Oneplus Nord N300 Review: One of the most attractive phones I’ve seen in this pricing category is the $228 OnePlus Nord N300, which T-Mobile only offers. It includes some high-end features, including a 90Hz refresh rate display for better scrolling and 33-watt rapid charging. But if you get past the aesthetics and a few dazzling functions, it’s evident that this is a low-cost gadget.
For instance, those attractive rear cameras don’t always provide high-quality images. The fast-charging power adapter still takes about an hour to charge the phone from empty entirely. The phone only has 64GB of built-in storage, which is practically nothing.
Thankfully, it has a microSD card slot for expansion. Even though I like the appearance, this phone is still made of plastic, and until you put a case on it, it will feel like plastic in your hand.
The N300’s major flaw is that it will only receive one firmware update to the most recent Android version. That’s unfortunate since that means that your phone can already seem dated after just a year.
Despite this, the N300 is considerably less expensive than a typical flagship device like the Galaxy S22 or iPhone 14. It could serve you well if you don’t expect it to tackle challenging jobs like nighttime photography and plan to continue with T-Mobile.
Even though the phone’s slower MediaTek Dimensity 810 processor doesn’t support Android 12 very well, it does support it very well, providing it an advantage over certain similarly priced handsets that occasionally have trouble multitasking.
A headphone jack, which is uncommon on more expensive phones, is also present. Depending on how you feel about the compromises made to attain that lower price, the N300 might even be better than the company’s $300 OnePlus N20.
How Is The Design, Display, And Software Of The Oneplus N300?
The OnePlus N300 sports two sizable cameras on its back, with the 48-megapixel primary camera taking center stage. The phone’s back is sleek and matte black with a discrete OnePlus logo in the middle. There is a pleasant sense of flair for a phone this inexpensive.
The 6.5-inch display on the OnePlus N300 has a reduced resolution, but the 90Hz refresh rate helps to make up for it with fluid scrolling and animations. The legibility is good despite the lack of a vibrant display. It worked well enough for my light gaming and YouTube streaming sessions.
The front-facing camera on the phone has a notch in the shape of a teardrop that is simple to ignore. However, OnePlus offers the option to use the settings menu to cover the incision with a black bar.
I appreciate the boxy feel of the phone as well as the rear design. It can’t stand up by itself, but the shape lends itself to sturdiness.
The Oneplus N300’s Cameras:
The dual speakers on the N300 are an improvement over the single speaker in the N20. For more comparisons, check out my colleague Eli Blumenthal’s review of the OnePlus N20. The Snapdragon 695 CPU, 6GB of RAM, and 64-megapixel primary camera of the N20, compared to the N300’s 4GB and 48-megapixel primary camera, are just a few examples of how the N20’s higher pricing is evident in other areas.
But some of the features found on the more costly OnePlus 10T and 10 Pro are also included in the OnePlus N300’s rendition of Android 12, and some of them feel out of place on a budget-friendly device like this.
For instance, OnePlus provides a feature I’d typically expect on a gaming phone when opening a game: the ability to pull up statistics on the game’s performance under an overlay.
According to a OnePlus representative, this feature is carried over from earlier Oxygen OS releases, which explains a lot. Given that it would probably highlight the performance difference between the lower-end MediaTek CPU in the OnePlus N300 and the more potent processors available on other OnePlus phones, including this feature on the N300 seems peculiar.
How Many Mobile Devices Are In The Oneplus N300?
It’s simple enough to disable the OnePlus customizations in the settings menu, including the gaming statistics widget. For instance, I instantly disabled a widget panel blocking the screen’s top-right corner from being accessed to view notifications.
Image Source: gsmarena
The OnePlus N300 includes a T-Mobile Play feed in addition to Google’s Discover feed because it is presently only available from T-Mobile. It’s simple to ignore, but I’d be content if I didn’t have to. Sadly, there are no plans to release an unlocked OnePlus N300 in the US, so these T-Mobile skins are unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
Two years of security updates and one significant operating system update to Android 13 will be provided for the OnePlus N300. That is comparable to the $258 TCL Stylus 5G but less expensive than Samsung and Motorola’s comparably priced smartphones. In addition to at least one significant system update, those phones provide security updates for at least three years.
Read More:
How Long Are The Battery Life Of The Oneplus N300?
The 5,000mAh battery in the OnePlus N300 has more than enough capacity to last all day. With frequent and infrequent use, I often found that the phone lasted all day, with a 3-hour screen time putting me at approximately 35% battery life. I particularly value the power-saving options OnePlus’ Oxygen OS offers, which estimates how much battery life I may save by reducing the refresh rate or disabling GPS.
The power adapter required for charging the OnePlus N300 at a rate of up to 33 watts is fortunately already included in the package. That’s uncommon these days because most phone manufacturers no longer have charging bricks in the packaging of their phones, necessitating the purchase of a compatible fast charger separately. But in contrast to other adapters that can handle this wattage, this specific charger is large.
Most of my charging tests for a phone of this budget were quick but not as fast as you may get from the OnePlus 10T and 10 Pro. I could regularly charge the N300 in 55 minutes, going from a low battery level (generally between 2% and 11%) to 93% to 96%. The N300 would reach 30% of its charge within 15 minutes of charging when there was less time.
