If you value charging speeds more than anything when shopping for a budget 5G phone, you might want to snub the likes of Google’s Pixel 8a mid-ranger or Samsung’s low-cost Galaxy A35 giant this Black Friday… season and instead purchase the 6.72-inch OnePlus Nord N30.
Released almost a year and a half ago at a reasonable retail price of $299.99 in the US and curiously not followed by a Nord N40 model in the meantime, this mid-end Android soldier with a respectable Snapdragon 695 processor under the hood is now sold by Amazon at a substantial $70 discount.
That’s obviously with no strings attached, special requirements, or carrier restrictions of any sort, and the key selling point of the unlocked 5G-capable OnePlus Nord N30 (especially at this reduced price) is the company’s proprietary 50W SuperVOOC charging technology.
This is of course not quite as impressive as the charging speeds of the considerably higher-end and much costlier OnePlus 12 and OnePlus 12R, but believe it or not, it trumps the 45W ceiling of Samsung’s otherwise state-of-the-art Galaxy S24 Ultra, not to mention the vast majority of Android phones available for under $300 (and even under $400) stateside right now.
Before labeling the Nord N30 5G a one-trick pony, you should know that the aforementioned 6.72-inch IPS LCD screen is not only large, but sharp and remarkably smooth as well, supporting 120Hz refresh rate technology. That’s another major feature not a lot of ultra-affordable handsets can currently match (at least in the US), and the same goes for the primary 108MP camera on the N30’s back.
Granted, that unusually high-resolution snapper (for any price bracket) is joined by two largely useless 2MP sensors with macro and depth capabilities, but all in all, the OnePlus Nord N30 5G spec sheet remains an absolute banger for the sub-$300 segment, especially when you also consider its hefty 5,000mAh battery and more than respectable combination of 128GB storage space and 8GB RAM.
