OnePlus Nord: What you need to know about the next OnePlus phone

The OnePlus Nord (previously dubbed OnePlus Z or OnePlus 8 Lite) is the company’s next affordable mid-range smartphone and a lot of the features have already been confirmed. Here’s everything we know about the budget handset so far, including the reported release date andconfirmed price.

The OnePlus Nord is the brand’s heavily-rumoured rival to Apple’s iPhone SE 2 and Google’s yet to be released Pixel 4a.

We’ve collected all the latest leaks and rumours about the OnePlus Z/OnePlus Nord in this guide. Read on to discover everything you need to know about the OnePlus Nord, including its expected price, release date, specs and more.

Related: OnePlus 8 Pro review

OnePlus Nord Name confirmed

OnePlus has officially announced the name of its new budget phone will be Nord and you’ll be able to buy it soon in Europe and India, with some users in America able to get it through a limited beta process. How that beta release will work is yet to be determined.

Little else concrete is known about the Nord as of yet, but you can read on for everything we’ve gleaned so far about the phone’s release.

OnePlus Nord release date

During an interview, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said he wants to return to making great all-rounders at unbelievably low prices. This, along with the recent confirmation that OnePlus is working on a more affordable line of phones, would lead us to believe that the rumoured OnePlus Nord is coming sooner rather than later.

Who's ready for something new from @oneplus? #NewBeginnings pic.twitter.com/EOCiJZVrTU

— Pete Lau (@PeteLau) June 22, 2020

Carl Pei has also tweeted with the same hashtag, with a claim that OnePlus is going to “rock the boat again”.

It’s time to rock the boat again… #NewBeginnings @oneplus

— Carl Pei (@getpeid) June 22, 2020

Both these tweets point to OnePlus doing something big and we say re-entering the budget space that made them popular to begin with is pretty big. Well, hopefully we won’t have to wait much longer…

Android Central reports that the phone will be released in India on July 10, with no date given for a UK or USA release. India remains the largest market for OnePlus and it makes a lot of sense for the brand to unveil a more affordable phone first in that territory.

An India launch would also line up with Lau’s announcement that the next affordable OnePlus phone will be coming to India and Europe first. This is to allow space for refinements and to give the company time to gradually scale up production, though Lau did not provide a specific date beyond that piece of info.

Lau’s announcement also began with a header stamped with the phrase “new beginnings”, so we’re pretty confident Pei was talking about the budget smartphone when he tweeted it was time to rock the boat again.

We’ll have to wait for official confirmation to see if they’ll be further launches later or if this will be the sole launch for the phone.

OnePlus Z/OnePlus Nord price

The OnePlus 8 is currently the cheapest option in the brand’s range, costing £599/$699. Being a more-budget friendly option, the OnePlus Z is certain to undercut this price and is surely likely to retail nearer the £419 ($399) price established by the new iPhone SE, which is likely to be its biggest single rival.

Considering OnePlus was once known for its seriously low-priced handsets it’d be great to see them once again try and make this sector it’s own.

OnePlus will indeed launch a lower end phone, but we don't know its name yet. What we do know is that it will priced around £400 in the UK, have a Mediatek Chip and will launch by July in most countries. It will also feature 90hz Punch Hole Display!
Link: https://t.co/rN7cToMMdJ

— Ishan Agarwal (@ishanagarwal24) March 4, 2020

This appears to be confirmed by Twitter tipster Ishan Agarwal, who amongst other claims seems to have ascertained that the OnePlus X will retail at “around £400 in the UK”.

Further evidence to this price point being the one OnePlus plumps for comes from TechRadar. In an interview with Carl Pei, the Assistant Head of Nord said the Nord will be 500 euros. While he didn’t specify further pricing, that’s clearly a lot more affordable the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro.

OnePlus Nord chipset, 5G and specs

OnePlus has had a strong history of releasing phones with the very-best internals available. All its flagship phones so far have boasted the very latest chipsets from Qualcomm and it was one of the first to introduce 5G in 2019 with the 5G version of the OnePlus 7T Pro. Even when it was a brand that solely focused on ‘budget’ devices they would still be equipped with internals that were, at the time, far more common on higher-priced models.

With the OnePlus Nord, things are a little different. In the same TechRadar interview we mentioned above, Car Pei revealed the Nord will be powered by the Snapdragon 765G. This is a supremely popular chipset currently and you’ll find it in phones like the LG Velvet and Moto Edge. The headline feature of this chipset though is the 5G modem, which means the Nord will match the 8 and 8 Pro in offering support for the 5G data networks.

In terms of RAM, the Nord could ship with a whopping 12GB of it if benchmark data is to be believed. We wouldn’t be surprised if there was an 8GB option too, as this has been OnePlus way for previous launches.

OnePlus Nord design

We first saw renders of the handset all the way back in December 2019, when its name was presumed to be the OnePlus 8 Lite. It still seems likely that this is what the finished product will look like:

As you can see, it will have a bulky camera module on the rear panel, which has a glossy finish, while a punch-hole camera features at the top of the screen. A little surprisingly (not to mention disappointingly) for a phone at this price point, it appears to lack a 3.5mm headphone jack – so Bluetooth or USB-C will be your only options.

Image Credit: TrueTech

Thanks to TrueTech we’ve also spotted a candid snap of the OnePlus Z in the wild. The image shows a device with a large, flat screen and a cut-out selfie camera at the top of the screen, similar to the renders above.

OnePlus Nord screen

The OnePlus Nord is reputed to have a 6.4-inch AMOLED display, which will include an under-display fingerprint scanner for secure unlocking. Agarwal adds that the screen will have a 90Hz refresh rate, which would represent quite the coup for a handset at this price point; this enhanced specification should ensure smoother scrolling that matches last year’s OnePlus 7T Pro flagship.

As seen in the images further up the page, this screen appears to be flat rather than curved around the edges, which many customers will see as a plus point due to its practicality, rather than the premium feature that curved displays can sometimes be perceived to be.

OnePlus Nord camera

Judging from that large camera module visible in the renders, it will houses two sensors (plus the flash). Reportedly this set-up consists of a 48-megapixel main sensor, plus a 12-megapixel secondary snapper (likely to be an ultrawide lens), but conspicuously lacking a depth sensor, telephoto lens, or macro camera.

Related: Best camera phones

In the past, OnePlus cameras have not performed quite as well as the rest of the package, relatively speaking, but it seems promising that this device appears to share the same camera set-up as the OnePlus 8, minus the macro camera that we described as “rubbish” in our review. Overall we found that camera set-up to be good for a mid-ranger, so we reckon it’s likely that the OnePlus Nord will perform well given its price point even though there might be better snappers out there for your money.

 

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