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We asked, you told us: The iPhone SE camera slaps the OnePlus Nord

It's a landslide victory for the quality over quantity camp.
By

Published onJuly 31, 2020

iPhone SE 2020 White Rear Camera Apple Logo

The OnePlus Nord was always likely to face some stark comparisons to rival devices when it launched earlier this month. Packing six cameras in total, the phone embraces the more is better philosophy, but does this translate into stellar performance?

Well, we can only really decide by comparing it to its contemporaries. While the rumored Pixel 4a isn’t yet here, the iPhone SE most assuredly is.

In a recent OnePlus Nord vs iPhone SE camera shootout, we asked you to weigh in with your thoughts and pick the overall winner. Here’s what you decided.

Which phone takes better photos: the OnePlus Nord or the iPhone SE?

oneplus nord or the iphone se shootout poll results

Results

We declared the iPhone SE as the marginal winner in our shootout but your votes and comments suggest a much larger gulf in quality between the two phones.

Of the over 4,000 votes cast, 65.4% believe that the iPhone SE shoots better photos. It’s not just a victory for the Apple device but rather the one-camera-to-rule-them-all philosophy as a whole.

The iPhone SE packs four fewer cameras than the Nord. A single 12MP sensor at the rear joins a 7MP camera up front. As the iPhone SE lacks an ultra-wide camera and macro sensor, we were unable to include comparisons there, so we imagine the Nord wins by default in that regard?

Related: OnePlus Nord vs iPhone SE: Which should you buy?

On that note, the Nord did receive just under 1,500 votes in our survey, or just under 35% of the thumbs up. That’s a fair response for a phone that arguably has a more versatile camera array. Despite this, there’s little doubt though that the OnePlus Nord’s 48MP snapper falls short of the iPhone SE. Shots snapped by the former lacked dynamic range, sharpness, and the color detail of its competitor’s prints. The Nord’s much larger 32MP selfie sensor doesn’t necessarily guarantee better shots either, something we’ve also noticed ourselves.

Quality versus quantity is the primary takeaway from this battle.

Here’s what you had to say

  • Neil T: For me there wasn’t a shocking amount of difference in terms of quality. It’s there, but not a night and day difference. The biggest difference for me was the Nord’s pics look cooler while the iPhone’s pics looked warmer.
  • Stephen C: iPhone is the winner here.
  • Hrvoyay: Nord is very soft, even blurry at times. Not great at all.
  • Ellio74: We were told OP was going to provide a flagship camera experience, it didn’t just say from which year…
  • Thomas: This comparison shows that megapixel count and number of cameras are so overrated. Oneplus should’ve invested more into having a good main camera instead of adding a useless depth and macro camera.
  • D9: iPhone for the win here, with the Nord being fairly mediocre. Oneplus should have ditched the additional useless camera sensors they included only to be able to say we have X number of cameras and instead had two quality cameras on the backside with good processing.
  • VJ: iPhone SE. And this just shows you don’t need to have tons of cameras on your phones. Put only 2 but very good ones and same money as well.
  • alfonzso: iPhone generally provides the most consistent photos. However, to me it seems like Nord’s colors are more realistic (guessing, since I didn’t see the scenes with my own eyes) in most of the shots.

That’s it for the results of our OnePlus Nord vs iPhone SE camera poll. Thanks for the votes and comments. If you have comments on the results of our shootout, be sure to drop them down below.