OnePlus Nord N20 SE is a low-end smartphone owned by OnePlus, which was recently launched in China at a price of 999 yuan. The main feature of the phone is that it has 6A 5-inch waterdrop screen, a large 5000mAh battery, and a quad rear camera. However, can these seemingly eye-catching configurations bring users a smooth and comfortable experience?This article will provide an in-depth analysis of the phone from three aspects: memory, CPU, and performance, to help you decide whether the phone is worth buying.
The OnePlus Nord N20 SE offers two combinations of RAM and storage, which are 4GB RAM + 64GB storage and 4GB RAM + 128GB storage. For a low-end mobile phone, such a capacity is already considered good, which can meet the basic needs of most users. After all, in today's ever-increasing wave of applications, heavyweights, and trends, it makes no sense to choose a new device with less than 128GB of storage. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram accumulate a lot of data. However, capacity isn't the only measure of memory and storage, speed is also crucial. The OnePlus Nord N20 SE, on the other hand, is quite unsatisfactory in this regard. According to our tests, the phone has a RAM speed of 2700 MB s and an internal storage speed of 190 160 MB s. This level is reminiscent of budget devices from a decade ago, and lags far behind competitors in the same price range. For example, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G has a RAM speed of 5500 MB s and an internal storage speed of 500 200 MB s. Such a gap is very obvious in actual use, which will affect the efficiency of starting, switching, loading, and saving applications.
The CPU of the OnePlus Nord N20 SE is powered by the MediaTek Helio G35 MT6765G SoC (System On Chip), a very old chipset that was launched in 2020. The chipset contains 8 cores and 2 clusters inside, with 4 Cortex-A53s running at 2300 MHz and another 4 Cortex-A53s working. The process uses 12nm technology.
Two years ago, such a configuration might have barely coped with some light use cases, but in today's smartphone market, it is completely vulnerable. The Cortex-A53 is a low-power processor released back in 2012 that has limited performance and is not up to the task of high loads. The 12nm process has also been replaced by advanced technologies of 7nm and 5nm, which have higher power consumption and heat generation, and lower efficiency and stability.
In our tests, the OnePlus Nord N20 SE's CPU was only able to reach about 100,000 points in terms of multi-core performance, while the single-core performance was even more miserable, with less than 20,000 points. Such a result is almost at the bottom of the current smartphone rankings, and it is even inferior to the performance of some thousand-yuan machines. For example, the realme Q3i 5G has a CPU multi-core performance of 280,000 points, a single-core performance of 70,000 points, and its price is only 999 yuan.
The performance of the OnePlus Nord N20 SE is slow, and every operation seems to be a bit overwhelming. It's better suited as a smartphone dedicated to calling, browsing, social networking, and simply having fun. If you want to run some large games or software, or have multiple apps open at the same time, you may experience stuttering, lag, crashes, etc.
In the Antutu test, the OnePlus Nord N20 SE scored around 148,000 points in normal mode and around 170,000 points in performance mode. Despite scoring slightly higher in Performance mode, the 22,000-point gap isn't significant, and it doesn't provide a substantial user experience. On the contrary, the phone in performance mode will consume more power and heat, affecting the battery life and comfort of use.
The OnePlus Nord N20 SE is running Google Android version 13, but its exterior adds OxygenOS version 13 to the top1 shell. The shell design is simple and cute, and the animations are quite beautiful. However, the device runs relatively slowly, masking all the advantages in appearance. It is worth mentioning that not long ago, the system underwent a major update that hopefully improved performance. However, according to our observations, the updated system has not improved significantly, but has some new bugs and problems, such as the failure of fingerprint recognition, the crash of the camera, and the confusion of the notification bar.
To sum up, the OnePlus Nord N20 SE is a low-end device that is not worth recommending, and its memory, CPU, and performance are not up to the user's expectations, and even basic smoothness and stability are difficult to guarantee. Its only advantages may be its appearance and battery, but these are not enough to compensate for its shortcomings. In the competition in the same price range, the OnePlus Nord N20 SE has almost no advantage and is overwhelmed by products from other brands. If you're looking for a cost-effective smartphone, then you should consider other options than the disappointing OnePlus Nord N20 SE.