OnePlus Nord 4 smartphone review – Unibody case for little money gives the upper class the jitters

Welcome back, OnePlus! After the manufacturer was unable to do business in Germany for a longer time period - due to a lost patent law case - the devices are now more widely available again, and with the OnePlus Nord 4, a very interesting smartphone has hit the shelves. 

Designed as a high-quality midrange smartphone, it might also attract some high-class buyers - at least it looks good enough, and the equipment also turns out to have a high quality.

We already called the OnePlus Nord 3 an "impressive improvement compared to the Nord 2" in our test, and now we'll take a detailed look whether the OnePlus Nord 4 succeeds in making another great leap ahead.

Note that we updated our rating system and the results of version 8 are not comparable with those of version 7. You can find additional information on this here.

Its fairly long period of software updates already earns the OnePlus Nord 4 some positive points in its sustainability rating. The packaging is made of cardboard without including a lot of plastic, and for the printing on the box, soy-based instead of oil-based inks were used.

Unfortunately, OnePlus hasn't published any sustainability reports since 2020, which makes the company's efforts appear less credible. There is no data available on the CO2 emissions during production or the life cycle of the smartphone.

A link to the official parts vendor is very difficult to find and we only found it via the search engine. At this point, there are no parts for the OnePlus Nord 4 available yet, although the device is already listed in their database.

There is currently no online repair manual available yet. The ifixit.com repair community only offers repair instructions for older devices, so there appears to be no official cooperation with the manufacturer here.

The OnePlus Nord 4 supports WiFi 6 as its fastest standard, so you have to make do without the lesser used and thus often faster 6-GHz band for wireless network connections. Since the SoC would already include support for WiFi 7, the manufacturer purposefully chose to forego the support of the more modern standard.

The speeds in the tests with our Asus ROG Rapture AXE11000 router remain fairly stable around 900 Mbit/s when receiving. While this allows you to make fairly good use of a Gigabit Internet connection, there are also significantly faster smartphones for internal network data transfer in this price class.

You get full reception close to the router, but at a 10-meter (~33 ft) distance and through three walls, you only get half the signal strength, and it takes considerably longer to load websites than near the router.

The number of 4G and 5G frequency bands the smartphone is capable of using for communication in the mobile networks doesn't leave much to be desired. The OnePlus Nord 4 can be used all over the world.

We take a closer look at the smartphone's reception by repeatedly and randomly comparing the signal quality with that of high-end phones. The OnePlus Nord 4 does a good job here and often performs at the same level with more expensive smartphones.

For making phone calls, OnePlus uses the Google app that should look familiar to users of many other Android phones. It automatically identifies business callers and also offers all the important calling functions. Optionally, you can also replace it with another phone app.

We really like the voice quality, with our conversation partner sounding clear and present. If necessary, you can also listen at a fairly high volume, although your surroundings can then also hear what is coming from your earpiece. According to our conversation partner, our own voice also sounds crystal clear.

Listening to our conversation partner via speaker phone, the voice also sounds very clear, and our own voice is transferred clearly, even when speaking with a slightly lower voice.

The main camera also has to prove itself in the lab, where we take pictures in full studio light and also at only a single Lux of illumination. In good light conditions, the contrasts could have been even better, and the sharpness is at a medium level.

In very low light, the object is still recognizable, but the sharpness has decreased significantly.

In addition to the smartphone itself, the box also includes a USB cable in the iconic red and white design and a SIM tool. At the time of this test, those who order their smartphone directly from the OnePlus online shop (in Germany) will also get a free charger.

OnePlus offers a bunch of accessories on its website, including chargers for 40 to 60 Euros (~$44-66). You can also get a charger for the cigarette lighter in the car for 60 Euros (~$66). Suitable cases in the sandstone design that remind of the OnePlus One or with Aramid fiber are available for 23 to 40 Euros (~$25-44).

OnePlus offers a one-year warranty for its smartphones.

On the other hand, those who value a lot of graphics power will get their money's worth with the OnePlus Nord 4: In our benchmarks, the smartphone often places ahead of the pack. Even at higher resolutions such as 1440p, the SoC still allows for playable frame rates.

We take a closer look at the gaming power in our gaming section below.

Surfing the Internet, the performance of the OnePlus Nord 4 is mediocre overall. At times, it is only sufficient for placing last in the benchmarks, but sometimes the smartphone also performs at the head of the pack.

Some larger websites can take their time until all the content and pictures are loaded when scrolling quickly. But overall, the OnePlus Nord 4 allows for some fairly smooth Internet surfing.

None of the other comparison devices offer UFS 4.0 storage, so OnePlus landed a real coup here: The currently fastest UFS storage is otherwise only used in some really high-end devices. It allows you to read and write large amounts of data quickly, and load times can be shortened.

In random reads, so particularly with smaller files that are spread across the whole storage, there are no speed advantages compared to other UFS versions, though.

We measure up to 47.5 °C (117.5 °F) of heat development on the case with the system under heavy load. This is clearly noticeable and can get even hotter on hot days outdoors.

OnePlus often had problems with the cooling of its smartphones already in the past, with benchmarks getting aborted automatically in order to allow the device to cool. Although the same doesn't happen this time, the drop in performance is clearly noticeable already after a short time. While the system tries to go back to its full performance again after that, it only succeeds for a short time.

In addition to a dedicated speaker at the bottom edge, the earpiece is also used as a speaker, allowing the OnePlus Nord 4 to create a light stereo effect. The sound is very attractive for a midrange smartphone. Even some lower mids are audible, giving the speakers a fuller and warmer sound.

While you can easily enjoy some pop music on the smartphone, when listening to classical music, you might have to turn the volume slightly lower, so you won't be able to hear every instrument in the orchestra. These are some very small speakers, after all.

Those who prefer to use headphones or external speakers can connect them via Bluetooth or the USB-C port. Both methods work without any problems in our test. The following wireless Bluetooth codecs for audio transfer are supported: SBC, AAC, Qualcomm aptX, aptX HD, LDAC, LHDC, aptX Adaptive and aptX TWS+. You have to make do without some of the more exotic codecs such as LC3 or Opus.

In terms of power consumption, the OnePlus Nord 4 shows itself fairly efficient as long as you don't demand a high performance. At a maximum of 1.5 watts, we even measure the lowest maximum consumption in idle mode among our comparison devices.

But as soon as the system has to do some work, the power consumption increases drastically, reaching one of the highest values in our comparison field with up to 11.3 watts.

The phone can be charged at up to 100 watts, but the corresponding charger is not included. Using the SuperVOOC charger that we already had, it takes about 35 minutes to completely recharge the battery from 0 to 100%. You can also get enough power for several hours of regular operation after charging for a few minutes.

However, it is still annoying that there continues to be no option to charge the smartphone wirelessly.

With a 5,500 mAh capacity, our test unit has the most powerful battery in our comparison field, increasing its battery capacity by 10% compared to its OnePlus Nord 3 predecessor.

This also becomes noticeable in the battery life, which turns out very good: Even though 16:38 hours of surfing in the WLAN aren't a record, they still tell us that the smartphone can also last through two days of regular usage at times without getting recharged.

You can even watch movies from the internal storage for much longer: Lasting 23:45 hours, watching all the Harry Potter movies in a row shouldn't pose any problems for the battery, and there should even be enough power left to watch one or two more movies.

You can play demanding games for more than 6 hours, before the smartphone needs to be recharged again.

Although the OnePlus Nord 4 is listed on Amazon.com, it is not compatible with CDMA networks in the US. Worldwide, it is available from Amazon in the UK for £357 and India starting from IRS 30,000, for example. In many countries, you can also purchase it from OnePlus directly.

Note that we updated our rating system and the results from version 8 are not comparable with those from version 7. You can find additional information on this here.