels are not adequate. Portrait photos look good but if you look closely, the phone doesn’t do a great job cutting out subjects’ hair. There’s also a strand or two that it misses out on entirely. 

The 8 MP ultrawide shooter clicks good images with similar colour science to the main lens, but there’s some loss of detail in the corners. Dynamic range is still decent, with instances of shadows being crushed. There’s a token 2 MP macro lens that clicks acceptable shots – there’s not a whole lot of detail but the results are usable, at least.

For selfies, the Samsung Galaxy M34 5G brings a 13 MP lens that clicks natural-looking selfies (IF you turn off Beauty Mode) with good colour and detail retention. Portrait mode selfies look the same, but the edge detection could be improved. 

Samsung has also introduced the Nightography feature in the budget segment with the Galaxy M34; a feature that is usually only available on Samsung’s higher-end models. It allows you to take slightly brighter pictures in low light but I still feel like the low-light photography could be improved on this phone. The dynamic range is not the best and some images appear very soft.

Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Review: Battery Life

Equipped with a monstrous 6,000 mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy M34 5G is a phone that can last most users two days without having to reach for the charger. To reach for the charger, you would first need to purchase one since the retail box skimps out on a charging adapter. The phone supports 25 W wired charging, with no support for reverse wired charging or wireless charging.

In our 4K video loop test, the Samsung Galaxy M34 lasted an astounding 21.5 hours! That’s almost twice as much as the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite! Fifteen minutes of playing Call of Duty: Mobile only drained the battery levels by 3 per cent, and that should show you just about how power-efficient this device is. If battery life is your primary concern, and your budget is below ₹20,000, then this phone is a no-brainer. However, do note that 25 W charging in 2023 is quite slow. The device charged from empty to full in a little over 2 hours.

Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Review: Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy M34 gets a lot of the basics of a smartphone right. You get speedy performance, astoundingly good battery life, and a decent primary camera that should cover all your basic needs. Priced below ₹20,000, the Samsung Galaxy M34 offers great bang for your buck and stands strong in the face of competition. Its battery life is near unparalleled, and if that is your primary concern when buying a smartphone, don’t hesitate to buy it. There are a few misses though – the dynamic range of the primary and ultrawide lens could be better, there’s no HDR support on the display, there’s plenty of preinstalled bloatware, and the teardrop notch looks extremely dated at this price in 2023. But if you’re willing to overlook these nitpicks, the Samsung Galaxy M34 is a steal deal. An easy to recommend product for most individuals!

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OnePlus Nord 3 5G Review: A complete mid-ranger

To conclude, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G is a complete mid-ranger. The performance is very good, the display is stunning, and the camera is right up there with the competition. While the smartphone has a very nice in-hand feel, the way it looks is pretty much similar to the OnePlus Nord CE 3 5G and I am not a big fan of the two flash.

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G is the latest mid-ranger from OnePlus, making it the third-gen hero device in OnePlus' more affordable range of Nord smartphones. With a design similar to its younger sibling, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G, the OnePlus Nord comes with a flagship-level chipset and goes directly in competition with some critically-acclaimed devices in this range like the iQOO Neo 7 and the Poco F5. 

So, is the OnePlus Nord 3 good enough to take on its competitors from rival brands? I used the smartphone for about a week and put it through rigorous testing to see what the smartphone is all about. In this review, we will take a look at the smartphone's design, display, performance, battery, and camera performance to give you a verdict on if the OnePlus Nord 3 5G is worth your ₹33,999. Let's take a look:

DESIGN

Design wise, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G looks pretty much the same as its younger brother, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G with the two camera cutouts, the rather tall design orientation, and flat-edges. Now, while from the looks of it, the smartphone is very similar to the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G apart from the weirdly-placed dual flash, the OnePlus Nord 3 is much more premium. We get a glass back panel, an edge-to-edge display and OnePlus' signature alert slider, first time on a flat frame. 

As far as the design is concerned, there isn't anything special going on with the OnePlus Nord 3 5G. There is little to distinguish the more premium device with the more budget friendly OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G. Further, the flash placement doesn't really look good and the smartphone is a bit too tall, which is not good for single-handed usage. Yes, we get a glass back panel with Gorilla Glass 5 protection that enhances the in-hand feel and from the front, the difference is evident between the Nord 3 and Nord CE 3 Lite, which is also good. 

DISPLAY

Coming to the display, we get a nice 6.74-inch 10-bit AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. On paper, this display is almost flagship-level. In real life, things are similar. The display looks stunning from the moment you set eyes on it. The colours are vibrant yet accurate, the display is bright enough to be used in all kinds of environments, and it is perfectly responsive and slick.

OnePlus claims a peak brightness of 1,450 nits on the Nord 3. We put this to test using a Lux Meter, and the smartphone gave a maximum brightness of 868 nits and a minimum brightness of 3 nits on a plain white background. This is pretty good for any smartphone, and it basically means that there will be no visibility issues with this display, no matter how bright the sun is out there. Further, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G also supports HDR video playback on apps that support it (Netflix, YouTube and more), which means that watching movies and TV shows is a pleasing experience on this smartphone. You will see things in very good detail and the image is super sharp while watching content. I watched a bunch of HDR videos on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G and the experience was quite immersive and vibrant.

In terms of responsiveness as well, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G’s display is very smooth and slick. The smartphone comes with 120Hz refresh rate, which most users already know results in a super responsive scrolling and switching experience, but the issue with OnePlus devices is that some very basic apps like YouTube don’t support high refresh rate and the smartphone switches back to 60Hz, which is not the case with any other manufacturer. 

Overall, this is a very good display. I found this to be one of the best displays on any smartphone in this range, and was instantly impressed with the picture quality, since the moment I set my eyes on this panel.

PERFORMANCE

Since this is a OnePlus smartphone, performance obviously takes a step forward. The OnePlus Nord 3 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset, paired with up to 16GB of RAM, which is good enough for a laptop as well, let alone a smartphone. Given the premium chipset from MediaTek and RAM overkill, there is no doubt that the OnePlus Nord 3 5G is a superb performer. 

Of course, we ran a bunch of benchmarks on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G and the smartphone aced most of them. On AnTuTu, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G was able to put out a score of 905,530 points, which is one of the highest on this year's mid-range smartphones. On Geekbench also, the smartphone outperforms many mid-rangers from 2023, but has been outperformed by a few devices like the Vivo V27 Pro, Poco F5, Moto Edge 40, and the likes. 

We also ran PCMark Work 3.0 benchmark on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G and here, the smartphone didn't put out as impressive numbers as compared to the other CPU-based benchmark tests. In GPU-based tests also, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G didn't impress me as much as I expected the smartphone to, but the numbers are still very good for a smartphone at this level. What the numbers show and how the OnePlus Nord 3 performs in real life are pretty much similar. During my daily usage, I never felt any kind of a lack of performance while using the smartphone, or even doing certain demanding tasks like playing games or photography, or even tasks like editing photos and videos on the smartphone. 

The OnePlus Nord 3 5G uses the UFS 3.1 storage standard, which is not the latest, but a pretty fast storage standard. In storage-based testing, the smartphone showed similar read and write speeds as compared to its rivals, with a few minor differences here and there. 

Overall, this is a pretty good performer. Yes, it's not the fastest or the highest-specced device in this range, but the OnePlus Nord 3 5G never leaves its users asking for more. Playing games on this smartphone is a beautiful experience, and the smartphone handles multitasking as well as pretty much any other smartphone out there, not just a mid-ranger. 

BATTERY

Here, we get a 5,000mAh battery on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G, which has sort of become the standard in most smartphones these days. The backup on this battery is quite good. I put the OnePlus Nord 3 5G on a video loop test, where I played a 4K video on the smartphone with high brightness until the battery drained out, and the smartphone lasted for a very impressive 733 minutes or 12.2 hours! 

Now, while on video playback, the OnePlus Nord 3 puts out an impressive time of over 12 hours, that is not the case with all tasks. In my tests, I found the smartphone to be draining the battery a bit too fast while using GPS. I used the GPS navigation for one hour straight and the smartphone lost 9 percent of the battery. While playing a Call of Duty Mobile online session for 15 minutes, the smartphone lost 5 percent battery. 

With a good battery backup, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G also offers super fast charging. The smartphone comes with 80W SuperVOOC fast charging, which I tested during my review. The smartphone only took 34 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 percent, which is super fast for any segment, not just the sub-₹35,000 price bracket.

CAMERA

The camera here is a triple camera setup. This includes a primary 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 shooter with OIS, an 8-megapixel wide angle lens, and a 2-megapixel macro shooter. The camera performance here is pretty deent. In well-lit environments, this camera is capable of putting out some brilliant images with pixel binning on. However, with the full 50-megapixel resolution or in high resolution mode, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G at times overexposes details. 

 

In other conditions such as low light, the smartphone sometimes struggles, but mostly the results are very much usable. The portraits on the smartphone, on the other hand, are brilliant. The OnePlus Nord 3 5G takes very nice portraits. The image is sharp and detailed, and the edge detection is almost spot-on. The dynamic range in portraits is also pretty good, even in average lighting conditions.

Like the portrait mode, the front camera of the OnePlus Nord 3 5G also impressed me quite a bit. Selfies on the OnePlus Nord 3 5G are sharp, vibrant and detailed. The smartphone has a 16-megapixel front shooter, which will keep all the selfie lovers out there pretty satisfied.

VERDICT

To conclude, the OnePlus Nord 3 5G is a complete mid-ranger. The performance is very good, the display is stunning, and surprisingly the camera is right up there with the competition. While the smartphone has a very nice in-hand feel, the way it looks is pretty much similar to the OnePlus Nord CE 3 5G and I am not a big fan of the two flash.

Yes, the performance is not the best in this segment, but it will never leave you asking for more with its 16GB RAM. I’m not a fan of the design, especially the two LED flash modules (or whatever the second circle is for), but there are plenty of people who have liked this design. Further, you get glass back and IP rating, so that’s great. The battery sometimes drains while doing specific tasks like GPS or using the camera, but the super fast 80W charging makes up for it.

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