OnePlus has been teasing an extensive lot about their upcoming mid-range smartphones that have confirmed to be named as Nord series. It is also almost confirmed that the OnePlus Nord is a new series from the company which might become a sub-brand sometime in future. Also, we ran a report yesterday about the confirmation of OnePlus Nord’s design via a video posted by the company themselves. It is clear that the smartphone will have a dual front camera design as well as said to have three cameras at the back in an arrangement different from the regular OnePlus 8 series.
All of this tells us that while OnePlus Nord will not be as powerful as the OnePlus 8 Pro or the OnePlus 8, it will be a game-changer because of the price. OnePlus already mentioned that their first Nord device won’t be priced above $500 but expectations are that it will be priced well below $400 and might start at Rs. 25,000 in India. Now that we know what we will be getting with OnePlus Nord except for the price, everyone was waiting to understand the idea behind OnePlus Nord.
So OnePlus’ co-founder Carl Pei has explained the idea behind OnePlus Nord, in an interview with Android Authority, and how it is different from OnePlus X which was launched after OnePlus 2 as company’s first-ever mid-range smartphone. While OnePlus X was also a great device, it had its issues and the device did not do quite as well as the company expected.
Carl Pei says that OnePlus X was an “experimental phone” but adds that the “OnePlus Nord is our concentrated effort to target more consumers through a more affordable price point”. He also mentions that OnePlus Nord has been made “not just (for) the tech enthusiasts, it’s also a whole host of other consumers that earlier weren’t able to afford our products”.
There is also an argument that OnePlus could have used Snapdragon 855 or the 855+ on their OnePlus Nord instead of Snapdragon 765G which is underpowered compared to the Snapdragon 8xx series. However, there is a valid point that the older generation of chips have update constraints and are not supported longer so skipping it was justified. OnePlus co-founder also mentioned that they “didn’t feel like there was a good time in the market before this where a mid-range chipset delivered this type of experience until now.”
