Nord N20 5G Review – Is This Budget Phone Worth It?

For only 379 CAD, fans of One+ phones can get their hands on the companies latest budget smart phone, the Nord N20 5G. We’ve been using this phone for the past month, and are finally ready to let you know what we think. We have looked at a number of budget phones over the past few months, so we have an excellent baseline to compare this! So how does the N20 5G stack up? Let’s take a look.

Whether you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing, it was weird to grab a phone with a plastic backing to it. Even some of the other budget phones we used over the past few weeks had glass or metal backs, so to hold a plastic phone was a bit…odd. That being said, it wasn’t off-putting, and the lightweight material actually made the phone more enjoyable to use long term. While my initial reaction to the build quality of the phone was rather negative, I’ve done a complete 180 in that regard and now actually really enjoy the plastic back. It’s held up great, even with my decision to not put it in a case. I’ve dropped it more than a few times, and although there are obviously some noticeable scratches on the back plate, it’s still in tact. That’s a big plus for me!

One area that I felt the Nord N20 5G outperformed it’s competitors was in the battery department. I was able to easily get through the day on a single charge with lots of battery left to spare, but even when I did try to overload the phone and drain the battery – playing games helped! – having fast charging at 33W was incredible – even my more expensive smart phones don’t charge as fast as this did. For heavy users, this is actually a huge bonus, and not one that all phones in this price point have!

There are aspects of the phone that we less impressive, although not out of step with other phones in this space. The cameras are just kind of there. They aren’t particularly bad, but they aren’t necessarily good either. They are fine to capture that moment that just happened, or to grab some video of my kids playing at the park. But for anything I want to share with others as opposed to just wanting to keep for myself, using a higher end phone or an actual camera would be a better option.

The other downside is the operating system. The Nord N20 5G ships with Android 11, but the company has confirmed that the phone will only ever get updates to Android 12. That means your phone is likely to become obsolete quicker than other smartphones as the necessary updates required to run the phone might not be available in the future. While you might get away with running an older operating system for a few years, at some point things just become incompatible. This is an issue that won’t really bite you until a few years down the road, so if you switch out your phones often enough, I wouldn’t be concerned.

Ok, so now let’s talk about a few things I was surprised by. The display on this phone is much better than I expected. It is supporting a 6.43” FHD+AMOLED Display that really pops. I mean, at under $400, I really wasn’t expecting a whole lot from the display. But when watching shows and movies on Netflix and Disney+, and while playing games, I was so impressed with how sharp the image was, and how vivid the colours were. This is a huge plus to this phone, and again a way that One+ is a step ahead of the competition.

The other space I was impressed with was the capability to play somewhat demanding games. During my time with the phone, I played (and recorded, see below) a brand new life simulation game called Cozy Islands. It ran fairly well, which was surprising as I wasn’t expecting this to run well at all. You can check it out below:

If you are a budget phone user, and are OK with an underwhelming camera, the Nord N20 5G is a fantastic phone and one that we highly recommend. The battery life, expandable storage, and fantastic display make it a versatile device that will appeal to almost everyone.