OnePlus Nord 4 review: Metal's back in fashion

It's easy to think of the best cheap phones as simply diminished versions of a company's flagship product. It's a line of thinking I've often fallen into myself. But the OnePlus Nord 4 is quite adamant that it is its own beast, a uniquely designed smartphone that just so happens to cost under £430.

Aiming to do what the Google Pixel 8a and Samsung Galaxy A55 do, but with an attitude, the Nord 4 offers a unique metal design, a big display and battery longevity that the bards will write songs about. Its cameras aren't quite so spectacular as its competitors, and while its software support is good, it's not best in class. Plus American buyers are getting left out in the cold once more, and for what seems like no good reason.

But a top-line summary of the Nord 4's pros and cons only goes part of the way in demonstrating this phone's genuine character. So let our full OnePlus Nord 4 review show you if the statement you want to make with your new phone is the one the Nord 4 will help you to make.

OnePlus Nord 4: Specs

OnePlus Nord 4: Price and availability

You can place an order for the OnePlus Nord 4 from July 16th, for a basic price of £429, or £529 if you'd like extra storage and RAM. That makes it cheaper than the £499 Pixel 8a and the £439 Galaxy A55, although it's undercut by the £349 Nothing Phone 2a.

Normally this strain of Nord doesn't make it to the U.S., which is a real shame given how good a rival it poses for equivalent Google or Samsung devices. If the phone does come to the U.S., either as is or with a new identity, we'll update this part of the review. But for now, assume that the Nord 4's for outside the U.S. only.

OnePlus Nord 4: Design and display

You won't be able to see or feel the Nord 4 (nor probably even hear, smell or taste it either) without noticing its metal body. Metal phones have been more common in the past, but recent innovations like 5G connectivity made glass phones with metal frames a more practical design. But now we have the "first metal unibody phone in the 5G era," and it sure looks distinct in the best of ways.

However, while the aluminum alloy body won't be at risk of rust, it's still not a good idea to take the Nord 4 for a dip. It's been rated at IP65, which isn't as good as the Galaxy A55 or Pixel 8a's IP67 if you're concerned about protection against water and dust.

Taking the phone as a whole though, it does have a strange look for a OnePlus phone, a phone maker that already changes its mind about its phone designs more regularly than most. The horizontal cameras (so arranged to make the motherboard smaller and allow more room for the extra-large battery) are set in a fingerprint-attracting shiny glass panel, make the Nord 4 look like an even more distant relative of previous Nords and the most recent OnePlus 12 and OnePlus Open flagships. But at least the alert slider's still here, in case you started fully doubting this phone's heritage.

The display, a.k.a. the non-metal bit, is a 6.74-inch AMOLED panel, which continues OnePlus' trend of giving users flagship-sized displays however much you actually want to spend with them. The screen's rated at a 2,150 nit peak brightness, which we weren't able to measure ourselves. However, compared to the Pixel 8a, it's nowhere near as bright when stood out in the sun.

One little bonus: the Nord 4's screen has is AquaTouch, previously seen on the OnePlus 12. With some hardware and software trickery, the Nord's display remains usable when it or your hands are wet, something that you may struggle with if you're using a different phone in the same conditions.

The three colors, or "Nordtones" as OnePlus has decided to brand them, for the Nord 4 are the brushed-textured Obsidian Midnight, the wave-patterned Mercurial Silver, and then the matte Oasis Green. I like the look of all three options, so hopefully any prospective buyer will find one they're happy with too.

OnePlus Nord 4: Cameras

OnePlus uses a straightforward 50MP main, 8MP ultrawide and 16MP selfie camera loadout on the Nord. That's roughly equivalent to what the Pixel 8a and the Galaxy A55 offer, although the latter also features a macro camera for extreme close-ups.

Starting with some main camera shots of a tree with a churchyard in the background, we see immediately the Nord 4's weaker dynamic range compared to the Pixel 8a. The trunk of the tree is much darker, while the churchyard beyond is much paler, in the Nord's image, losing out on detail that the Pixel 8a picks up with ease.

Since the Nord 4 uses a high-res main camera, it offers lossless 2x in-sensor zoom, just like its rivals. This shot, focusing in on the bird box on the tree from before, is a closer competition between Nord and Pixel. While the Google phone still does better capturing all the different light levels in the frame, the OnePlus does offer a more attractive warm tone.

In a second main camera comparison, this time between the Nord 4 and the Galaxy A55, we see the OnePlus' tendency towards warmth return in this photo of a hanging basket. The Nord also offers better contrast to help us appreciate the detail in the fibrous material of the basket.

The Nord 4's ultrawide camera gives a brighter interpretation of this park scene versus the Pixel 8a. But the brightness has come at the expense of color and detail.

Lastly, a portrait mode selfie. Neither the Nord 4 nor the Pixel 8a managed to cut around my glasses properly, but both have produced photos that are more than passable. The Pixel 8a's image has more natural color and lighting of both me and the background, but the flatter look of the Nord 4 may be more to some people's taste, even if I can't pick between them.

OnePlus Nord 4: Performance

A Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 3 chip puts the OnePlus Nord 4 a tier below the power of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered flagship phones, but it is on paper still a great choice of chip for the price.

The Nord's Snapdragon chip easily beats the Exynos 1480 found in the Galaxy A55. But the Pixel 8a, using the same Tensor G3 as the Pixel 8 series, scores wins in the CPU and video processing tests.

Gaming does seem to be a strength of the Nord 4. I was able to play a session of Genshin Impact at high graphics and 60fps without the phone struggling, or even producing significant amounts of heat. Not bad for a phone of this price.

OnePlus is making 8, 12 and 16GB RAM versions of the Nord 4, although you only get the choice of 12GB and 16GB in Europe, including the U.K. Similarly, there are 128GB, 256GB and 512GB storage options when looking across all markets, but the UK only gets 256GB and 512GB options.

On one hand it's good to see a cheaper phone on offer with so much memory. But in the interest of pricing I still wish OnePlus offered the lowest spec more widely, giving more users the widest choice possible.

OnePlus Nord 4: Battery and charging

OnePlus has made other brands look stingy with the Nord 4's huge 5,500 mAh battery. And that capacity's not just for show, as in my 3-hour YouTube battery drain test, the Nord 4 lost 11% of its battery, which is one of the lowest results I've ever measured on this test. For reference, the Galaxy A55 lost 22% of its battery during this test, and the Pixel 8a 18%.

This stellar performance should remain consistent for some time too. OnePlus' pre-release testing claims that the Nord 4's battery will retain 80% of its original capacity after four years of use.

Rare for cheap phones, but common for OnePlus phones, is 100W wired charging support, although there's no brick in the box. So while you can get to 0 - 71% charged in 15 minutes and to 100% in 29 minutes according to our testing, it's important to remember this is not a default part of the Nord 4 experience.

OnePlus Nord 4: Software and special features

OxygenOS 14.1, OnePlus' latest spin on Android 14, remains an attractive design for Android, with lots of custom icons, animations, and menus.

OnePlus hasn't plunged head-first into AI like some other brands, but the Nord 4 comes with a sprinkling of AI powers. Abilities like audio text summaries, note summaries, text translate, and AI cell reception boosting aren't novel uses of the technology, but they are at least practical for a wide range of people.

The Nord 4 offers one, more ambitious, AI feature called AI Groupfie, a Pixel Best Take-style option that can combine faces from similar shots to allow everyone in frame to look their best. But that's coming post-launch, so we couldn't try it out for this review.

OnePlus has pushed the boat out with software updates for the Nord 4, offering its longest support promise yet of four years of full updates and six years of security. The Galaxy A55 offers nearly the same at four years and five years, but the Pixel 8a offers seven full years of updates.

To combat the claim it's being less generous with the Android updates, OnePlus points to its fluency testing, which it claims guarantees six years of flawless performance, which insinuates that rivals offering longer upgrade packages can't promise its phones will run well by the time the phones reach their seventh update. Since we have yet to hear back from our future-gazing department here at TG as to which approach is better for you, all we can say is consider how long you plan to keep your new phone for when considering which update offering is better.

OnePlus Nord 4 review: Verdict

It's been another strong showing from OnePlus with the Nord 4, offering potential buyers one of the most attractive, efficient and hardware-generous phones of the year. It's definitely one of the best cheap phones you can buy, assuming you can buy it where you live.

If you're wanting maximum potential value, then the Pixel 8a still wins out with its longer software support, with its more reliable cameras adding an extra incentive on top. But the Nord 4's cheaper starting price may be all the reason you need to go for it instead of the Pixel. Though don't forget the Galaxy A55, which is similarly cheap but offers a better camera experience in exchange for some feature quality elsewhere.

Overall though, the OnePlus Nord 4 asks for only minimal sacrifice for a phone that's half as much money as the latest flagship phones. And looks arguably even better. It's an offer you may find hard to turn down.