First Impressions: OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite Review

First Impressions

I’ll leave my full verdict for the full review once testing has been completed, but first impressions are generally positive. The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite has a lot going for it, not only in terms of general design but key features like a 5,000mAh battery, a large 6.78-inch display and 67W fast charging capabilities, all for just £299. There are a few areas that aren’t quite a success, but that’s to be expected at the budget end of the market.

Introduction

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is the latest wallet-friendly smartphone from the company, representing the cheapest way to get the core OnePlus experience. 

Coming in at a tempting £299 in the UK at release on 20 April, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite certainly has a lot going for it on paper with a large 6.72-inch 120Hz display, a 108MP main camera, a 5000mAh battery and 67W SuperVOOC charging to boot, but how does it perform in real life?

While I’m not yet ready to deliver my final thoughts, here are my initial impressions on the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite – and it’s safe to say I’m pleasantly surprised. 

Design and screen

• Most premium plastic build around
• Bright, colourful finish
• 6.67-inch LCD display

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is a wallet-friendly smartphone that does its best to hide its budget origins, and in all fairness, it basically succeeds as far as the overall design and build go. It looks similar to the OnePlus Nord 2T in its overall look, though there are a few notable differences to help tell the two smartphones apart.

While both look similar front-on, the same can’t be said for the rear. While both models sport fairly large circular cameras on the left of the phone, the Nord CE 3 Lite ditches the rectangular housing for a clean, minimalistic approach that reminds me of the Galaxy S23. 

It’s not quite as sleek with noticeably larger camera modules than Samsung’s flagship, but the way the cameras produce from the rear with a nice gradient is appreciated and helps elevate its overall look. 

Some might groan at the all-plastic design of the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite, but it’s one of the most solid-feeling plastic bodies I’ve ever felt on a smartphone, let alone one that costs less than £300. 

This is supposedly down to the manufacturing process, using a coloured injection moulding process that delivers something akin to a ceramic-esque finish. It feels every bit as premium as glass-backed alternatives while having a more robust design that won’t shatter when dropped, though I will say that it’s a bit of a fingerprint magnet. 

The vibrant Pastel Lime finish of the Nord CE 3 Lite is a personal favourite of mine. It’s bright and eye-catching without being too in your face, with a matching plastic frame that further compliments the finish. If you’re not a fan, there’s always the understated Chromatic Grey finish to opt for, sporting a slightly dark blue gradient for a flash of colour. 

The display is a tale of two halves; it’s large at 6.72 inches, making it great for playing games and watching HDR content from the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, and there’s a 120Hz refresh rate to keep things looking buttery smooth. So far, so good, right?

The main weakness of the display is arguably the panel itself; it’s a standard LCD compared to the AMOLED panel you can get from cheap competitors like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G and Samsung Galaxy A34 5G, which means colours aren’t going to be quite as vivid, nor blacks quite as deep and dark. It’s still perfectly servicable for social media browsing and I’ve not yet been put off completely by the LCD tech, but I do miss those deep blacks. 

It’s also not quite as bright as some competitors, maxing out at 550nits in regular use and 680nits when watching HDR content. I took it outside to take a few snaps and, well, you can tell that the display isn’t the brightest around by the below image. I could still see the display, but it wasn’t that clear. 

Camera

• Main 108MP camera can take 3x zoom shots
• 2MP macro lens is near-useless
• No ultrawide lens

The OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite is the first OnePlus smartphone to pack a 108MP rear camera, and it looks pretty tasty on paper with key specs including a large 1/1.67-inch camera sensor, an aperture of f/1.75 and the ability to take 3x zoom images without the need for a dedicated sensor. 

Initial snaps taken on the phone do look decently detailed, though I did notice that the colour looked a little too cool in some shots, and there’s a notable shift in colour temperature between the 1x and 3x zooms, which is odd considering they’re both from the same camera.

That’s flanked by a 2MP macro lens able to photograph subjects as close as 4cm away, but as with other cheap macro lenses, it’s not really worth getting excited about. There’s also a 2MP depth camera to improve portrait photography performance.

The eagle-eyed among you might notice that I haven’t mentioned an ultra-wide lens, and that’s simply because the phone doesn’t have one. While that is disappointing, it’s a result of OnePlus aiming to hit that tempting £300 price tag and wanting to focus all its available energy on a great main lens, aka the one you’ll use most often. 

It makes sense to me and I’m not particularly bothered as I don’t tend to shoot in ultrawide too often, but I imagine it’ll irk some. 

Flip the phone over and you’ll find a single 16MP hole-punch camera embedded into the top of the display, ideal for use in video calls and quick snaps, but you’ll want to use the rear cameras for any half-decent photography. 

Performance

• Older Snapdragon 695 5G chipset
• Android 13 with OxygenOS 13.1
• Fast 67W charging

If there’s one area where the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G does match its price, it’s processing power, sporting the Snapdragon 695 5G that was released in 2021 and was found in some 2022 mid-rangers. 

That’s paired with a fairly generous 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage as standard, with the phone able to use spare storage to provide an additional 8GB of virtual RAM in particularly performance-heavy tasks. 

Granted, it should perform a little better than the Dimensity 1080 that’s found in similarly-priced rivals like the A34 5G, and I don’t feel like it’s a particularly slow phone in use so far, but I have seen the occasional (and ever-so-slight) stutter. 

It should be more than enough for day-to-day use, though if you’re looking for the best possible performance at the £300-350 mark, you might be better off with the Snapdragon 778-equipped Poco X5 Pro 5G. Or, spend £100 more and get the Google Pixel 6a with flagship-level performance. 

The phone ships with Android 13 in the form of OnePlus’ latest OxygenOS 13.1, though there isn’t much in the way of new features compared to OxygenOS 13 on the OnePlus 11. In fact, a company rep confirmed that it’s very much all under-the-hood improvements. 

When it comes to battery power, the Nord CE 3 Lite should be up there with the best with the same large 5,000mAh battery found on flagships like the Galaxy S23 Ultra along with other competitive mid-rangers like the Galaxy A54 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus 5G, though that’ll depend somewhat on the power efficiency of the Snapdragon 695 chipset.

Regardless of when the phone runs out of charge, it offers one of the speediest charge times around at the cheaper end of the market with 67W SuperVOOC charging that OnePlus claims can deliver a full charge in just 41 minutes. That’s under half of the time compared to the Galaxy A54, which, by the way, costs £150 more. 

The company is confident about battery longevity too, with the Nord CE 3 Lite allegedly able to handle up to 1600 charge cycles before battery life will begin to degrade, compared to the standard 800 cycles used by much of the competition. That’s a real boon if it is the case, as that works out to around 4 years of daily charge cycles – more than you should need. 

There are also proprietary sensors and a dedicated battery controller chip that’ll throttle the charge speeds if the phone heats up or otherwise can’t handle the full 67W charge speeds.