OnePlus Nord Watch Review: Gets the Basics Right!

OnePlus has now released its Nord Watch in India to compete with the budget smartwatches available on the market. The smartwatch offers a 60Hz AMOLED display, essential health features, and a solid aluminum build for a price of Rs. 4,999. In this article, let’s review the OnePlus Nord Watch with its pros and cons to see if it’s worth buying.

OnePlus Nord Watch: Full Review

Box Contents

OnePlus Nord Watch
Magnetic charger cable
Quick start guide
Red cable card
Sticker

OnePlus Nord Watch: Design and Build

The OnePlus Nord watch comes with a generic-looking design but with premium materials and finish. The case is made of Zinc alloy, which adds to the overall integrity of the watch. Plus, OnePlus has added a shiny Chrome finish to the casing, which looks amazing.

The watch weighs 52.4 grams with straps, and it’s clearly not the lightest watch in its segment, but that’s because it uses a metal chassis instead of polycarbonate.

The Nord Watch has a single crown button on the side, which, when pressed, opens the app menu or returns to the home screen. The smartwatch’s rear is made of polycarbonate and has a clean matte finish. The back further houses the sensor module and charging connector for the given magnetic cable.

The Nord Watch comes with silicon straps the same color as the watch and a metal buckle. The straps have a smooth textured finish, which feels great on your skin. OnePlus has this hypoallergenic material coating on the straps as well as on the watch case to avoid any allergies.

The straps give you a very snug fit on the wrist, thanks to the small bump at the back for sensors. The straps are also user-replaceable- you can use any 22mm aftermarket watch strap with the watch.

Moving further, the Nord Watch comes with IP68 water and dust resistance and can be taken to the shower and pool parties. The watch can also handle temperatures as low as -40 degrees and as high as 85 degrees.

Overall, the watch feels sleeker and more premium than its competitors in the market, like the Realme Watch 3 Pro.

OnePlus Nord Watch: Display

The OnePlus Nord Watch comes with a large 1.78-inch AMOLED display with thin, uniform bezels around it. The panel bears a 368×448 pixels resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate (most budget watches offer 25-30Hz).

This makes the watch interface feel very fluid and responsive. This display offers a peak brightness of 500 nits, which is enough to read text on the watch even in harsh sunlight. In torch mode, the watch yielded a brightness of 469lux, which is a respectable number if you consider the smartwatch display shootout we did sometime back.

Having said that, the Nord watch lacks two important display features– Always-On Display and Automatic Brightness. And it can be inconvenient to adjust the watch brightness every time you step out of your house.

And since there’s no AOD, you either have to tap the watch display or use raise to wake. It won’t show you information all the time, which is a bummer considering it’s an AMOLED panel. But we expect that OnePlus will add AOD via an update in the future as they did with the original OnePlus Watch.

You get a lot of options when switching between beautifully crafted watch faces. Unfortunately, you cannot yet create one with your own image. The Nord Watch does not support custom watch faces, unlike most other watches in the segment.

The display on Nord Watch is overall great except for the lack of always-on and automatic brightness features. We hope OnePlus adds these features via OTA in the coming time.

OnePlus Nord Watch: User Interface

OnePlus Nord Watch comes with a Proprietary OS installed on it, and it feels smooth and responsive, all thanks to its 60Hz display. There’s no lag or stutter whatsoever while navigating around the menu and options.

You can swipe across for main health features like heart rate, SpO2, and Sleep activity. The notifications can be pulled up from the bottom edge, and quick settings can be pulled down from the top edge of the screen.

The main menu interface is inspired by Apple’s Watch OS, and you get an option to switch the view to waterfall mode or even list mode. Every health feature is shown beautifully on a graph, and the daily activity feature also shows a bunch of important information right on the watch.

There’s also a calculator on the watch if you need it, and you can also check the weather. The user interface is very smooth and feels responsive all the time. Note that you cannot install additional apps on the watch.

OnePlus Nord Watch: Features

The OnePlus Nord Watch can sync notifications from your smartphone and show them on your wrist. But you cannot reply to any of the notifications that you receive on your watch. Most watches in this price range come with a quick reply feature that lets you set some custom replies in the app.

You get calling notifications, but you cannot use them to answer the call as there’s no mic or speaker on the Nord Watch. Yes, it does not support Bluetooth Calling.

Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen, and Workouts

The OnePlus Nord Watch comes with all the sensors you can expect from a smartwatch at this price. The watch has a heart rate sensor, a dedicated blood oxygen sensor, and a 3-axis accelerometer.

These three sensors measure a bunch of things in your body, like heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, and sleep. There’s also a feature called One Tap Measurement that measures everything at once without having to tinker around with different apps.

We compared the watch’s heart rate and blood oxygen measurement with the Apple Watch Series 7 and an oximeter to check the accuracy. The sensors came out to be very accurate- there is a little deviation in heart rate while real-time measuring, but the result is quite accurate.

OnePlus has seeded over 105 sports modes, including Yoga, football, and cricket on watch. It can also automatically detect running and walking. And then, there’s a menstruation cycle tracking feature for female users.

Sleep Tracking

When it comes to sleep tracking, the Nord Watch can automatically track your sleep duration and quality. You can check the time you’ve spent in various sleep stages, including deep sleep, light sleep, nighttime wakeup, time awake, and time asleep.

OnePlus Nord Watch: App Experience

OnePlus Nord uses the N Health app to sync the data with your smartphone. The app is beautifully built to give all the information you need right on the home screen.

The connected watch is placed on the top, and all the daily activities have their cards. Then, you see all other measurements, including steps, sleep, SpO2, and much more. The exercise tab records your exercise in real-time and uses your smartphone’s GPS.

Under the “Me” tab, you get to manage your OnePlus account and manage the settings of your watch as well. You can see the watch’s battery on top, and below that is the watch face gallery.

Then, there are many options to customize your smartwatch, like health monitoring, app notifications, alarm, weather sync, upcoming call alerts, and sedentary reminders.

The app is perfect and has a beautiful interface, but OnePlus could have used the OnePlus Heath app they used for the OnePlus smartwatch.

OnePlus Nord Watch: Connectivity

OnePlus Nord Watch comes with Bluetooth 5.2, which works fast and connects quickly with the smartphone. Once it is set up, it automatically connects with the smartphone whenever you turn on Bluetooth on your smartphone.

The data transfer rate is also fast as the watch faces transfer and applies very quickly in this watch. We also like the fact that the watch boots very quickly. However, note that the Nord Watch does not have a built-in GPS.

OnePlus Nord Watch: Battery and Charging

The Nord Watch comes with a 230 mAh battery, which is not the largest I have seen on a smartwatch at this price. But the battery can last up to 2 weeks with a full charge even with automatic heart rate enabled.

It comes with a magnetic charger that has a very strong magnet to stay connected to the watch. The charger tops up the battery of the watch in under 2 hours.

Pros and Cons

Reasons to Buy

Premium metal design
Snug Fit
Bright 60Hz AMOLED display
Fluid user interface
Good battery backup

Reasons Not to Buy

No AOD
Lacks Bluetooth Calling
No Voice Assistant or Quick Replies
No built-in GPS

OnePlus Nord Watch Review Verdict

The OnePlus Nord smartwatch gets all the basics right for its price- a smooth display with responsive software, reliable health and fitness tracking, and a premium build. But all of it comes at the cost of omitting fancy features. There’s no Alexa or Bluetooth calling here. Plus, the watch lacks built-in GPS and AOD.

If you’re someone who wants a reliable smartwatch that looks and feels good, then the OnePlus Nord Watch makes perfect sense for Rs. 4,499 (after card discounts). However, if things like calling and voice assistant matter to you, you can look forward to other smartwatches in the territory. Overall, it’s a green signal from our side.

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