OnePlus is one of the hottest prospects in mid-range phones, offering great value for money and a wonderfully smooth Android experience. That’s especially true of the OnePlus Nord CE5, which offers a huge battery and an impressive screen.
Shoppers need to move fast, though, because the OnePlus Nord CE5 is currently cheaper than Amazon, but the sale ends at midnight on 16 October. Currently, the Nord CE5 is selling for £229 from OnePlus direct, down from £349 – a big £120 saving.
Amazon currently lists the Nord CE5 for £249, so a little more expensive – but Amazon is selling it with an 80W charger bundled in. OnePlus is also offering a free case or screen protector with the phone, so shoppers can walk away with quite a bundle. OnePlus also offers trade-in, so customers with an existing phone or other gadget could swap that for credit and bring the price down further.
The OnePlus Nord CE5 has a large 6.77-inch screen, with a sharp resolution, so there’s loads of detail for browsing, socials and gaming. It also has a premium 120Hz refresh rate so keep everything nice and smooth and looking good.
There’s a 5200mAh battery, which is big for a phone of this size, and that should provide two days of use. Best of all, it offers 80W charging, which means you can recharge it really quickly – much faster than the iPhone – so it goes from flat to fully charged in under an hour.
This is a mid-range phone, so it’s not quite as fast as a flagship device, but it’s a fraction of the price of the latest Samsung phone – and still comes with two cameras on the back for all your photos.
Best of all, OnePlus offers OxygenOS, which is based on Android and offers a smooth and customisable day-to-day experience that’s popular with fans. There are 4 years of Android updates and 6 years of security updates, so this phone will have a long life too.
It’s not perfect, though. The Nord CE5 only has a single speaker, while the display isn’t as bright as it could be – and the phone is a plastic build, which is perhaps expected at this price.
If buyers are looking for a cheaper alternative, then the Moto G75 is also discounted, with a saving of £70 from Motorola, so it’s down to £199.98. Motorola has a great reputation for user experience, with software that’s free from added apps and close to how Google intended Android to look and feel. It also has 6 years of software support.
The Moto G75 matches the Nord CE5’s screen size and smooth refresh rate, but doesn’t do anything to bring any more brightness. It’s still a nice, detailed, display, however. What’s most impressive about the Moto G75 is the finish: Moto uses vegan leather in a range of interesting colours, so even though this is an affordable phone, it looks and feels a lot more premium.
The Moto G75 offers stereo speakers, so it sounds better than the Nord CE5, but the battery is a little smaller, and the charging speed is much slower, topping out at 30W.