OnePlus Nord will be made available in two colourways: Grey and Teal. (Image: MKBHD)
OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei in an interview with YouTuber Marques Brownlee has revealed the design along with a few key features of the upcoming OnePlus Nord. During the interview, he was wearing the company’s upcoming truly wireless earphones, in a teal colour. Now, with this design reveal the company only has a few key specifications that have to be revealed about the upcoming device along with the price.
Pei revealed that the company is “ready now [to launch a mid-range phone] because the technology is ready.” He said that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G 5G chipset can deliver the experience that people expect from OnePlus smartphones.
Initially, the company was going forward with a different design, that looked like a Pixel, iPhone Frankenstein from the back. However, Pete said that OnePlus changed the design later in the stage, causing a one month delay so that the device could look a lot more like the flagship OnePlus 8 series of smartphones. He added, that a phone should be ready nine months in advance to launch to be ready to go to market, any slight change can cause huge delays.
The device was showcased in two colourways: Grey and Teal. The company might launch other colour options at the launch event. The truly wireless earphones are also expected to be made available in two colour options: Black and Teal.
From the reveal, we can see that the device features a curved back with the vertically aligned quad camera setup on the top right corner, and OnePlus branding on the middle and the bottom half. On the front, it features a dual hole punch cutout on the top left corner. The alert slider has been shifted to the right edge right on top of the power button. On the bottom edge, we get to see the USB Type-C port along with the speakers.
Pei revealed that the company is “ready now [to launch a mid-range phone] because the technology is ready.” (Image: MKBHD)During the interview, Pei explained that the Nord will not come with an official IP rating as the testing takes approximately $15 (approximately Rs 1,100) per phone for the company to get the rating, due to the cost of the machinery involved. The device will also not come with an NFC chip or a 3.5mm headphone jack. An NFC chip costs around $4 (approximately Rs 300) per phone. Whereas, the 3.5mm headphone jack does not cost that much, however, the space it takes, is at the cost of other components like a bigger battery.
Another reason Pei said for the Nord not having a 3.5mm headphone jack is that truly wireless earphones are coming down in price and are being widely accepted. Hinting at the company’s own truly wireless earphones launching alongside the OnePlus Nord.
Even though the OnePlus Nord does not come with an IP certification, Pei said that the device does feature seals to make it water-resistant to a point. It is just that the company has forgone the $15 cost to get it an official IP rating.
Coming to the battery, Pei said that the Nord will come with support for the company’s own Warp charging technology, which is more costly when compared to the conventional charging technology as it requires more components.
OnePlus Nord will feature an AMOLED display along with a 90Hz refresh rate. Pei said that AMOLED displays are more expensive than the LCD displays, which takes up the price of the device and adding a 90Hz refresh rate is also an additional cost.