OnePlus Nord 5 follows its north star and attains a deluxe upgrade

With the progressive premiumization of OnePlus, the burden of upholding its true ethos of a flagship killer brand lies on the Nord series. And OnePlus has consistently upped its commitment, which has now resulted in the Nord 5 finally sharing some attributes of plushness with the more expensive OnePluses.

For starters, this is the first phone to feature a Snapdragon 8-series chip. Although the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 fitted here isn't the blue ribbon of the lot, its remarkable enough to run high-end games, such as PUBG: Mobile, BGMI, Call of Duty: Mobile, or Genshin Impact at the highest graphics settings.

While the Nord 4 didn't fall flat at gaming — and I found its metal encasing was both an advantage and a disadvantage in that respect, the Nord 5 gets a notable upgrade here.

Nord 5 hones the flagship OnePlus experience

More importantly, though, the new chip makes way for seamless AI experiences that OnePlus is marinating its devices for. Out goes the 3-way alert slider; in comes the Plus Key, which takes screenshots and stores them in OnePlus' AI Mind Space.

Mind Space, first seen on the OnePlus 13s, runs concurrently with Gemini on the phones, but there are two reasons to consider over Google's roboids.

First, and the more obvious reason I am compelled to use it, is the new button. I press it intuitively, and within a month, I've become accustomed to doing it more often.

Some "memories" — as OnePlus calls them — even suggest actions related to the clippings. For instance, it suggests you to add information it identifies as events to you calendar or nagivate to addresses on Google Maps.

The second, rather more compelling reason to use AI features on the Nord 5, is OnePlus' promise to data security. It says any exhange or private information is stored securely in a private computing cloud. That is not limited to information from the Mind Space but also bits processed by AI transciption, AI-generated messages, call assistant, and more.

Games hit peak fps

Despite the cutbacks on the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 compared to an 8 Gen 3 — or even an 8 Gen 2, for that matter, the chipset is fairly capable of hosting a brilliant gaming experience.

PUBG: Mobile, BGMI, and Call of Duty: Mobile easily hit 144fps, which is the highest this new 144Hz display can support. More importantly, these figures are not limited to just Low graphics settings, but also Medium too.

And to ensure heating doesn't deter the Nord from consistently dishing out chicken dinners, it has a multi-layer cooling system. And for when you are almost out of juice, bypass charging pumps them electrons directly to power your games rather than derouting them through the battery.

The front camera gets the love it deserves

The Nord 5 packs the same rear camera as seen on the OnePlus 13s and the older 13R. It takes good photos, though processing is a bit slower, and needs attention through software fixed.

Here's a look at some of the samples.

However, what OnePlus improves significantly is the front camera, which gets an impressive 50MP sensor. The bigger highlight, however, is the autofocus in selfies, boosting clarity beyond what most premium mid-rangers, save the Vivo V50, offer.

Here's an example of what it does:

With these features up for offer, the Nord 5 is a good value alternative to more expensive phones in the series. In India, the Nord 5 starts at ₹29,999 for the 8/128GB variant, and gets you 12GB RAM and 512GB storage at just ₹35,999, making it one of the sweetest deals on premium hardware.