OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G Review - Affordable pocket entertainment phone
After using the OnePlus Nard CE4 Lite 5G for three months, we share our thoughts and experiences with the affordable mid-ranger.
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| OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G box inclusions |
To recap, the OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite aims to offer great mobile entertainment for under PHP 18K with its 120Hz 2,100 nits FHD+ AMOLED screen, stereo speakers and 5,110mAh battery.
It has a 120Hz 6.67-inch AMOLED screen, a 6nm Snapdragon 695 octa-core processor, Adreno 619 GPU, LPDDR4X RAM, 256GB/512GB UFS 2.2 and a 5,110mAh battery with an 80W SUPERVOOC fast charging.
At the back are the 50MP f/1.8 rear main camera and the 2MP f/2.4 depth camera while in front is the 16MP f/2.4 selfie camera.
It is running on Android 14-based OxygenOS 14. Other features include WiFi, 5G, 4G, Bluetooth 5.1 LE, NFC, OTG, GPS, dual Nano SIM, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, stereo speakers and an IP54 splash and dust resistance.
In the Philippines, it is priced at only PHP 17,999 for the 8GB/256GB variant.
Let's dive into the review!
For our review part 1: OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G Unboxing and First Impressions
Multimedia Experience
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| OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G's punch-hole screen |
In front is the aforementioned 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a 2,400 x 1,080 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate and a 2,100 nits peak brightness. There is no mention of any form of glass protection.
Nice 120Hz AMOLED display
The panel is just bright enough to be readable under direct sunlight at maximum brightness. The colors are vibrant while the contrast is deep. Text and detail are super crisp at 1080p resolution.
It supports 10-points of multi-touch which makes it good for multitasking or games that support multiple simultaneous touch inputs. It responds quickly and accurately to our taps and gestures.
Around the panel are super slim side bezels and slightly thicker top and chin bezels.
On the upper part of the panel is the punch hole for the selfie camera. On the top bezel is the super slim earpiece as well.
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| Top and bottom |
For audio, the phone is equipped with stereo speakers. The first is the bottom-firing speaker and the top-firing one. It has microphones used for noise cancelling in calls and audio recording.
The stereo speakers offer decent power and decent clarity but have a hint of tinniness. You can hear it mostly when listening to human voices. Like recent OnePlus phones, the audio can be boosted to 300 percent if needed. We only recommend using it when needed though as there is noticeable distortion.
We recommend keeping the audio at 85 to 90 percent to minimize distortion.
The microphones do a good job of picking up sounds from a meter away while the noise-cancellation for calls is good too. When recording audio for videos, we noticed that the audio quality is decent but could be better especially when comparing it against its competition.
Cameras
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| Rear cameras |
As mentioned earlier, the phone is equipped with a 50MP f/1.8 main camera with a 1/1.95-inch Sony LYT-600 sensor and OIS and a 2MP f/2.4 depth camera with an LED flash.
The included modes of the stock camera app include Photo, Video, Pro, Night, Hi-Res, Pano, Slo-Mo, Time-lapse, Dual-View, and Text Scanner
The Pro controls include metering (Matrix, Center, and Spot), EV (+-3), the file format (JPG, RAW), ISO (50-3,200), Shutter speed (1/8,000-30 secs), Focus, and White Balance.
The Portrait Mode is equally robust with bokeh strength control (f/1.4-16), and Beautifcations.
Rear Camera Samples
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| Main camera daylight 1x |
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| Main camera daylight 2x |
The main camera can crop in to produce a 2x crop image.
Daylight images from the main camera are sharp and detailed but depending on the scene, it may get the correct exposure or may be a little over exposed such as in the daylight 2x image. Otherwise, the colors are vibrant.
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| Rear camera close-up |
The rear camera captures close-up images fairly close but we have seen rear main cameras that can focus even closer.
The resulting image is decently sharp even though the scene was poorly lit. There are only minor noise that slightly soften the image.
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| Main camera indoors 1x |
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| Main camera indoors 2x |
The above images were taken in a well-lit restaurant. The resulting images from the 1x and 2x were consistent. All three have similar color and contrast. The sharpness and detail are decent too.
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| Main camera low light 1x |
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| Main camera low light 2x |
For low light, the sharpness and detail were affected by the noise build-up. Light sources tended to blow out too. However, the color and contrast remain consistent with minor degradation.
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| Main camera night mode 1x |
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| Main camera night mode 2x |
Night mode manages to fix the concerns we had with the low-light images. The colors, exposure and detail have been recovered as long as the subject is staying still.
Overall, the rear main camera and 2x crop produced decent images. However, there were times when the exposure could be inconsistent.
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| OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite Selfie camera |
The 16MP f/2.4 selfie camera is on the punch hole on the display
Camera modes include Photo, Video, Portrait, Panorama and Night mode.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Selfie daylight |
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| Selfie Portrait |
Daylight selfies from the POCO F6 are decent. You immediately notice the sharpness and detail. The color and contrast are on point too.
The portrait mode's edge detection is good. It only struggled with fine hair fibres.
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| Selfie indoors |
Indoors, the image is similar to daylight where the sharpness and detail are good while the colors are mostly accurate except for skin tones. In this case, the skin tones are orange.
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| Selfie lowlight |
In low light, the selfie camera's images have more grain and noise which softens the image. However, it tends to make the low-light scene look more like daylight which could be tweaked for a more true-to-life image.
Overall, the front cameras produced selfie images with good color, contrast, sharpness, and detail. However, the lowlight is softer and could be tweaked to make the images look like they were taken at night.
The rear camera can record up to 4K at 60fps. The footage is decent in sharpness but even in daylight, noise is apparent. The OIS is enough to reduce the micro jitters from normal handholding. It also comes with a steady mode but is locked at 1080 at 30fps with a noticeable crop.
The selfie camera can record up to 1080 at 60fps. Like the main camera, the footage is decently sharp while being vibrant and contrasty. However, the noise and grain are noticeable. It's shakier than we liked too.
Performance
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| AnTuTu and GeekBench results |
To recap, the OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G features the 6nm Snapdragon 695 octa-core processor, Adreno 619 GPU, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, and 256GB UFS 2.2 storage.
During the AnTuTu test, the phone's temperature increased by 1.1 degrees while the battery lost 1 percent of power.
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| 3DMark and CPDT Benchmark results |
OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G benchmarks:
- AnTuTu - 478,995
- Geekbench 6 - 901 (single-core), 2,070 (multi-core)
- 3D Mark WildLife - 1,504 at 9.01 average fps
- CPDT - 409.36 MB/s sequential read speeds and 300.90 MB/s sequential write speeds
OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G scores in AnTuTu, Geekbench, and 3DMark are not the best in class but the scores are in the range of what we expected for a phone focused on entertainment rather than cameras and gaming for under PHP 18K.
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| Genshin Impact graphics settings |
On Genshin Impact, it is set on the lowest graphics settings as the default. Playing the game is almost smooth when wandering around the world but when in combat with many animations, the phone will struggle especially when the phone has warmed up after a longer play session.
In our experience, the phone can handle the majority of tasks like navigating through the OS, opening apps, web surfing, and social media without struggling except for intense games.
The phone has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and face unlock for security. The initial setup and subsequent uses are quick and it detects our biometrics fast enough. It is slightly slower than the flagship smartphone's ultrasonic fingerprint scanner.
The face unlocks only struggles when the camera is dirty or when we are wearing a mask and sunglasses. The screen brightens up when used in the dark. Face unlock even has a super bright mode that can be set in the settings.
Regarding connectivity, we have the following: WiFi, 5G, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.1 LTE, NFC, OTG, GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, and dual nano SIM.
Connection is usually stable for WiFi and we get 4 to 5 bars of mobile data signal most of the time.
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| PCMark Battery Benchmark |
Inside the phone is a large 5,110mAh battery. It lasted 9 hours and 19 minutes on our usual PCMark Battery benchmark. In daily use, we were consistently getting more than 5 hours of on-screen time even when constantly connected to 5G, WiFi and Bluetooth devices.
The battery charges via USB-C with the 80W SUPERVOOC wall charger which charges the phone 100 percent in around 45 minutes.
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| OxygenOS 14 |
It is running on OxygenOS based on Android 14. Visually, it's similar to the recent previous generation OxygenOS but with the refinements under the hood.
We've noticed snappier performance in certain parts of the OS that aren't massive but add to the overall polish. There are still those uniquely OnePlus features that have been around for a while that long-time OnePlus users will appreciate.
The company also promised that it has two years of Android software updates and three years of security updates.
Pros - Stunning design, lightweight body, 2100 nits 120Hz FHD+ AMOLED, stereo speakers, decent battery life with decently fast charging, decent daylight photos from cameras,
Cons - Dual rear 50MP + depth cameras, middling gaming performance, noisy photos in low light, entertainment and basic games only
OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G Specs
Display: 6.67-inch AMOLED screen w/ 120Hz refresh rate, 480Hz PWM, 2100 nits, FHD+ 2400 x 1080 resolution at 395 ppi
CPU: 2.2GHz 6nm Snapdragon 695 octa-core processor
GPU: Adreno 619
RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
ROM: 256GB UFS 2.2
Back Camera: 50MP f/1.8 Sony LYT-600 w/ PDAF, CAF, OIS, EIS, 2MP f/2.4 depth, + dula-lED flash w/ color temperature sensor
Selfie Camera: 16MP f/2.4
Battery: 5,110mAh w/ 80W SUPERVOOC
OS: Android 14 w/ OxygenOS 14
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), 5G, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.1 LE, OTG, NFC, GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, dual SIM (nano)
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, face unlock, IP54 dust and water splash resistance, stereo speakers, USB-C, Colors: Mega Blue, Super Silver
Dimensions: 162.9 x 75.6 x 8.1 mm
Weight: 191 g
Price: 17,999
Verdict
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| Websurfing on the OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G |
OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite 5G is made to be an affordable smartphone with an eye-catching design that offers a good entertainment experience for its price.
We loved the lightweight and premium-designed polycarbonate and glass body. It is eye-catching and a delight to carry around.
The phone's highlight is the stereo speakers and 6.67-inch AMOLED screen, which has a 120Hz refresh rate, 480Hz PWM dimming, 2,100 nits peak brightness, and a 2,400 x 1,080 resolution. This produces images that are bright, vibrant, and crisp.
Although the audio isn't the best, it's more than good enough for its price point.
The 5,110mAh battery is no slouch either. It consistently got through a long workday with Spotify, K-drama, and anime streaming breaks. The 80W fast charging is powerful enough to charge the phone while using it, too.
The main and selfie cameras produced decent photos with acceptable results for their price.
Let's not forget other included features like IP54, WiFi, and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
However, let's note that its Snapdragon 695 chip is not as great as most chips found on similarly priced handsets. It also limits the video shoting capability of the handset at only 1080p.
Generally, we still recommend it to those in need of a lightweight and good looking phone with nice performing screen, stereo speakers, acceptable camera performance, and the clean OxygenOS interface.
What do you think guys?
Build/Design - 4.25
Multimedia Experience - 4.25
Cameras - 3.75
Performance - 4.0
Average - 4.06/5
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