OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Which budget phone will win?

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Which upkeep phone will win?

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The iPhone SE may be a pocket-size phone, simply it'southward very big on value. Apple'south entry-level smartphone delivers some premium features, highlighted past the same form-leading A13 Bionic processor that powers Apple's more expensive iPhones. It'southward no wonder the iPhone SE chop-chop established itself equally the all-time cheap phone you lot tin can currently buy.

OnePlus clearly took discover. Information technology's rolling out a upkeep phone of its own, the OnePlus Nord. And now that the phone has been fully unveiled, we've got a better idea of what the Nord has to offer — and more chiefly, how information technology can compete with Apple'due south low-price option.

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In this OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE showdown, we'll look at how the features we've seen in our OnePlus Nord hands on measure up confronting what Apple's telephone has to offer. As keen equally the iPhone SE 2020 is, the OnePlus Nord figures to provide serious competition.

It should be noted, in 2022 Samsung will release the Galaxy A13 5G, featuring a 90Hz display, for $249.

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Specs comparing

	OnePlus Nord (rumored)	iPhone SE
Starting price	£369/€399	$399
Screen size (Resolution)	6.4-inch AMOLED (2400x1080; 90Hz)	4.7-inch LCD (1334x750; 60Hz)
CPU	Snapdragon 765G	A13 Bionic
RAM	8GB, 12GB	3GB RAM (based on teardowns)
Storage	128GB, 256GB	64GB, 128GB, 256GB
Rear cameras	48MP broad (ƒ/1.75); 8MP ultrawide; 5MP depth (ƒ/2.4); 2MP macro (ƒ/2.4)	12MP (ƒ/1.eight)
Forepart cameras	32MP (ƒ/two.45) and 8MP ultrawide (ƒ/2.45)	7MP (ƒ/ii.ii)
Battery size	iv,115 mAh	1,821 mAh (based on teardowns)
Size	6.23 x 2.88 10 0.32 inches	five.45 x 2.63 x 0.29 inches
Weight	6.five ounces	v.2 ounces
Colors	Blue Marble, Gray Onyx	Black, White, Product [Ruby]

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Price and availability

The iPhone SE set a high bar with its low price before this year. You tin can pick upwards the cheapest iPhone Apple currently sells for $399, which is specially impressive given the iPhone SE'south features, as we'll see throughout this OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE face-off.

The OnePlus Nord's cost is also low — lower than the iPhone SE's, in fact, when you're shopping for phones in the UK. In that state, the OnePlus Nord will debut at £379 for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The entry-level iPhone, with its 3GB of retention and 64GB of storage, costs £419.

We're giving the prices in pounds, considering right at present, the OnePlus Nord isn't slated to go along sale in the Us. That could change depending on interest in the phone, but for at present the Nord will be available in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and other parts of Europe starting on August 4. (The phone'south debuting in Bharat as well.) In contrast, the iPhone SE is widely bachelor, specially in the US.

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Design and brandish

Now that we've seen the OnePlus Nord for ourselves, we know that the leaked images of the telephone were spot on. It definitely mirrors the look of OnePlus' more than expensive flagship devices, with very little in the way of bezels around the display and a vertical line of cameras descending down the left rear of the device.

As a result, information technology's not difficult to strike a dissimilarity with the iPhone SE. Apple'southward budget phone sports a pattern that's straight out of 2016, with bezels surrounding both the top and bottom of the display — at that place'due south too a Touch ID sensor on the front of Apple'due south telephone.

While the new iPhone SE isn't as compact as the iv-inch original, the four.seven-inch brandish on the new model certainly runs counter to the tendency of bigger and bigger smartphones. The OnePlus Nord features a 6.44-inch FHD screen — modest compared to OnePlus' recent flagships merely quite big side by side to the iPhone SE. The bigger screen on the OnePlus Nord ways it'due south taller, wider and thicker than the iPhone SE; the Nord weighs more than an ounce heavier than the SE also.

The OnePlus Nord enjoys one big advantage over the iPhone SE when it comes to displays. OnePlus is using an OLED panel on its upkeep phone. Many lower-cost devices — the iPhone SE included — turn to LCD screens as a cost-cut measure.

But the bigger news is a screen with a faster 90Hz refresh rate, compared to the standard 60Hz iPhone SE screen. OnePlus is adopting the same feature information technology introduced with final year'south OnePlus vii Pro for its budget phone, meaning scrolling should be much smoother than what yous run into on the iPhone SE.

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Cameras

We're going to find out if four lenses are improve than one. The OnePlus Nord is maxing out on cameras, with a 48-megapixel main shooter joined by an 8MP ultra wide camera, 2MP macro lens and 5MP portrait sensor.

The iPhone SE takes a different road. There's but i lens on the back of Apple tree'due south phone — a 12MP shooter. But Apple figures that the A13 processor powering the iPhone SE shoulders a lot of the photographic load past enabling features like portrait effects for both the front and rear cameras plus Smart HDR for emphasizing highlights in faces.

Upward front, the OnePlus Nord looks to double the cameras establish on the iPhone SE. While Apple's phone features a lone 7MP selfie cam, the OnePlus Nord will utilise a pair of front end lenses — a 32MP main sensor augmented by an 8MP broad angle lens to squeeze in more people and background details. That wide angle lens offers a 105-degree field of view.

We'll take to put the cameras on each phone side by side to figure out which one takes the meliorate pictures, only from what we've seen from the iPhone SE thus far, the OnePlus Nord has its piece of work cut out for it. The iPhone SE'southward pictures are much better than what you lot get from similarly priced phones and can hold their ain against images captured past more expensive flagships. There'southward a reason nosotros include the iPhone SE on our list of the best photographic camera phones. Whether the OnePlus Nord can bring together it, we'll have to wait and see.

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Operation and 5G

Every bit previously confirmed by OnePlus, the OnePlus Nord features a Snapdragon 765G organization-on-chip. We've not had a run a risk to run operation tests on devices powered past this chipset, but it'south a safe bet the results won't exist equally expert as what we've seen from the Snapdragon 865, Qualcomm'southward top-of-the line mobile processor.

That's significant, because the iPhone SE uses Apple's A13 Bionic processor. And that chip generally outperforms the Snapdragon 865.

On the Geekbench 5 examination for general functioning, the iPhone SE tallied scores of 3,226 for multi-cadre and ane,337 for single cadre testing. While the Snapdragon 865-powered OnePlus viii Pro had a slightly ameliorate multicore score of 3,379, its single-core score was simply 906. (The OnePlus 8 Pro besides benefits from 8GB to 12GB of RAM to boost operation — the same amount of memory OnePlus includes in the Nord models.) Nosotros wouldn't wait the OnePlus Nord and its less powerful chip to be in that ballpark.

The OnePlus Nord volition be able to do something the iPhone SE tin't, though — connect to 5G networks. The Snapdragon 765G comes with a built-in 5G modem for connecting to faster cellular networks. Apple tree isn't calculation 5G connectivity to its phones until the iPhone 12 launch this autumn.

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Battery and charging

We likewise need to run our battery tests on the OnePlus Nord. But on paper, it's hard to imagine that OnePlus' new telephone doesn't outlast the iPhone SE. OnePlus has equipped the Nord with a 4,115 mAh battery — that, and a power-efficient ship, should aid the OnePlus Nord last a long time on simply one charge.

Apple tree doesn't disclose bombardment sizes, but a teardown of the phone indicated that there'south an 1,821 mAh battery inside. Every bit you might imagine, that doesn't translate to impressive battery life. The iPhone SE lasted 9 hours and xviii minutes on our battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over LTE until the phone runs out of power. That'south below average for a smartphone; the handsets on our best phone battery life listing all concluding more than than eleven hours.

The OnePlus Nord should also charge faster than the iPhone SE since OnePlus is using its Warp Accuse 30T applied science in its budget phone. The iPhone SE includes a 5-watt Lightning charger that gets a tuckered phone up to 29% power after 30 minutes. That's not exactly a high bar for OnePlus to have to clear, especially with OnePlus promising that you can become a seventy% accuse in that time. Y'all can pair the iPhone SE with a faster 18W charger, but that costs extra.

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Software

All iPhones enjoy an border over their Android counterparts since they ship with the latest version of iOS and they tin upgrade whenever a new version is available. That's why the iPhone SE runs iOS 13 now and will be able to upgrade to iOS fourteen when that update comes out in the autumn. (You can even install the iOS 14 public beta on your iPhone SE at present if you're so inclined.)

The OnePlus Nord will ship with the current version of Oxygen Os, OnePlus' spin on Android. That version is built on Android 10, and while OnePlus is usually pretty practiced most keeping its software up to date, there will exist some lag between the release of Android 11 after this twelvemonth and when it winds upwards on your OnePlus Nord. It's unclear how many major Android updates you lot can count on afterward that, but Apple usually keeps its phones supported for four to v years.

OnePlus promises plenty of optimizations with Oxygen Bone, including faster on-screen animations. Too, Google'south messenger and phone apps will be the default options on the OnePlus Nord.

OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE: Outlook

Lots of phone makers have fix their sights on the midrange phone market this year, as tighter budgets accept fabricated people less willing to pay top dollar for flagship phones. And then far, the iPhone SE has been the big winner at capitalizing on that tendency.

The OnePlus Nord figures to put up a more formidable challenge than other would-exist iPhone SE rivals, particularly if its cameras and display are upwards to the task. The one thing holding the OnePlus Nord back might be its availability. While shoppers in India and Europe shouldn't have any trouble buying the device, folks in the US might not be so lucky — at least, non for a while.

Nosotros look forward to updating this OnePlus Nord vs. iPhone SE face-off one time we're able to fully test the OnePlus Nord. And we're keen to meet if the iPhone'southward leading performance and impressive cameras can conduct the day against OnePlus' faster display, bigger battery and overall polish.

Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom's Guide. He has strong opinions most Apple, the Oakland Athletics and old movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.