OnePlus Nord CE6 Initial Impressions: Is It Really A Performance Champ?

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There were a lot of rumors about OnePlus exiting the smartphone market. While those reports are yet to be proved true, the company has now launched its newest smartphones: the Nord CE6 and the Nord CE6 Lite in India. The ‘Lite’ variant, as the name suggests, is a budget smartphone. On the other hand, the Nord CE6 is a mid-range phone that targets performance enthusiasts.

Both phones are already up for purchase in the country. Thankfully, we were able to get our hands on the Nord CE6 smartphone. It’s an interesting device that features a 6.78-inch AMOLED display, Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset, and a super-large 8,000mAh battery. While we are yet to test the phone fully, we are here with our initial impressions of it. Let’s have a brief overview of the phone.

Design and Build

To begin with, the newly launched OnePlus Nord CE6 features the new design language, which is quite similar to what we get on the Nord 6. It features an all-polycarbonate build, meaning the frame and the back panel are built of plastic. It measures the thickness of 0.85cm and weighs about 215 g in-hand. OnePlus says the phone is MIL-STD-810H military grade durability certified and features IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings.

The in-hand feeling of the phone is good. It’s not the best, but it’s certainly not the worst. The large screen size and flat frames make it look huge, yet it feels comfortable to hold. The rear panel doesn’t attract many smudges, which is also a plus point.

Display

The display is one of the phone’s highlighted features. The Nord CE6 features a large 6.78-inch AMOLED panel with 1.5K resolution and up to 144Hz high refresh rate support. It has a peak brightness rating of 3600-nits and a High Brightness Mode rating of 1800-nits.

As per the official claims, the panel has a screen-to-body ratio of 93.5%, which is decent. The panel gets fairly bright under the sun, and the viewing angles are also good. Overall, the panel doesn’t bring any major compromises and won’t disappoint you in day-to-day usage or in media consumption.

Further, the panel is also rated to achieve a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. It offers a 3840 Hz PWM rating, meaning it won’t strain your eyes when used in low-brightness mode. For protection, it packs Crystal Guard technology. OnePlus claims this is an exclusively co-developed material that prevents normal scratches and protects the phone from damage.

Cameras

Now, let’s talk about one of the most confusing parts of the phone: the cameras. On the rear, the OnePlus Nord CE6 packs a dual-rear camera setup with a 50MP OmniVision OV50D40 CMOS primary wide lens with a 23mm equivalent focal length. It has a 2MP auxiliary lens, which is neither an ultrawide nor a telephoto. OnePlus calls it an “Assistance Camera.” On the front, the device packs a 32MP Galaxycore GC32E2 selfie shooter with a 90-degree Field-of-View.

Basically, you get a single-rear camera and a good front camera. It’s not a camera phone, but despite that, I’m kinda confused with its approach. I can’t talk about the overall camera system yet as I haven’t fully tested it. You can expect a dedicated camera review in the coming days. However, for starters, you can say that the cameras aren’t an impressive part of the phone.

Performance, Battery, and Software

The Nord CE6 phone packs the latest Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Performance seems to be the main focus of the smartphone. The firm has repeatedly focused on the gaming aspect of the phone. It also brings a dedicated Touch Reflex chip that claims to boost the touch responsiveness of the phone and improve the overall gaming experience.

The battery, it brings a large 8,000 mAh cell with support for 80W wired fast charging. It also supports up to 27W reverse wired charging, which is a plus. The charger is thankfully included in the box. The software optimizations look really good, as I was able to get 1.5 to 2 days of usage time on a single full charge. However, I need more time to draw any conclusions about the battery.

In terms of software, it comes with the latest Android 16-powered OxygenOS 16 right out of the box. However, it doesn’t bring a full OxygenOS experience. There are many cut-downs in terms of animations and visuals in the UI. Though the overall experience remains great, don’t expect a flagship-grade software experience from the phone.

Final Words

With that said, I’d like to bring you to the end of the initial impressions of the OnePlus Nord CE6 smartphone. I have so much to talk about regarding this phone, be it in terms of cameras, performance, battery, and everything else. However, I want to make sure that whatever information I provide is verified and tested; therefore, I would request you to wait for the final review to be published.

The OnePlus ‘performance-first’ strategy is very visible. The company is focusing on performance more than ever, and because of this, some trade-offs in terms of cameras and other factors are quite apparent.

For now, this was just an impression of the phone and not a final judgement. To know more, we request you to wait until we fully test the smartphone and share our detailed review.

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