Deals: OnePlus Nord 4 is on pre-order, Nord CE3 Lite and CE4 Lite get price cuts

The OnePlus Nord 4 is currently on pre-order, with sales starting on August 16 (Friday next week). The phone features a metal unibody, which was once the pinnacle of high-end design and is now almost nonexistent.

This mid-ranger is equipped with a flat 6.74” OLED display (1,240 x 2,772px) with a 120Hz refresh rate and 10-bit colors (HDR10+). The phone is rated IP65 for dust and water resistance. Its metal back blocks wireless charging, but the large 5,500mAh battery can rely on 100W wired charging (100% in 28 minutes). The camera system consists of a 50MP main (1/1.95”, OIS) and 8MP ultra wide (112°) on the back, the selfie camera has a 16MP sensor.

The Nord 4 has a faster Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chipset. OnePlus promises a fairly long support window – 4 major OS updates and 6 years of security patches.

Alternatively, you can buy the Motorola Edge 50 Pro. It has a curved 6.7” OLED display (1,220 x 2,712px) with 10-bit colours (HDR10+) and a 144Hz refresh rate. It is powered by the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, which sounds pretty close but is actually much slower than the 7+. Motorola promises 3 OS updates and 4 years of security patches.

The Edge 50 Pro’s faux-leather back offers faster wireless charging (50W) and even faster wired charging (125W), but the battery is relatively small at 4,500mAh. The Nord 4 has a decisive lead in the active use score – 14:41h vs 11:59h. The Moto has a tele lens, a 3x 10MP module, in addition to a 50MP main (1/1.55”, OIS) and 13MP ultra wide. It also differentiates itself with a 50MP selfie camera with a 21mm wide lens. And it has better water resistance with an IP68 rating.

Coming to the cheaper members of the Nord family, both the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite and CE 4 Lite are available on Amazon. Both use the older Snapdragon 695 chipset with UFS 2.2 storage. However, the older model has a 6.72” IPS LCD (FHD+, 120Hz) with Gorilla Glass.

The new Nord CE 4 Lite switches to a 6.67″ OLED panel (FHD+, 120Hz, very high peak brightness), with no mention of toughened glass. It does, however, have a dust and water resistance rating of IP54. Note that the older CE 3 Lite had a 108MP main camera (no OIS) with a 1/1.67″ sensor, while the new model drops to a 50MP camera with a 1/1.95″ sensor, but does have OIS.

The Motorola Edge 50 Fusion has the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, which is noticeably slower, but still beats the SD 695 by a comfortable margin. However, the storage is still UFS 2.2, and unlike the Nords, there is no microSD expansion slot.

Anyway, this model has a curved 6.7” OLED (FHD+, 120Hz) with Gorilla Glass 5 and full IP68 protection. It doesn’t have wireless charging like the Pro, but the 5,000mAh battery can be charged at up to 68W. The camera has a 50MP main sensor (1.0µm pixels vs 0.8µm on the CE 4 Lite) and a 13MP ultra wide (120°). The 32MP selfie camera on the front can record 4K @ 30fps video, while the Nord tops out at 1080p.

Apart from that, the Samsung Galaxy A35 has a flat 6.6” OLED (FHD+, 120Hz). It has the new Gorilla Glass Victus+ and is almost as good water resistance (IP67). Storage is expandable and you get the familiar One UI (which is expected to get AI features like the S-series phones).

There’s a 50MP (1/1.96”, OIS) main and 8MP ultra-wide (123°) camera on the back, along with a 13MP selfie camera (which can capture 4K @ 30fps videos). The 5,000mAh battery offers good battery life (12:26h active use score), but the 25W charging feels too slow (we took about an hour and a half to fully charge it).