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Mid-Range OnePlus Nord Released
July 26, 2020
OnePlus launched its highly touted Nord on Tuesday. The phone is OnePlus’ response to the increasingly expensive high end phones as the experience gap between flagship and sub-flagship has narrowed drastically. OnePlus has been pushing a new beginning during a social campaign to build the hype around the oddly-named OnePlus Nord. While it might be a new move for OnePlus, it's also been a move made by the BBK Electronics group - which includes OnePlus OPPO, Realme and vivo - as well as brands like Nokia, Motorola and LG. There's talk that Google will move the Pixel 5 into this sub-flagship category too. As flagships have ramped up the price and performance, mid-range hardware has caught up, fueled by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 (which all these phones use), bringing in next-gen performance and 5G at a price that extends to customers not willing to pay for flagships, which makes the sub-flagship category more accessible and a lot more exciting. One unanswered question is who wants to spend $1100 on a phone, when the same performance is available at $450.
Table 1: Nord Display Specs:
July 26, 2020
OnePlus launched its highly touted Nord on Tuesday. The phone is OnePlus’ response to the increasingly expensive high end phones as the experience gap between flagship and sub-flagship has narrowed drastically. OnePlus has been pushing a new beginning during a social campaign to build the hype around the oddly-named OnePlus Nord. While it might be a new move for OnePlus, it's also been a move made by the BBK Electronics group - which includes OnePlus OPPO, Realme and vivo - as well as brands like Nokia, Motorola and LG. There's talk that Google will move the Pixel 5 into this sub-flagship category too. As flagships have ramped up the price and performance, mid-range hardware has caught up, fueled by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 (which all these phones use), bringing in next-gen performance and 5G at a price that extends to customers not willing to pay for flagships, which makes the sub-flagship category more accessible and a lot more exciting. One unanswered question is who wants to spend $1100 on a phone, when the same performance is available at $450.
Table 1: Nord Display Specs:
OnePlus had to make several compromises to reach the price point:
- There’s a processor constraint and there’s limited availability outside of Europe and India.
- On the internals, instead of the flagship Snapdragon 865 in the OnePlus 8, the Nord has the less powerful Snapdragon 765G on board.
- While that remains a decent SoC with early signs that performance hasn’t suffered at all, it’s a step down from the latest and greatest.
- It also matches competitors like the 6.8-inch LG Velvet ($599), 6.53-inch TCL 10 5G (€399), and like we expect the Google Pixel 4a 5G to have.
- There’s no availability in North America. The Nord doesn’t have bands B14, 30, 29, 48 (for AT&T), or bands B25, 71 for T-Mobile, meaning much more limited reception, and leaves out 4x4 MIMO which drops wireless speed and signal strength, useful for 4G in the US.