OnePlus Nord first sale on August 4: Why the mid-range phone is worth buying

With the new phone, OnePlus not only promises powerful performance and good looks, but also an aggressive price tag.

 HIGHLIGHTS

• OnePLus Nord has been launched in India at a starting price of Rs 24,999.
• OnePlus Nord is a powerful mid-range smartphone.
• The phone brings with itself as many as six cameras.

OnePlus Nord was launched in India earlier last week. At the time of its launch, the phone created quite the buzz and was pegged by many as the company's move back to a more populated, yet crucial segment -- especially for the Indian smartphone market.

With the new phone, OnePlus not only promises powerful performance and breathtaking looks, but also an aggressive price tag. The OnePlus Nord is set to go on its first sale on August 4, so ahead of its launch, let's take a look at why the OnePlus Nord makes for a good buy.

Aggressive price

-- OnePlus Nord has been made available in three variants in India with the entry variant of the device bringing 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. This one starts retail at Rs 24,999. While this one won't be going on sale until September, two other variants will be available for purchase on August 4.

One of them is the mid-level variant which gets 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The price here will be slightly higher at Rs 27,999. For the top-end one, OnePlus will charge Rs 29,999. This variant gets 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage. The variants will be available in two colours -- BlueMarble and GrayOnyx -- and in India.

Gorgeous display

The panel on the phone is definitely a major reason to buy the phone. It is a 6.44-inch AMOLED display running at a refresh rate of 90Hz. It is rated to provide 408ppi pixel density and 20:9 aspect ratio. For protection, the display is covered by a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass 5 same as on the back.The panel also houses a dual punch-hole, which actually feels like a nice design element at the front, and also hides beneath the surface an in-display fingerprint scanner. The latter is quite responsive and fast.

 Powerful performance

Despite being a mid-range phone, the OnePlus Nord promises good overall performance to its users. It features a powerful mid-range chipset in the Snapdragon 756G which has been paired with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.1 storage. This SoC also comes with an integrated Qualcomm X52 5G modem and also has an upgraded GPU over its predecessor for powerful gaming performance. A huge factor behind the impressive performance of the device is the fact that the Nord comes running the latest version of OxygenOS.

Six cameras

Cameras are arguably the biggest area where the OnePlus Nord impresses with what it offers. At the back, the OnePlus Nord gets a quad-lens set-up that houses a 48-megapixel Sony IMX 586 sensor with an f/1.75 lens and Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) + Electronic Image Stabilisation (EIS) support. This sits next to an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens with 119 field-of-view (FOV), a 5-megapixel macro lens with an f/2.4 aperture, and 2-megapixel depth sensor unit. The Nord also comes with a dual selfie camera setup. In addition to a 32-megapixel Sony IMX616 sensor main shooter, the OnePlus Nord has an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens for a wider field of view while clicking selfies. It is interesting to note that this is the first OnePlus smartphone to come with a dual-camera set-up on the front.

Big Battery

The battery again is a big selling point of the OnePlus Nord. Keeping the lights on the device is a 4115 mAh rechargeable battery with support for fast 30-watt recharge via the USB Type-C port. The phone generally lasts a day on a single charge and can be topped up really fast using the Warp charger that the company is bundling with the device