OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite Review: New Display, Old Chipset
How does the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite fare in the highly competitive sub-Rs. 20,000 price segment?
OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite has been launched in India as the successor to the Nord CE 3 Lite model that was launched last year. The new OnePlus Nord phone has a few upgrades in terms of specifications and features an updated design. The phone is the latest arrival in the highly competitive budget segment in India, where most smartphones are equipped with OLED screens, support 5G connectivity, and offer fast charging support. We’ve spent a few days with this smartphone to find out whether it offers enough to stand out in this segment.
OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite price in India
OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite price in India starts at Rs. 19,999 for the 8GB+128GB RAM and storage configuration, while a 256GB storage variant is priced at Rs. 22,999. The phone is available in Mega Blue, Super Silver, and Ultra Orange colour options.
The company sent over the 8GB+256GB variant of the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite for review, and the handset comes along with a TPU case, an 80W SuperVOOC charging brick, a USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable, and a SIM ejector tool.
The bottom edge of the Nord CE 4 Lite houses a 3.5mm audio jack, a microphone, a USB Type-C port and a speaker grille. There’s an additional speaker on the top edge, while the power and volume buttons are located on the right side. The SIM card tray is located on the left edge of the handset. The phone has an IP54 rating, and the transparent cover also has inbuilt covers for the audio and charging ports on the phone.
OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite Review: Specifications and software
In terms of specifications, there are two notable upgrades the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite delivers over its predecessor — an OLED display and a primary camera with optical image stabilisation. The smartphone has a 6.67-inch full-HD+ (1,080×2,400 pixels) AMOLED screen with up to 120Hz refresh rate. When automatic brightness is enabled, it goes up to 1,200 nits, which is higher than last year’s model that featured an LCD screen.
You get the same Snapdragon 695 chipset on the Nord CE 4 Lite, which means OnePlus has used the same 6nm chip for the third year in a row in its Nord CE Lite series. The phone is equipped with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage.
The phone boots Android 14 with the company’s OxygenOS 14 skin on top. There’s no word from OnePlus on the software support window for the handset, but its predecessor is scheduled to get two major Android version updates and an additional year of security updates.
OnePlus’ new handset also offers the same connectivity options as the Nord CE 3 Lite, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, 5G, 4G LTE, GPS, and a USB Type-C port. There’s no support for contactless payments due to the lack of NFC connectivity.
The company has increased the size of the battery on the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite to 5,500mAh, and the charging rate has also been improved, with support for 80W SuperVOOC charging. Unlike the previous models, it also has an in-display fingerprint sensor for biometric authentication, thanks to the OLED screen.
OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite: Performance
The Snapdragon 695 is a decent smartphone chip for ordinary tasks, and offers similar performance as its competitors that run on MediaTek’s Dimensity 7050 chipset. It can run some popular games and several widely used apps, as long as they’re not too demanding.
I played Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and Asphalt 9 on the Nord CE 4 Lite. While the former ran well on the default graphics settings, there was a bit of lag in some scenarios when the phone got a little warm. On the other hand, Gameloft’s Asphalt 9 ran smoothly without any issues, even after 30 minutes of gameplay.