OnePlus Nord N10

amazon OnePlus Nord N10 reviews

2020 is a year marking a clear change for OnePlus. In addition to the main product lines, the OnePlus 8 Pro, 8T also announced a series of Nord products aimed at the low and mid-range segment. Besides the Nord, the Nord N10 version, one level lower, also landed in Indochina and became the first OnePlus with a selling price of less than $450.

Although I am a big fan of OnePlus and appreciate both the OnePlus 8T and 8 Pro, I can’t help but be skeptical about a cheap product like this Nord N10. OnePlus has created the most valuable product lines in the market; what can it do at a much lower price range?

Complete as much as possible

In the $350 segment, only 1/2 or even 1/3 of OnePlus’ most high-end products, it is not surprising that the OnePlus Nord N10 is not completed at the ’10-point standard’ course. But when holding this machine directly, we realize that the company has also tried to perfect the amount of money allowed; negatively, it is to hide cheap points or positively bring some high-end experiences down to low-cost machines.

The body is made of glossy plastic, with the color version we have here is dark blue. The Nord N10’s color mixing helps keep the device from being ‘glamorous’; only when placed under the light will the color appearance, and from a distance, it will look more like black.

Nord N10’s camera system has four units, including a 64MP main camera, 8MP ultra-wide camera, 2MP depth sensor, and 2MP camera.

As usual, the main camera will still be the highest quality camera on a smartphone. The Nord N10’s 64MP camera has good detail in well-lit conditions and will be slightly reduced in low-light or complex lighting conditions. Taken in the dark pub, the Nord N10 still does a good enough job of balancing the dark and light points to make the image harmonious, besides not pushing the color saturation too high to create a feeling of eye relief.

When switching to the super wide-angle camera, the quality is quite noticeable; the small details are blurred, especially in the corner area, and should be used outdoors rather than indoors. Ultra-wide-angle photos from the device sometimes feel like there is a lack of contrast, so they need more help from post-production software before posting.

Finally, there is the Macro camera. With a resolution of only 2MP and a small aperture of f/2.4, we need to provide a lot of light for this camera to capture satisfactory photos. Along with that, Nord N10’s Macro camera cannot focus on its own but has a fixed focus distance, so users will have to get used to bringing people far away and close to take pictures. For me, this is a camera that is not too useful when the main camera can also focus close enough in many cases.

Returning to the external design, another way to cut Nord N10 is to use a traditional capacitive fingerprint sensor instead of an under-screen sensor. As usual, I do not care too much about this issue because a high-quality capacitive sensor still gives a fast opening speed, sometimes even more reliable than the sensor under the screen.

On the contrary, the sound problem is that the Nord N10 has not been cut, when in addition to the traditional 3.5mm port, we also have a dual speaker system, usually only found on models priced at over $450. In actual use, this speaker system sounds a bit thin, not as thick and bold as more expensive models, but the sound emitted from both sides is also a very good upgrade. Big compared to single-speaker systems!

The point that Nord N10 loses is the AMOLED screen of high-end models. Users do not experience super-dark black or super-vibrant colors that will have to accept with the display quality at the threshold of ‘fine.’ Since taking it out of the box, the screen is leaning more towards blue. Fortunately, OnePlus allows us to adjust the screen’s color temperature, so rebalancing this color cast is as simple as a single pull of the hand.

The screen has a size of 6.49 inches and a FullHD + resolution, which are pretty standard numbers and nothing to say. Even the shape is not too prominent with a small round dot to place the selfie camera and a thicker ‘chin’ than usual but not to the point of causing discomfort or imbalance.

The non-standard point of the Nord N10 monitor is the 90Hz refresh rate. Is the 90Hz refresh rate different from the 120Hz of the OnePlus 8T and 8 Pro? For those who are too familiar with the 60Hz frequency of all other screens, the experience of up to 90Hz resolution has felt the difference, and short time of use, 120Hz will not be more prominent. But those who have used a 120Hz machine, ‘downgrading’ to 90Hz will find it ‘slow’ somewhat.

What I like about OnePlus smartphones but have also been ‘nerved’ on the Nord N10 is the vibration, when it can’t vibrate as fast, strong, and decisively as the OnePlus 8T 8 Pro. That is an element that users cannot find on the spec sheet, but it greatly affects the daily user experience.

New Snapdragon 690 processor, the highlight is 5G

Bringing processing power to the OnePlus Nord N10 is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 processor launched this year, which can be considered the successor to the now-old Snapdragon 675. This processor offers a lot of promise in performance, including a 20% increase in CPU speed and up to 60% GPU speed.

In the Antutu benchmark test, the Nord N10 reached 283,019 points, standing right next to the Poco X3 with the 732G processor, showing that, as the name suggests, the Snapdragon 690 has performance closer to the 7xx chips than the old 6xx chips.

With the Geekbench test, the multi-core score of Nord N10 even reached the threshold of 1808, between the lowest and highest scores recorded by Xiaomi Pocophone F1 with the once-leading Snapdragon 845 chip. It must be said repeatedly when the current Snapdragon 845 is also quite old; as of 2020, it is three years old.

In the GPU test 3DMark Slingshot, Extreme OpenGL Nord N10 scored 2174 points. For comparison, the Snapdragon 675 in the Vsmart Live 4 reached only 1177 points or about 54% of the score of the new chip.

Despite the obvious performance improvements, the Nord N10 is still locked to some of the highest graphics levels when playing games. As in Arena of valor Mobile, we can set super HD resolution; detail is high, but ‘Image Quality’ is high, not HD. That will affect the ability to illuminate the area and the ‘vibration’ of the plants’ plants; in return, the FPS always remains at 60, not decreasing even in the fight phase with all ten people.

where can you get a OnePlus Nord N10 online

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Unlocked Smartphone, Midnight Ice​, 90Hz Refresh Rate, 6GB RAM + 128GB storage, US Version, Model BE2026: Buy it now

OnePlus Nord N10 5G, Euro 5G /Global 4G LTE, International Version (No US Warranty), Midnight Ice 128GB, 6GB – GSM Unlocked (T-Mobile, AT&T, Metro) – 64GB SD Bundle: Buy it now

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Unlocked Smartphone, Midnight Ice​, 90Hz Refresh Rate, 6GB RAM + 128GB storage, US Version, Model BE2026 (Renewed): Buy it now

OnePlus Nord N10 5G Dual-SIM 128GB ROM + 6GB RAM (GSM | CDMA) Factory Unlocked Anroid Smartphone (Midnight Ice) – International Version: Buy it now

Arena of valor: Wild Rift also has a similar situation when two items, Texture and Effect, will not set at the highest level. I also had a comparison with a machine with a higher configuration. The differences in graphics in the game of Wild Rift are less different than that of Arena of valor when the lighting and trees elements are all the same; perhaps the optimization problem for low-end machines of this game is better done.

There are significant performance improvements, but the most useful thing that Snapdragon 690 brings to users is integrating SA, NSA, and Sub-6 5G modems (only missing the highest speed mmWave form of the 7xx chip and 8xx). That is the first Qualcomm processor to own this feature, and Nord N10 is also one of the first to own it, making it the cheapest genuine 5G integrated smartphone in Thailand.

According to initial tests, 5G network gives 20 times higher speed than 4G and can peak up to 1.3Gbps to download the PUBG Mobile game in just 30 seconds. Leaving aside ‘macro’ applications like Smart city or still not highly applicable like AR, downloading heavy applications and high-resolution movies in seconds is surely anyone desired, all opened up by the 5G network.

The most valuable feature will be 5G – and currently, only Nord N10 can do this. That becomes the biggest advantage of this device until other smartphone manufacturers also start using Snapdragon 690 in their products.

A new face of OnePlus

Referring to OnePlus, I will immediately think of smartphones that are a bit expensive but not the most expensive on the market’, somehow still fully converging all the things that technology lovers want to be OnePlus 8T or OnePlus 8 Pro.

That’s why Nord N10 is a rather strange smartphone for me; it goes against OnePlus’ previous product design, targeting more general users than technology lovers, hardware lovers. But perhaps we shouldn’t blame OnePlus for expanding into the low-/mid-range segment when even big companies like Samsung, Google, or Apple are doing the same thing; if only focusing on the high-end market, maybe the company will not be sustainable for a long time.

Looking at the positive side, Nord N10 still carries with it OnePlus’ ‘design philosophy’ when it comes to very good hardware perfection in the price range, especially will ‘universal’ 5G network with people with income not high. That is a welcome thing, and perhaps other brands should learn too!