OnePlus Nord 2: The self-proclaimed 'flagship killer'

The OnePlus Nord 2 is heading to the UK and wider Europe-only, but features plenty of higher-end specs for its comparatively lower price next to more expensive phones.

Andrew Lanxon

Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.

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Mike Sorrentino Senior Editor

Mike Sorrentino is a Senior Editor for Mobile, covering phones, texting apps and smartwatches -- obsessing about how we can make the most of them. Mike also keeps an eye out on the movie and toy industry, and outside of work enjoys biking and pizza making.

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Andrew Lanxon

Mike Sorrentino

July 22, 2021 7:45 a.m. PT

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OnePlus Nord 2

The OnePlus Nord 2 costs £399 for the version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or £469 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. For reference, those prices convert to $545 and $641, respectively.

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OnePlus Nord 2

The Nord 2 runs Android 11 at its core, over which OnePlus has slapped its usual Oxygen software.

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OnePlus Nord 2

OnePlus says it's guaranteed to get at least two years of Android upgrades -- so an update to Android 12 this fall and Android 13 next year is a given -- with an additional year of security updates after that.

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OnePlus Nord 2

Until that upgrade to Android 12 arrives, the phone will first ship with Android 11.

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OnePlus Nord 2

The Nord 2's display measures 6.43-inches and boasts a resolution of 1,080x2,400 pixels.

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OnePlus Nord 2

The screen has a 90Hz refresh rate which is a touch lower than the 120Hz of the OnePlus 9 series.

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OnePlus Nord 2

The main cameras on the phone are a 50-megapixel lens combined with a 8-megapixel super-wide lens.

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OnePlus Nord 2

There's also technically a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor.

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OnePlus Nord 2

The phone is certainly powerful enough for gaming, photo editing and video streaming and navigating around the Android 11 interface is smooth and stutter free.