OnePlus Nord CE6 hands-on review

Design

The Nord CE6 shares the same basic frame as the Nord 6. The two phones have identical dimensions, nearly identical weight (off by 2g), and an almost identical layout for everything you see along the sides, including the buttons, the ports, and the SIM tray pinhole that is nearly indistinguishable from the microphone.

The main difference comes from the camera layout on the back. The Nord CE6 has a cleaner camera layout, thanks to having one less camera, and the resultant design ends up looking a bit more elegant on account of its simplicity. You can see the only real usable camera on the top left, the depth sensor below, and the LED flash and IR blaster in a small pill-shaped window next to them.

The back features a matte texture, but there is a thin glossy strip that runs along the edge, a detail borrowed from the OnePlus 15. You won't find that on Nord 6.

Also new to the Nord CE6 are the colors, well, two of them at least. It comes in Fresh Blue (seen here), Lunar Pearl, and Pitch Black. The blue and the pearl distinguish it easily from the Nord 6.

We can also see here how the design has evolved over the past two years. The Nord CE4 and CE5 had the traditional vertical camera stack of previous Nord devices, which has now been eschewed for a more squared-out design. Those phones also had a taller and thinner profile, while the Nord CE6 feels broader with larger corner radii. There used to be more playfulness in the colors and textures in the past, but that has given way to simpler, more minimal tastes.

Where the Nord CE6 can claim undeniable victory over its predecessors is in build quality. Just like the Nord 6, the Nord CE6 exterior is built using plastic, but the phone is built to high standards. It supports IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K dust and water resistance standards and also passes MIL-STD-810H tests. It also has the new in-house Crystal Guard display glass, which the company says is on par with the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.

As with the Nord 6, one of the more subtly impressive things about the Nord CE6 is that the phone's 215g weight feels completely normal in hand. You'd think a phone with an 8000mAh battery (9000mAh, in case of the 2g heavier Nord 6) would make the phone unreasonably bulky, but that simply isn't the case. Such is the magic of the new Si/C batteries.

Remember how we said earlier that the Nord CE6 has an almost identical layout for everything on the side? That's because this phone does not have the Plus Key on the left side, which is a customizable button that can be assigned various functions. This feels like an unnecessary omission and a rather crude way to differentiate this phone from its more expensive sibling.