OnePlus Nord N20 5G Review: Cheap, Powerful, and an AMOLED Screen | WIRED

When shopping for a smartphone for as little money as possible, power trumps all. Sure, the camera might not be all that great, and maybe the battery doesn’t last two full days. But if the phone can run every single app as well as devices nearly twice its price? That’s a win to me. 

The cherry on top is if it comes with an AMOLED screen, which offers up inky blacks that make staring at anything a lot nicer than on standard LCD displays. The new OnePlus Nord N20 5G checks off both these boxes and costs a mere $299—a shockingly low price for the hardware on board.

The Caveats

There are some big caveats we need to talk about. Initially, the Nord N20 5G I tested only worked on T-Mobile as it was exclusive to the carrier. However, it’s now available as an unlocked phone so it’ll work on a greater variety of networks. That said, there’s no Verizon support, and if you’re on AT&T, you won’t be able to access 5G connectivity, just 4G LTE. 

OnePlus is also promising only one Android OS update for the Nord N20 5G. This might be OK if it launched on the current version of Android, but it doesn’t—it runs Android 11, the operating system version from 2020. That means when it eventually gets Android 12, that’s it. You’re not getting the upcoming Android 13. You’ll miss out on new features including privacy and security improvements, though this phone will get three years of security updates, so it’ll stay patched against attacks for that period of time. 

Effortless Power

Photograph: OnePlus

I’ve been enamored with the Nord N20 5G due to its performance. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 processor with 6 gigabytes of RAM, which, in my benchmarks, edged out the $450 Google Pixel 5A and matched Samsung’s Galaxy A53. 

In real-world use, it’s far and away much smoother than any other sub-$400 phone I’ve tried, handily outclassing Motorola’s crop of Moto G 2022 devices. Seriously, the only time I’ve seen it stutter was during a session of Genshin Impact, the most demanding mobile game around. (The game ran reasonably well on low settings, though the phone did get quite warm.) This should be the gold standard of how cheap phones perform. 

Then there’s the 6.43-inch sharp and colorful AMOLED screen. That’s right: AMOLED! It’s rare to see this kind of display on a phone this cheap. This panel allows each pixel to act as its own backlighting, meaning the pixels can turn themselves off when there’s black content playing across the screen, which in turn produces fantastic contrast over traditional LCD screens that emit a faint glow. It’s awesome.