Summer is upon us and technology companies are celebrating by announcing a slew of new gadgets. OnePlus is the latest firm to get in on the action, today launching four brand new Android products at a swanky event in Milan, hot on the heels of Samsung’s Unpacked event last week. These new devices include the OnePlus Nord 4, a phone that claims to be the only metal unibody phone that has 5G, alongside a new tablet, smartwatch and earbuds.
Most smartphones are made from a combination of glass, metal and plastic both for design reasons and in order to let signal in, but the introduction of glass has made for some quite breakable phones and the almost essential need for a phone case. The Nord 4 is made entirely from metal, harking back to phone design from the mid 2010s.
“OnePlus has revived a lost art of smartphone design by making several technological breakthroughs, using its Never Settle spirit to break the rule that the many antennas needed for a 5G smartphone meant metal unibody phones were impossible to create,” OnePlus said.
The specs look high end despite its reasonable £429 asking price. You get a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 processor plus 12GB RAM and 256GB storage – you can boost to 16GB and 512GB respectively for an extra hundred quid.
There’s also a very large 5,500mAh battery and super fast 100W fast charging – though for the first time OnePlus is not putting a charger in the box, so you’ll have to fork out extra for one. That’s a shame but not surprising given Samsung, Apple and others no longer give you the charging brick either.
If you’re in need of a new tablet the OnePlus Pad 2 could be worth a look. Surprisingly for £499 it has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor also found in the Samsung Galaxy S24 and OnePlus 12, so you’re getting a lot of power for less than a premium smartphone – that could make it ideal for gaming but also working, and OnePlus is selling an optional clip on keyboard if you want to do the latter.
There’s a large 12.1-inch display and six stereo speakers and a raft of, you guessed it, new AI tools such as a writing assistant, a way to summarise audio recordings and it can read text aloud to you. All tech companies are chucking AI at their products to see if consumers want it. We’re not convinced.
Better is the thin 6.49mm casing and relatively slight 584g metal build.
There’s also a cheaper option now if you want a OnePlus smartwatch, with the new OnePlus Watch 2R coming in at £249 instead of the existing OnePlus Watch 2 at £299. On paper there don’t seem to be too many differences, with the 2R about 25 percent lighter. It still promises 100 hours of battery life thanks to its clever dual processor internals – just like the Watch 2 – and has IP68 water resistance.
Finishing off the grand unveiling, OnePlus also has some competition for Beats, with the new Nord Buds 3 Pro earbuds coming in at the same price as the recently-announced Beats Solo Buds at £79.
The Buds 3 Pro promise “flagship-level hybrid adaptive ANC” according to OnePlus, ANC standing for active noise cancellation. It’s a great feature to have at this price and one not found on the Solo Buds. It should block out external sounds when required to keep your tunes audible about the din of life. You’ll also get OnePlus’s BassWave 2.0 a d 44 hours of battery life when you have the case fully charged up.
