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OnePlus is launching a new mid-range phone in the US: the OnePlus Nord N20 5G. It’s a $282 phone that will be available exclusively at T-Mobile starting April 28.
For that slightly under $300 price tag, you get a 6.43-inch “FHD+” (which should mean 2220×1080) OLED, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4,500mAh battery. The SoC is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695. It’s a 6 nm chip with two 2.2GHz ARM Cortex-A78 cores, six 1.7GHz Cortex-A55 cores, and an Adreno 619 GPU. There’s an in-screen fingerprint reader, a microSD slot, and the phone supports an always-on display mode, so you can always check the time and notifications.
At $282, the phone feels like a sequel to the Nord N200, which came out about a year ago as another T-Mobile exclusive for $240. Last year’s phone had a 90Hz display, though, which does help it stand out at this price. The N20 is downgrading to only 60 Hz. You also have to settle for a smaller battery (5,000 mAh for the N200) and lose the headphone jack.
For the rear camera, OnePlus’ press release lists a “64MP main camera, monochrome lens, and macro lens.” OnePlus didn’t provide a full spec sheet, but if the megapixel counts of the other two cameras are anything to brag about, they’ll be listed in the press release. The Nord N200 has a main camera, a 2MP “mono” lens, and a 2MP “macro” lens. Megapixels aren’t technically important, but neither is a high-quality camera sensor 2MP size. Assuming the N20 and N200 have the same mold, these other cameras are mostly for decoration.
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The phone has 33W charging, which is very rare at this price point. That’s actually faster than OnePlus’ flagship rivals like Samsung and Google.
OnePlus’ budget phone ships with Android 11. As a reminder, the OS ships in September 2020, making it an 18-month-old version of Android. Previous Nord phones have already received a major OS update, so it’s likely that the phone will be updated to 6-month-old Android 12, and OnePlus will call it a day.I know this is technically a major update, but the late arrival of OnePlus feels like zero Major update. The N200 update plan also includes regular (not monthly) security updates for three and a half years, so that might be the case here.
As OnePlus’ flagship phones get more expensive, the mid-range Nord series is becoming OnePlus’ biggest seller. According to Counterpoint Research’s Q4 2021 report, OnePlus’ sales grew an incredible 524% year-over-year, capturing a 2% share of the U.S. market. The report said OnePlus’ growth was driven by that combination: Nord devices sold at T-Mobile. In an interview with Forbes, OnePlus co-founder Pete Lau said the company expects to sell 25 million Nord devices by 2023, presumably on the backs of such devices.
