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OnePlus Nord 5: Two-minute review
Despite having a few sparkly upgrades over its predecessors, I can’t help but feel as though the OnePlus Nord 5 is a bit of a downgrade from last year’s model overall.
This new entry to OnePlus’ mid-spec (and mid-price) line of Nord Android phones is largely what you’d expect if you’ve been following the company for the last few years. In its top-end handsets, like the OnePlus 13, OnePlus presents novel designs, fancy digital camera arrays, and scary worth tags, however the Nords are extra modest in function set and price, and like all good mid-rangers, they typically concentrate on two key areas to excel in.
Even more so than in the OnePlus Nord 4, it’s clear that the main focus of the Nord 5 is on its efficiency and its show, that are, funnily sufficient, the identical two departments that almost all different mid-range Android makers concentrate on too.
And, credit score to OnePlus, the Nord 5 does have such nice specs in these areas that it could persuade individuals to purchase the telephone for its efficiency and its show credentials alone.
Take, for instance, the display: it now exceeds 6.8 inches diagonally, making the Nord 5 one of many few mid-range Android telephones to take action, and that further actual property will give players extra space for his or her fingers – I don’t even want to say the upper refresh price to get individuals raring to play.
Using a Snapdragon 800-series chipset – albeit a toned-down one – additionally offers players much more processing energy than we’ve seen on a Nord handset earlier than (and that is saying one thing!). Few mobiles at this worth carry out higher beneath benchmark exams than this OnePlus.
I’m now on my sixth paragraph, and I’ve solely talked about efficiency and show, and the reason being easy: whereas these two departments see notable will increase, most different features of the telephone present both no enchancment or, in a shocking variety of areas, spec downgrades from final 12 months’s telephone.
A few of these are minor modifications. For instance, the shift to a stable glass physique as an alternative of a two-tone steel one makes the handset look much more generic, however really feel extra premium, so some would argue about this being a downgrade in any respect.
Many extra modifications are inexplicable and lead to a worse person expertise, although. For instance, the battery is barely smaller and the charging can also be slower, prone to embrace reverse wired charging, but it surely’s nonetheless an odd change. Plus, there’s much less RAM obtainable within the two fashions, the display brightness has seen a lower, there’s no UFS 4.0 for fast storage (admittedly a reasonably area of interest function), and the telephone can also be larger and chunkier than earlier than.
I’d be prepared to guess that there’s a superb motive, or not less than a compromise, for each downgrade listed above. However that doesn’t change the truth that sure departments are worse off, and whereas the beginning worth of the Nord 4 is decrease than that of the Nord 5, you’re really paying extra for the brand new mannequin if you wish to match the 12GB RAM capability of final 12 months’s entry-level configuration (the Nord 5 begins at 8GB of RAM).
It’s disappointing to see this many downgrades, however on the finish of the day, the OnePlus Nord 5 continues to be a powerful mid-range Android telephone. It’s only one that gives a doubtful ‘improve’ over the Nord 4, and actually might not be value shopping for in any respect if you could find its predecessor obtainable at a reduction (which actually isn’t too arduous, judging by my three minutes of analysis…).
Plus, its clipped wings make it fall behind the flock a bit manner within the aggressive mid-range Android market, when its similar-priced rivals have much more highly effective chipsets and extra processing energy.
OnePlus Nord 5 review: price and availability
- Announced in July 2025; US launch unlikely
- £399 / AU$799 (roughly $600) for 8GB RAM, 256GB storage
- £499 / AU$899 (roughly $700) gets you 12GB RAM, 512GB storage
The OnePlus Nord 5 was announced in early July 2025 – exclusively to TechRadar, I could add – and went on sale shortly afterwards. It wasn’t alone, with the OnePlus Buds 4, OnePlus Pad Lite, OnePlus Nord CE5, and OnePlus Watch sharing the highlight.
You’ll be able to choose up the telephone for £399 / AU$799 (roughly $600, although don’t count on it to go on sale within the US as OnePlus presents a totally completely different line-up of Nord telephones there). The default mannequin has 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, however you too can choose up a 12GB/512GB mannequin for £499 / AU$899 (roughly $700).
On paper, it is a favorable comparability to the OnePlus Nord 4, however the Nord 5 does supply much less RAM as commonplace. Final 12 months’s telephone had a 12GB/256GB mannequin for £429 (round $550, AU$820 on the time) and a 16GB/512GB choice for £529 (round $680 / AU$1,000). Technically, then, the Nord 5 is cheaper, however you’re getting much less for that cash – you will really pay extra to get 12GB of RAM.
Nonetheless a lot worth you assume this £399 / AU$799 beginning worth will get you, the OnePlus Nord 5 sits within the murky space between funds telephone and mid-ranger, a no-man’s land that’s extremely aggressive for Android telephone consumers.
OnePlus Nord 5 review: specs
Here’s the spec sheet in full for the OnePlus Nord 5:
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Header Cell – Column 1 |
|---|---|
|
Dimensions: |
163.4 x 77 x 8.1mm |
|
Weight: |
211g |
|
Screen: |
6.83-inch 20:9 FHD (1272 x 2800) 144Hz Swift AMOLED |
|
Chipset: |
Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 |
|
RAM: |
8GB / 12GB |
|
Storage: |
256GB / 512GB |
|
OS: |
Android 15, OxygenOS 15 |
|
Primary camera: |
50MP, f/1.8 |
|
Ultra-wide camera: |
8MP f/2.2 116-degree |
|
Front camera: |
50MP, f/2.0 |
|
Audio: |
Stereo speakers |
|
Battery: |
5,200mAh |
|
Charging: |
80W wired |
|
Colors: |
Marble Sands, Phantom Grey, Dry Ice. |
OnePlus Nord 5 review: design
- Newly boring design
- Glass adds premium feel
- New mappable Plus Key is handy
The Nords have never exactly been lookers, and the OnePlus Nord 5 continues that tradition as one of the most boring-looking phones I’ve seen recently. I hope you plan to hide it in a case!
The phone is a big ‘chocolate-bar’ style box, coming in gray, white, or ice blue, depending on which variant you pick up. At 163.4 x 77 x 8.1mm, it’s a little on the big side, and at 211g, it’s slightly heavier than your average phone too.
Due to the phone’s size, the power button and volume rocker on its right edge are both quite hard to reach with your thumb, even with big hands like mine. Opposite them at the top of the handset’s left edge is the Plus Key, which you can customize in function; press and hold to open the camera, turn on Do Not Disturb, turn on the torch, and so on, with a fair range of options. It’s really useful, replacing OnePlus’ previous alert slider with a solid upgrade.
Rounding out our tour of the telephone, there’s a USB-C port on the underside edge in addition to the SIM tray, which might enable for twin SIMs. No 3.5mm headphone jack right here.
OnePlus has ditched the steel again of the Nord 5’s predecessor in favor of the premium-feeling however fragile glass, and I discovered the telephone to readily choose up my fingerprints – although these had been solely seen from sure angles.
The glass of the display is Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, which is designed to be hardy and survive bumps. Speaking about sturdiness, the handset has an IP65 score to make sure it’s totally protected in opposition to stable mud particles, in addition to jets of water, however not submersion in liquid.
OnePlus Nord 5 review: display
- 6.83-inch, 1272 x 2800 resolution
- New high refresh rate at 144Hz but lower max brightness
- Aqua Touch feature returns
It’s in the display department where the OnePlus Nord 5 gets some of its biggest upgrades, and they all work together to make it a great device for entertainment.
Take, for instance, its sheer size. At 6.83 inches diagonally, it’s now one of the biggest panels on any Android phone right now, giving you lots of space to enjoy your game or TV show. The resolution, at 1272 x 2800, has remained the same from the Nord 4.
Another improvement is in the screen refresh rate, which now hits 144Hz. Admittedly, it’s rare that many people will make the most of this spec, as it’s only useful for a particularly narrow number of mobile games, but it’s an improvement nonetheless. It’s countered by a lower max brightness, though.
Elsewhere, you’re looking at what OnePlus calls Swift AMOLED, and while that first word seems mostly a marketing addition, you’re still getting a high-spec panel with a billion colors supported, 1800 nits max brightness, and Corning Gorilla Glass 7i for protection.
While it’s less of a selling point in OnePlus’ marketing materials this year, the Nord 5 brings back one of its predecessor’s best features in Aqua Touch. This ensures that you can tap on the screen and get accurate results even when the display (or your finger) is wet.
OnePlus Nord 5 review: software
- Android 15 with OxygenOS 15, and four annual updates
- Unique features couple with attractive UI
- Lots of bloatware but few bugs
The OnePlus Nord 5 comes running Android 15, but with the company’s OxygenOS 15 layered over the top. OnePlus has pledged 4 years of Android updates as well as an additional 2 years of security updates, so the Nord will last until 2029 for software boots and 2031 for overall protection.
As with all Android forks, this is largely a design change, but I feel OxygenOS harks quite closely to stock Android in layout while being quite different and distinct in aesthetic. It has bold and punchy colors but more restraint than some other Android-alikes.
OxygenOS remains one of the most popular of these Android forks, despite the love growing more muted in recent years, and features like Zen Space (which locks your phone for a set time while you work) and the preinstalled translation app help explain why.
Re-reading my Nord 4 review, I recalled how buggy I found the software last time around. I needed this reminder, because it wasn’t the case with the Nord 5: it worked flawlessly, never throwing an issue at me, and constantly being snappy and quick to navigate.
You can expect two things from a mid-range Android phone from a Chinese maker: bloatware and random AI features being thrown at you. And the Nord 5 certainly has the former, with loads of unwanted games, social media apps, and OnePlus’ own additions all cluttering up the home page.
However, OnePlus has seemingly learnt the lesson that the average consumer just isn’t as interested in dubiously-useful AI features as tech fans, because I didn’t find myself being bombarded with odd little features and gimmicks bearing those two foreboding vowels. Other than the replacement of Google Assistant with the infamously goofy Gemini, something which has affected all Android phones over the last few years, the Nord 5’s AI features are largely confined to the camera.
OnePlus Nord 5 review: cameras
- 50MP main and 8MP ultra-wide cameras, 50MP up front
- Results are nothing to write home about
- A few -post features are all handy
Curiously, OnePlus has been touting the camera department as one of the key areas of the OnePlus Nord 5. I’m not sure why, though, because it’s largely unchanged from the array on the previous-gen model, and so it’s just as unimpressive.
The handset packs a 50MP f/1.8 main and 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera, both of which are fractionally wider-angle than last time around, but that seems to be the only change.
These cameras are totally fine; the reason many Android companies have clung to the same 50MP sensors for years now is that they’re totally fit for purpose without costing too much money. Pictures are bright enough to make sense and have a fair amount of detail.
But you’re not getting amazing dynamic range, or genius smart optimization, nor all the versatility that a zoom lens (or even a passable ultra-wide lens – 8MP, really?) offers. The phone also has a tendency to blow out brighter areas of a shot and lose a lot of detail in the darker ones.
The ultra-wide camera takes pictures that are noticeably more vibrant, as you’ll see below, but they lack detail where it matters. The lens also facilitates a macro mode, but I found this quite hard to focus, especially with it turning on automatically at inconvenient times, and its use of the ultra-wide’s sensor means that you get the resulting oversaturated image too. That said, I find the vast majority of macro modes far worse, so props to OnePlus for that.
As I mentioned before, the camera department is where the most AI features exist. There’s the eraser tool that most Androids have nowadays to remove unwanted background items, as well as a tool to reframe pictures (which basically means it just crops them). There’s also a detail boost, which can help if you’ve zoomed in too far and have lost quality, an unblurrer for objects in motion, and a reflection eraser, which does what it says on the tin. These are all helpful to make little tweaks to a photo if there’s an error.
The Nord 5’s AI tools are the lion’s share of its features, with few actual shooting modes. Expect the basics: photo, video, Portrait, Pro, and a few extra low-light and video modes for certain situations. You can shoot video at up to 4K/60fps and right down to 720p/240fps or 1080p/120fps for slow-motion.
The one noteworthy digital camera improve right here is within the front-facing digital camera, which has jumped all the best way as much as a 50MP decision. This offers you lots extra pixels to mess around with, must you need to crop or reframe a selfie, though by default, selfies are shot in a pixel-binned 12.5MP, and you could choose Hello-Res mode within the digital camera app to get full 50MP.
OnePlus Nord 5 camera samples
Image 1 of 10
OnePlus Nord 5: performance and audio
- Big upgrade to Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset
- Two models: 8GB/256GB or 12GB/512GB
- Bluetooth 5.4 or USB-C port for audio, no jack
OnePlus touts the Nord 5’s performance as its key selling point, and you can see why by just looking at the specs: they all reach above what you’d expect from a phone at this price point.
The chipset is a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 from Qualcomm, which is effectively a slightly-downgraded version of last year’s top-end Android chipset. It’s admittedly not the very fastest chipset being used in budget phones, with a successor announced several months prior to the Nord’s release (and many affordable Androids opting instead for non-Snapdragon 800-series chips, which are again more powerful), but it’s still a real perk of the phone.
The phone is blazingly fast, returning one of the best multi-core scores I’ve ever seen from a Geekbench test. Over three tests, it averaged 5,147, and I’d say anything above 4,500 is a fantastic score. More impressively, the scores I got stayed consistent even when the phone was heating up, which is certainly not always true in this price range, and it points to the Nord handling long gaming sessions well.
This high score shows from gaming to photo editing, and even when you’re whizzing around the phone’s menus. A few mid-rangers have a more powerful chipset, but I don’t see why you’d need more (or even this amount, really…)
As you read in the price section, there are two versions of the phone: one with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, and another that increases those capacities to 12GB/512GB. I tested the latter, which explains why the Nord felt so fast to use; I can’t speak to how the 8GB model runs, but it’s quite a price hike to get the higher-memory variant, so I don’t blame you for settling.
Audio-wise, OnePlus doesn’t rewrite any rules: there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, and the stereo speakers sound totally fit for purpose, but they won’t replace your Dolby Atmos speakers any time soon. You can also listen to music by pairing headphones to the Nord, which supports Bluetooth 5.4.
- Performance score: 4.5 / 5
OnePlus Nord 5 review: battery life
- Smaller 5,200mAh battery
- Fast 80W charging
- Reverse wired charging lets you power up other gadgets
For the last few years, mid-range phone batteries have been ballooning in size, and with that in mind, the OnePlus Nord’s 5,200mAh power pack feels relatively restrained. It’s still big, just not huge like I’d expected, and it’s actually smaller than the Nord 4’s.
Downgrade aside, the phone will last for a day of ordinary use with no sweat, and you can get comfortably into day two of use before needing to charge the device up. Alternatively, if you want to use your phone pretty intensely, I can still see it lasting a full day of use.
Battery life doesn’t match the Nord 4, though, with the power pack’s decrease exacerbated by the bigger screen, which needs more juice.
As a side note, the version of the phone on sale in certain regions like Australia and India has a 6,800mAh battery, which, as you mathematicians may be able to work out, is much bigger and will last for much longer. No such luck for everyone else, though.
Another battery downgrade comes in the charging department, which is down 20W to 80W in the Nord 5. That’s still very fast, and the lost speed is made up for by the presence of reverse wired charging. This lets you use a USB-C to USB-C cable to charge up other devices using the Nord.
OnePlus Nord 5 review: value
Thanks to its new low price, the OnePlus Nord 5 does represent value for money, though it’ll depend exactly on what you’re looking for.
Thanks to its high-spec display and processor, the Nord feels like a premium phone for certain tasks like gaming and watching movies, and so you can easily convince yourself you’re using a top-end mobile if these are your main uses for a phone.
Myriad downgrades over the previous-gen model do make the Nord 5 feel like slightly poorer value, though, so if I were considering this newer model, I’d definitely also check what kind of discounts the year-older Nord 4 was enjoying.
Should you buy the OnePlus Nord 5?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
You’re roughly getting what you paid for in this decent-value device. |
3.5 / 5 |
|
Design |
A boring design, but the Plus Key is a useful addition. |
3.5 / 5 |
|
Display |
Big, bold and colorful, the huge panel is a boon for entertainment fans. |
4 / 5 |
|
Software |
OxygenOS remains great to use, with at least four years of upgrades promised to fans. |
4 / 5 |
|
Camera |
The cameras are nothing to write home about but they get the job done. |
3 / 5 |
|
Performance |
OnePlus keeps giving the Nord more power, even if there’s less RAM. Super powerful! |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Battery |
Slight battery and charging downgrades probably won’t affect many users. |
3.5 / 5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
OnePlus Nord 5 review: Also consider
There’s one obvious OnePlus Nord 5 competitor that I apparently can’t shut up about, but there are also a few other competitive mobiles on the market.
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
OnePlus Nord 5 |
OnePlus Nord 4 |
Xiaomi Poco F7 |
Nothing Phone 3a Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Starting price (at launch): |
£399 / AU$799 (roughly $600) |
£429 (roughly $550, AU$820) |
£389 / $399 (roughly AU$750) |
$459 / £449 / AU$849 |
|
Dimensions: |
163.4 x 77 x 8.1mm |
162.6 x 75 x 8mm |
163.1 x 77.9 x 8.2mm |
163.52 x 77.5 x 8.39mm |
|
Weight: |
111g |
199.5g |
215.7g |
211g |
|
OS (at launch): |
Android 15, OxygenOS 15 |
Android 14, OxygenOS 14.1 |
Android 15, HyperOS 2 |
Android 15, NohtingOS 3.1 |
|
Screen Size: |
6.83-inch |
6.74-inch |
6.83-inch |
6.77-inch |
|
Resolution: |
1272 x 2800 |
1240 x 2772 |
2772 x 1280 |
1080 x 2392 |
|
CPU: |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 |
|
RAM: |
8GB / 12GB |
12GB / 16GB |
12GB |
12GB |
|
Storage (from): |
256GB / 512GB |
256GB / 512GB |
256GB / 512GB |
256GB |
|
Battery: |
5,200mAh |
5,500mAh |
6,500mAh |
5,000mAh |
|
Rear Cameras: |
50MP main, 8MP ultra-wide |
50MP main, 8MP ultra-wide |
50MP main, 8MP ultra-wide |
50MP main,. 50MP zoom, 8MP ultra-wide |
|
Front camera: |
50MP |
16MP |
20MP |
50MP |
How I tested the OnePlus Nord 5
- Review test period = 2.5 weeks
- Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
- Tools used = Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats
To write this review, I tested the OnePlus Nord 5 for two weeks, but it got an extra half-week of play while I was writing this review.
I conducted a mix of experiential and ‘lab’-style testing. Experiential means I used the phone like anyone else would: playing games, using social media, taking it on trips, and taking photos on the go. Lab tests were when I put it through benchmark tests and the like.
As you can tell by my software gripes, this testing process is rigorous, and it also involves some benchmark tests and tools so that we can compare phones against themselves in an objective way.
I’ve been reviewing smartphones for TechRadar since early 2019, and in that time have used plenty of mobiles from OnePlus, as well as other devices in the price segment. This includes the Nord 4 from last year, and many of its 2025 rivals.
First reviewed July 2025