The major digicam struggles with high-contrast scenes, so the sky is usually blown out within the background, although it will possibly nonetheless take some respectable pictures in even lighting. When the solar will get low, you should use the Night mode to take higher low-light photos, however the colours are off and issues nonetheless find yourself somewhat blurry except you might have a surgeon’s fingers and may keep actually nonetheless. Selfies are sometimes over-brightened, although my facial options are fairly darn sharp, which is good.

OnePlus reveals off a 3X zoom mode within the digicam app, however that is technically simply digital zoom utilizing the 108-megapixel digicam. Because there isn’t any optical picture stabilization, you may end up retaking pictures as a result of the primary one is sort of all the time blurry. OnePlus could name it a “lossless zoom,” but these photos have an over-sharpened look to them. Still, it’s nice to have the option to zoom in a little bit more and get better results than many of its peers. As for the macro camera, don’t get me started. I didn’t like any of the photos it captured.

Then there’s the software. OnePlus has tweaked the Android 13 interface so much that I don’t enjoy using it as much as the interface on Motorola, Google, and Samsung phones. It also doesn’t help that the company matches Motorola on software updates, promising only one OS update (to Android 14) and three years of security updates. When you can’t get any new features after Android 15 rolls around next year, it’ll feel out of date.

The year-old Google Pixel 6A frequently goes on sale for lower than $300 and can get software updates for longer. So will the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G, which frequently dips to $375. Both have a camera system that’s leaps and bounds nicer than the OnePlus, with better software, AMOLED screens, and IP67 water resistance. (The Nord N30 is not water resistant.)

If the lack of software updates isn’t a barrier, you want a headphone jack and a microSD slot, and the two-day battery life is more important than camera quality, then you’ll be happy with the Nord N30 5G. But I think OnePlus could stand to keep its budget handsets updated a little longer, and it needs to go back to the drawing board with its cameras. (Fewer megapixels and better image processing, maybe?) There are just too many better options out there—especially last year’s flagship phones that creep down in price, like the OnePlus 10 Pro, which is presently on sale for $150 more than the Nord.