OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: Aggressively mediocre

The OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite had something of an open goal ahead of it. I wasn’t the biggest fan of its predecessor, the Nord CE 3 Lite, due to it feeling like an incremental upgrade over the Nord CE 2 Lite and not offering much in the way of value. With such a low bar established in the previous generation, the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite should have been able to hop over it and offer a more compelling budget smartphone experience with little effort.

While there are some improvements of note here, nothing feels revolutionary enough to actually clear that bar. To make matters worse, the few upgrades we do get are paired with some frustrating areas of stagnation and even a couple of backsteps. The end result? A thoroughly underwhelming phone.

OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: What you need to know

The most notable new feature is that the display has jumped from an IPS panel to AMOLED, bringing with it near-infinite contrast and improved brightness. It’s a little shorter than last year’s display, at 6.67in, but both the resolution (2,400 x 1,080) and refresh rate (120Hz) remain unchanged.

The other big change is the battery, which has grown slightly to a 5,110mAh unit (up from 5,000mAh). Alongside this, there’s support for 80W wired charging, though you’ll have to get your own plug as one isn’t included in the box this year.

Running the show is the same tired Snapdragon 695 5G processor used in the Nord CE 3 Lite and, worse still, the Nord CE 2 Lite. This is again backed up by 8GB of RAM, though storage has been doubled to 256GB. There’s only one storage option available but you can add up to 2TB via the phone’s microSD slot.

Finally, there’s been a shakeup in the camera department, and it’s not a positive one. The Nord CE 3 Lite’s 108MP main shooter has been replaced with a 50MP (f/1.8) number. The 2MP macro lens has been dropped too, which isn’t a huge loss, but does leave the 2MP depth sensor as the only supporting lens. Over on the front, meanwhile, is the same 16MP (f/2.4) selfie camera as last year.

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OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: Price and competition

Retailing for £299, the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite is exactly the same price that the Nord CE 3 Lite was at launch (though you can now pick one up for £219). This puts it at the top end of our budget smartphone range, with most of the threats coming from discounted mid-rangers.

Chief among these is the Google Pixel 7a, which is currently available for just £329. Performance, cameras, display quality and software are all superior to the Nord CE 4 Lite, with the major drawbacks being that the display is 90Hz, not 120Hz, there’s only a 128GB model available, and it doesn’t support expanded storage.

If you want more storage, the Samsung Galaxy A35 5G supports microSD cards up to 1TB, and benefits from a terrific main camera, strong performance and decent battery life. It costs £289 for the 128GB model or £339 for the 256GB option. Finally, we’ve got the Nothing Phone (2a), which has the best battery life out of all of the aforementioned models and a gorgeous display. The 256GB model is a bit pricier (£349), but you can get the 128GB version for just £297 at the time of writing.

OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: Design and key features

The build is tighter than last year, now measuring 76 x 8.1 x 163mm (WDH) and it’s a little lighter, too (191g, compared to the Nord CE 3 Lite’s 195g). There are two new colour options available: the Mega Blue style reviewed here and a more understated Super Silver.

Around the edges, we’ve got power and volume controls on the right, a SIM tray on the left and the USB-C and 3.5mm ports on the bottom. Down there is also one of the stereo speakers, with its opposing number at the top of the display. OnePlus’ “Ultra volume mode” makes a return and the manufacturer says it’s now able to boost volume by 300%, up from last year’s claims of 200%.

This mode does push the volume a little higher (though it’s definitely not three times as loud) but, as expected, it comes at the expense of quality, with audio getting tinnier and some treble notes reaching ear-piercing levels of sharpness.

As for the software, the Nord CE 4 Lite runs on Android 14, with the OxygenOS 14 skin layered on top. This is a relatively manageable launcher and easy enough to navigate but there’s a fair amount of bloatware, with serial offenders such as Ali Express and Booking.com clogging up the app drawer. Support is fine without being amazing, with OnePlus promising two OS updates and three years of security patches.

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OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: Display

This is the easiest place to be overtly positive, as the new AMOLED display is a clear upgrade over the Nord CE 3 Lite’s screen. Alongside the expected contrast and black levels that are as close to perfect as you can get, this panel gets a fair bit brighter than its predecessor: on manual brightness, it topped out at 566cd/m², while switching to adaptive and shining a torch on the light sensor pushed it up to an even better 651cd/m².

Colour accuracy has moved in the right direction too, though it’s still not perfect. Of the two colour profiles, Vivid was better for streaming while Natural offered better accuracy. On the latter, I recorded an sRGB gamut coverage of 96.7% against a total volume of 101.5%, and an average Delta E colour variance score of 1.4. That’s still a little way off the target value of 1 or under, but regardless, it’s a big improvement over the Nord CE 3 Lite’s 1.95 result.

OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: Performance and battery life

The Snapdragon 695 5G chipset was outdated when it cropped up on the Nord CE 3 Lite, so I’m less than thrilled to see it dragged out of retirement once again. Single-core performance is identical to the previous model, while the multicore benchmarks bizarrely showed around a 12% dip compared to the Nord CE 3 Lite.

The Nords are level in the GFXBench GPU benchmarks, with both overshadowed by the Google Pixel 7a. Simple gaming fare in the vein of Candy Crush or other such colour-matching titles will run just fine, but don’t expect smooth Fortnite gameplay from the Nord CE 4 Lite.

The one area in which we see some improvement over the previous generation is the battery life, with the Nord CE 4 Lite lasting for close to 25 hours in our looping video test – around two and half hours longer than the Nord CE 3 Lite. The Nothing Phone (2a) is the stamina champ, lasting for 27hrs 31mins, but this is still a very good result for the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite.

You don’t get a charger bundled in the box, so the advertised 80W charging speed is only available for those who have a compatible plug. Those that do should get a full charge in 50 minutes, according to OnePlus. My 67W charger got the job done in under an hour.

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OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: Cameras

Normally, I’d be the first to say that a main camera dropping megapixels isn’t the end of the world, but the 50MP lens here has the same f/1.8 aperture as its predecessor and the sensor is a little smaller (1/1.95in, compared to 1/1.67in), so it does feel like a downgrade.

Even so, captured images are reasonable enough in good lighting, with decent detail and natural colour grading. The contrast feels a little soft in places so complex scenes can lack depth, but otherwise, the camera gets the job done.

The lower pixel count means that the Nord CE 3 Lite’s ostensibly “lossless” 3x digital zoom is a thing of the past. The Nord CE 4 Lite points users to a 2x digital zoom instead, but I didn’t find this worth the price of admission; this flock of fowl taking off from the river’s edge is a smudgy mess, with little distinction between the birds themselves and the riverbank. In short, you’ll need to already be quite close to the thing you want to zoom in on, making this mode feel rather redundant.

Shooting after dark didn’t impress either, with barely any artificial brightening to speak of and a lack of detail across the board. The only good thing I can say here is that the light of the moon isn’t blooming cartoonishly.

Focus on the portrait mode can be a little hit and miss – sometimes it was crisp enough to bring my earring into focus, while other times it left me with blurry ears – but things look good when it locks on correctly, with a smooth background blur and natural skin tones.

Video is very rudimentary; the phone shoots 1080p at 30fps, with electronic stabilisation keeping the worst of the sway out of your footage. Quality is reasonable enough but both the Google Pixel 7a and the Samsung Galaxy A35 5G shoot 4K video at 30fps and 1080p at 60fps, so are superior to the Nord CE 4 Lite in this regard.

OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite review: Verdict

Including a solid AMOLED display for the same price as its predecessor is definitely a tick in the positives column for the Nord CE 4 Lite. I also appreciate the extra internal storage, higher-capacity microSD card support, improved battery life and faster charging. My problem is that the outdated processor delivers sluggish performance and the camera suite is a combination of no improvements and downgrades.

If you’re happy to forgo the expansive storage and can push your budget a little higher, I’d recommend going for the Google Pixel 7a instead. The massive performance jumps and exceptional cameras more than make up for the 90Hz display and lower storage capacity. Otherwise, you can get a 120Hz display and expandable storage from the Samsung Galaxy A35 5G, as well as better performance and a stronger main camera. Either way, I don’t recommend you settle for the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite.