Something to look forward to: With the Nord series, OnePlus has made a much-needed return to its roots of offering mid-range features at a budget price. Although there are no official numbers to quantify its success, the original Nord is getting a successor in the form of the Nord 2 5G, possibly as soon as this month.
When OnePlus revealed the original Nord phone last year, it signaled that it wanted to get serious about the mid-range segment (again). The $460 OnePlus Nord looked good on paper, even if a little boring and generic from a design perspective, as well as quite fragile in most common durability tests .
Despite being restricted to Europe and India distribution at first, it eventually arrived to the US this past January as part of a wave of wallet-friendly Nord models starting at just $180.
Today, the company confirmed rumors that a successor to the Nord is on the way. The OnePlus Nord 2 5G is official, although the company didn't give away all the details about upcoming new device.
OnePlus says the Nord 2 will be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC , so we're looking at a departure from Qualcomm's mobile platform in favor of a solution from the new largest phone chipset vendor by volume.
That said, OnePlus won't be using the standard Dimensity 1200 chipset. The company worked with MediaTek to add AI-focused enhancements that are supposed to offer improved mobile photography, better gaming performance, and even some display enhancements. The resulting chipset is called the Dimensity 1200-AI, but we'll have to wait until the Nord 2 5G lands to learn more about how this variant differs from the original.
The rumor mill says the new Nord 2 5G will also come with a high refresh rate display capable of 90 Hz, or even as high as 168 Hz. The Dimensity 1200-AI will be paired with up to 12 GB of RAM, and the battery could see a small bump in capacity to 4,500 mAh. There's even a possibility the main rear shooter will be equipped with Sony's 50-megapixel IMX766 sensor, same as the OnePlus 9 Pro .
There's no official release date yet, but according to one tipster it could happen by the end of this month. If you're excited for the Nord 2 5G, it's worth pointing out that OnePlus could be getting close to revealing its very first Android tablet as well.