OnePlus has unveiled the latest product to be joining its accessibly-priced Nord smartphone range: the Nord CE 3 Lite 5G. It's designed to offer an experience that's above what you'd expect at its price point.
The phone follows on from the Nord CE 2 Lite launched in April 2022, but is powered by the same Qualcomm processor as its predecessor: the Snapdragon 695. It does seek to offer performance gains elsewhere, however, with boosts in charging speed, display, audio and camera performance.
Focussing on the charging first, here it's been equipped with the same levels of charging we saw on top-of-the-line flagships just a couple of years ago. That's to say, it's got the 67W SuperVOOC wired charging that will completely refill the battery in under 40 minutes, delivering an 80 per cent charge in half an hour.
That's not the full story, however. It's also equipped with the 'Endurance' technology and firmware optimisations to help the battery last as long as possible. It's rated for up to 1600 charge cycles before you see significant deterioration, with 12 temperature sensors around the phone's body to ensure the battery doesn't get too hot.
The phone also has a bigger display than its predecessor: it's a 6.72-inch LCD IPS panel that takes up more than 91 per cent of the front surface area and features global DC dimming, which helps reduce eye strain for the user. What's more, the screen can reach peak refresh rates of up to 120Hz and can adapt in stages depending on the content you're viewing.
It's not the fine, responsive, gradually adaptive refresh you get on top-tier flagships like the OnePlus 11, but it can jump between 30Hz, 60Hz, 48Hz, 50Hz, 60/90Hz and 90/120Hz modes depending on what's being displayed and what's needed. With that, plus the performance and efficiency optimisations made in the OxygenOS 13 software that it's loaded with, we should see an increase in smoothness and fluidity, and a lot less lag, despite the internal processor being the same.
On either side of the screen - at the top and bottom - there are loudspeakers, with OnePlus promising a big boost in stereo audio performance from this phone compared to the last one. In fact, it has a "200% volume" feature which - very much like that famous scene from the Spinal Tap movie - turns the sound past its '10' point, all the way to '11'. It's an unusual marketing move, but the claim is that it's can be turned up louder than usual, and without the sound getting tinny and distorted.
The primary camera has had a boost too. In a move not too dissimilar to its competition, OnePlus has stuck a 108-megapixel sensor behind the lens of the main camera, which automatically pixel-bins down to 12-megapixels when shooting photographs. The extra resolution also means OnePlus can offer a lossless zoom feature, which crops into the image without the detail suffering (or at least, that's the claim). This main lens is joined by a low-resolution depth sensor and a low-resolution macro camera (both 2-megapixel).
There's only one storage/RAM variant: 8GB/128GB, but the phone is equipped with a microSD card slot for expansion and uses a virtual RAM feature to borrow some of the phone's storage as RAM for keeping background tasks running. The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite will be available to buy in Europe and the UK for €320 and £299 respectively and will come in both Pastel Lime and Chromatic Grey colours.