Early factory CAD-based render of the OnePlus Nord
More than six months after the first purported renders of a mysterious upcoming OnePlus mid-ranger were leaked, the company finally confirmed its plans to bring a “new, more affordable smartphone product line” to market earlier this week.
CEO Pete Lau didn’t initially have a lot to say about the impending first member of this “affordable” handset family, but a bunch of teasers and riddles posted on an official Instagram page hilariously dedicated to the “OnePlusLiteZThing” quickly revealed a couple of notable details, including a July launch timeframe.
Of course, that pretty much guarantees the suspected
OnePlus 8 Lite and OnePlus Z names are off the table, with the 5G-enabled device instead widely expected now to carry the rather curious “Nord by OnePlus” label. Basically, the company is reportedly aiming to do what the likes of Xiaomi and Oppo have done in the past with Redmi and Realme, creating a sub-brand of sorts to try to further broaden the appeal of its increasingly popular phones.
In order for the OnePlus Nord 5G name to work, the mid-end handset needs to stand out from the
OnePlus 8 and
8 Pro flagships, and thanks to a new rumor relayed by
Android Central, one interesting distinguishing feature is now out of the bag.
The first-ever OnePlus device with a dual selfie camera
That’s right, a no doubt credible “insider source” has allegedly “confirmed” the 32 + 8MP dual shooter setup on the front of the OnePlus Nord 5G is “final”, contrasting with the factory CAD-based renders leaked all the way back in December that previewed a centered hole punch housing a single selfie camera.
Apparently, the location of the double screen cutout was also changed at some point between then and now, with the expanded hole punch expected to sit in the top left corner after all. While dual front camera-sporting handsets are still not very common, we can certainly think of at least
one such model with a top left-situated hole punch and one with a top right screen cutout.
The Huawei P40 Pro comes with a large dual front-facing camera arrangement
Much like
Samsung’s Galaxy S10+, the OnePlus Nord 5G is tipped to opt for a secondary 8MP wide-angle lens. Of course, the upcoming mid-ranger’s primary selfie sensor sounds a lot more impressive than the main 10MP front-facing shooter on the S10 Plus, bumping that megapixel count all the way up to 32.
Granted, megapixels are not everything, but we’re definitely curious to see how the OnePlus Nord aims to improve the selfie performance of the single front camera-sporting
OnePlus 8 and
8 Pro in real life.
Six cameras in total?
While nothing is etched in stone regarding the rear-facing imaging system of the first Nord by
OnePlus device, recent signs point in the direction of
no less than four shooters residing on the back of the handset. That’s up from two cameras rumored initially and
three after a little while, potentially bringing the overall tally of imaging sensors on the mid-end smartphone up to six.
The OnePlus 8 Pro has four rear-facing snappers
That would be quite an amazing feat for a device predicted to cost as little as $400 or
even $300 in select European markets and India. Unfortunately, Pete Lau seemed to suggest on Tuesday that US availability is not on the cards, which makes us wonder why the company reportedly decided to replace the long-rumored MediaTek Dimensity 1000 chipset with a more Western-friendly
Snapdragon 765G silicon midway through the development process.
Other specs and features that may or may not end up materializing include a 6.4-inch flat AMOLED display with 90Hz refresh rate technology, a 4,000mAh or so battery with 30W fast charging capabilities, at least 128 gigs of internal storage space, up to 12 gigs of memory, and a screen-embedded fingerprint scanner.
