OnePlus Nord Vs iPhone 8 Plus: Battle of The Budget Phones!

OnePlus is once more on the budget-phone wagon with the release on OnePlus Nord. The company that started its journey by offering smartphones that resembled Apple iPhones but at affordable prices and with Android instead of iOS, started to leave this approach behind in the last couple of years when flagship OnePlus phones started to come out.

While OnePlus 7 & 8 provided great specs and impressive design language, they didn’t really hit home for the standard OnePlus customer that is used to, and now seeks, an almost premium phone at a mid-range or even budget price.

The OnePlus company definitely didn’t want to lose their existing customers and the market sector where they are practically ruling. This is why, this year, the Chinese smartphone company came out with a new budget-friendly smartphone again, the OnePlus Nord.

Funnily enough, with the release of the OnePlus Nord, the table have turned. While Apple used to release and impressive-looking iPhone and OnePlus would somewhat copy the design to present a sturdy phone with a similar design and good specs, now, there is a budget iPhone that lies in the same price range as the OnePlus Nord and may be offering even better specs and performance, the refurbished iPhone 8 Plus!

While it is may seem not that easy to find an Apple iPhone at the price of a OnePlus Nord, it is actually available pristine and at the same mid-range price among the collection of used phones for sale by QwikFone.

In this post, we’re going to take a deep look at both phones, the OnePlus Nord & the iPhone 8 Plus, regarding all the major aspects, the design & build material, display quality, cameras, and battery.

This battle of the two budget-friendly phones may not turn out as tense as GoT battles, but it will definitely have a few surprises that can change your mind if you’re getting into this comparison between a 2016 phone and a 2020 phone thinking that the result is predetermined.

So, if you’re considering buying the OnePlus Nord, or the iPhone 8 Plus brand-new or even refurbished, keep on reading to find out the most important points that will help you make a decision.

Design: All screen vs bezels!

• All screen vs bezels
• Same size in both phones
• Plastic frame vs aluminum frame!
• Dual SIM vs single SIM

No shade intended towards the iPhone 8 Plus here. However, one can’t help but notice the major differences between the fronts of the two phones side by side.

The OnePlus Nord has an all-screen front with a small punch hole for the dual front cameras. The iPhone 8 Plus, on the other hand, has more of a traditional design of the older Apple iPhones prior to the iPhone X.

When it comes to size, both the OnePlus Nord and the Apple iPhone 8 Plus have almost the same size at the dimensions of 158.3 x 73.3 x 8.2 mm and 158.4 x 78.1 x 7.5 mm respectively.

The build material aspect leans in favor of the iPhone 8 Plus with an aluminum frame and Gorilla Glass on the front and back. The OnePlus Nord also has Gorilla Glass on both its back and front. What is curious is the plastic frame!

The reason for having such an odd choice for a mobile frame such as plastic is, of course, to control the cost. Due to having a plastic frame, however, the OnePlus Nord has failed its durability test which raises the question of: Is the lower price worth compromising the quality and durability of the phone?

When there is no difference in the price, which is the case between the iPhone 8 Plus & the OnePlus Nord, durability wins over everything else. So, it is safe to say that, even though the iPhone 8 Plus does not have an all-screen attractive front, it wins this point of the battle!

Display: The notch is gone either way!

• Both phones has no notch
• Similar display quality
• Larger screen in the OnePlus Nord
• No AMOLED display in the iPhone 8 Plus
• 3D Touch vs HDR10+!

While comparing the latest iPhones to any other smartphone the other device would win in the screen department as most brands are finding different solutions for the notch from replacing it with a punch hole or adding a motorized pop up front camera while Apple is still insisting on its humongous annoying notch, this is not the case here.

Since the iPhone 8 Plus has the traditional design of classic iPhones with the top and bottom bezels along with the home button, it has no notch. So, watching videos in landscape mode is not going to be interrupted by anything cutting out the screen.

The OnePlus Nord also does not have a notch, instead, it has a small cutout on the top left corner to contain the dual selfie camera.

The screen panel quality is premium in both phones as the iPhone 8 Plus has a Retina IPS LCD and the Nord has Fluid AMOLED panel.

As for the screen size, the Nord has a larger screen at the size of 6.44 inches while the iPhone 8 Plus only has a 5.5 display.

Finally, the Nord has a slightly better resolution at 1080 x 2400 pixels while the iPhone 8 Plus has a 1080 x 1920 google pixelbook 12in resolution. Considering only the numbers here, the OnePlus Nord is definitely better. However, considering the different screen sizes, the higher resolution is an absolute necessity for the large screen of the Nord, while with the iPhone 8 Plus, the 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution is just perfect for its screen size.

For the additional features, the iPhone 8 Plus has Apple’s famous 3D Touch in both the screen and the home button.

On the other hand, the Nord display has a HDR10+ which improves the display quality by miles compared to the iPhone.

So, over all, the OnePlus Nord wins this point of the battle with a larger and better display.

Cameras: The numbers can lie!

• Quad-camera vs dual-lens!
• Similar video quality in both phones
• The Nord has a better selfie quality!

When taking a look at the camera specs of both phones side by side on the comparison page of GSMArena, you will be blown away with how much of a difference the image quality of both phones. The Nord has 4 camera lenses on the main camera module with the quality ranging from 48MP to 2MP. It also has a dual lens front camera with 32MP and 8MP.

The iPhone 8 Plus, on the other hand has only dual camera lens on the main module with 12MP quality for both and the front camera is a single lens at the quality of 7MP.

Depending on only the numbers the 48MP camera of the OnePlus Nord would win this point, right?

Well, while this is correct in theory, it is important to remember that most Android phones use the 48MP lens to make up for the missing camera performance that is found by default in iPhones thanks to Apple’s premium quality in both the software and hardware of the camera.

So, while the numbers show huge differences in camera quality, the iPhone 8 Plus already has a premium and impressive camera performance that the OnePlus Nord will have to beat!

When it comes to the front camera, the Nord will definitely offer a better photo and video quality for selfies and stories. While the iPhone 8 Plus films perfect Full HD videos on its front camera, the dual-lens front camera of the Nord films 4K videos!

Battery: The iPhone has an edge!

• Wireless charging is a sign of a flagship
• Capacity is not everything
• iOS makes everything better!

Once again, the Nord displays superior specs numbers in the battery with almost double the capacity of the iPhone 8 Plus. And, once again, we have to consider the quality of the actual performance and features rather than just the numbers.

While the Nord has a 4115 mAh battery and the iPhone 8 Plus has a 2691 battery, the iPhone 8 Plus wins this point due to two main reasons:

1. Since the iOS 13 upgrade, the iPhone 8 Plus has the new “Optimized Battery Charging” feature that makes the phone more intuitive as it learns the user’s charging patterns and adjusts its charging behavior based on it to improve and prolong the battery’s life.
2. Although the iPhone 8 Plus is now at a mid-range price in its refurbished pristine condition, it was originally created by Apple to be a flagship. So, it has a flagship features including wireless charging! The Nord, on the other hand, does not have wireless charging.

So, without a doubt, the iPhone 8 Plus would win this point.  After all, when it comes to some features, once a flagship, always a flagship, right?

Final thoughts

This comparison did not include a speed and performance comparison because both phones run the latest version of their respective OSs, Android 10 and iOS 14. So, in this department, it mostly comes to each users preference of software. One thing to keep in mind is that while Android is still finding its way into the AI and virtual assistants world, Siri is now smarter than ever and the iOS 14 is known as Apple’s best update of the iOS of all time! While it may seem as a tie between the two phones, each user can decide which aspects of the phone are more important in their individual perspective and take the decision based on that.