OnePlus' Nord range of Android phones have always focused on affordability and the new Nord CE4 Lite is no exception. This phone won't be available in the US, but in the UK it'll go on sale on July 1 for only £299 (about $380 or AU$570). For that, you get a single 50-megapixel main camera, a 6.67-inch display and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chip providing 5G connectivity.
So far, so fair enough, but the Nord CE4 Lite also offers fast 80-watt wired charging, which should enable you to juice the phone up extremely quickly. It also has a capacious 5,110 mAh battery, which OnePlus reckons should give you two full days of use. Battery life very much depends on how demanding you are of the phone, so we'll reserve our judgement on this until we can put it to the test.
Other specs include 8GB of RAM and 256GB of base storage, but the CE4 Lite also features a microSD card slot to expand the storage, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack to use wired headphones.
On paper, the phone has a lot in common with Samsung's recent A55 5G, such as the microSD card slot, headphone jack, screen size, similar battery capacity and 50-megapixel main camera. While Samsung's phone adds an additional ultrawide camera to the mix, the OnePlus's fast charging might be a more appealing feature for those of you not bothered about photography. Especially as the A55 5G costs quite a bit more than the OnePlus with a launch price of £439 (around $555 or AU$835).
The main drawback in this cheap phone is the relatively limited software support period OnePlus is offering. The company has confirmed that the Nord CE4 Lite will receive only two years of Android software support and an additional third year of security support, meaning this phone's useable lifespan will only run until roughly 2027.
That's less than half of what competitors are offering. Samsung's A55 receives five years of security support, while Google's Pixel 8A will receive security updates for at least seven years. And while it's a fair chunk more expensive than the Nord, it has more than double the usable lifespan, making it actually a better value proposition over the time period.
A short software shelf life is a significant point against the phone, but we'll see how its other features shape up when we get hold of it for hands-on testing.
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