

In the customization menu, you can apply a different icon pack, pick a font, select fingerprint unlock animation and also choose an accent color. If you want to avoid the extra battery drain that comes with the AOD, the second best thing is the so-called Ambient display where the phone shows you information when you touch the screen or when you pick it up. You'd have to press the power button to turn on the screen and then unlock with your finger. Unfortunately, we've stumbled upon a strange issue with the always-on display - the fingerprint area blinks uncontrollably, making the unlocking troublesome. In fact, even older OnePlus flagship phones are yet to receive an update enabling the functionality. It's not a mainstream feature in this price range, and it's also not a standard feature for OnePlus phones in general. The OEM highlights the always-on display as one of the main features on this phone, and we can agree to an extent. Home screen, recent apps, app drawer, notificaton shade It's a strange move as OnePlus' own app is more polished and more in line with OxygenOS overall design language. Interestingly, the default phone app is now Google's dialer instead of OnePlus'. This is also true for some of the default OxygenOS apps such as the Gallery and Clock. System menus and the notification shade are all optimized for one-handed use by bringing much of the content closer to the bottom half of the screen, so you don't have to reach up too much with your thumb. A lot of the UI elements have been modified in one way or the other.

That's one major Android update short of what you are getting compared to flagship OnePlus devices, but it's still competitive enough.Īnyway, the OxygenOS 11 still looks clean, but it's no longer as stock-looking as before. This means that if you are buying the Nord CE now, you can expect Android 13, eventually. The company promises 2 years of major software updates and 3 years of security patches. The Nord CE 5G doesn't bring anything out of the ordinary in terms of software as far as OnePlus devices go.
