When Pac-Man meets OnePlus, green glowy things happen
The OnePlus Nord 2's Pac-Man reskin gets pretty neat when the lights turn out.
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In my full review of the OnePlus Nord 2 I explained why its power, camera and battery performance are all beyond what you would expect for such an affordable phone. I liked its look, too, although not as much as I like this new version, which has been reskinned in partnership with the 1980 classic, Pac-Man.
At its core, the phone remains unchanged, but the outside now features a slivery design, dotted with Pac-Man Power Pellets that glow an eerie green color when viewed in the dark, revealing a Pac-Man-style maze with the "Nord" branding in the middle.
A more usual, silvery back when the lights are on.
Turn the phone on and you'll find a variety of Pac-Man-themed tweaks, including pixel-art icons and a suite of Pac-Man background wallpapers.
Great, if you love Pac-Man. Less so if you're into other games.
You'll also find Pac-Man ringtones and the game Pac-Man 256 preinstalled, which is free to download on the Google Play Store anyway, but hey, saves you the trouble. OnePlus also says there are various hidden Pac-Man Easter eggs dotted around the phone for you to find, which I haven't found, because I didn't want to have to explain to my editor that that's how I've been spending my working day.
When you use the in-screen fingerprint scanner, a little Pac-Man animation appears. It's quite sweet.
There are no hardware upgrades to speak of; the phone has the same display, processor and camera setup and comes with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM. It will cost £499 in the UK (the Nord series isn't available in the US), which is £30 more than the same phone without all that Pac-Man stuff on it. But if you're really into your retro gaming and need to prove that point with a special edition phone, then that's probably money well spent.