HomeTechnology NewsOnePlus Nord is not an affordable flagship but it will have the best software on a sub Rs 30,000 phone

OnePlus Nord is not an affordable flagship but it will have the best software on a sub Rs 30,000 phone

OnePlus is trying to apply Apple’s playbook to its own reality.

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By Sahil Gupta  July 21, 2020, 1:30:05 PM IST (Updated)

OnePlus Nord is not an affordable flagship but it will have the best software on a sub Rs 30,000 phone
In the past year, OnePlus has achieved something that no brand apart from Apple has managed. A cool premium positioning something that not many brands have achieved. One can think of the OnePlus 8 as its iPhone 11 while the OnePlus 8 Pro can be viewed as its pro offering. So with that in mind, the OnePlus Nord should be viewed as OnePlus’s iPhone SE moment. They may sugarcoat things and say that they are going back to their roots, but the reality is that they have figured that many people want an OnePlus phone at a lower price and that’s what this is about. This scenario is different from what Apple is doing with the iPhone SE. The Cupertino based giant packs the industry-leading A13 Bionic chip on the iPhone SE.


The Nord will come with the Snapdragon 765G. It isn’t Qualcomm’s best chip. This isn’t even close to being it because if you take out the 5G brouhaha, then this is at best Qualcomm’s third-best chip behind the Snapdragon 865 which is on the OnePlus 8 series and the Snapdragon 855 which is on the OnePlus 7T series. This is reflective in the pricing too of what OnePlus is offering. The Nord is not a flagship killer. In fact, for a similar price, you can get a more capable Android phone that will only lack in terms of the OnePlus whiz-bang marketing and excellence in the software department.

Everything starts with the semiconductors that are present on the phone. All the improvements that Apple is able to claim on the iPhone SE come from the addition of the A13 Bionic chip, which makes up for the lack of upgrades every place else. On the Nord, you are talking about the Snapdragon 765G which means this phone is going to be poorer at gaming than phones like the Realme X3 Pro, Realme X2 Pro and the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro. The Qualcomm 765G chip is special because of the fact that it lowers the bar for a 5G modem on a phone. But there are no 5G networks in India, and even Jio, will likely not have one till 2022. By that time you would be looking at a newer version of the Nord.

The Snapdragon 765G also has a huge impact on the image pipeline through the ISP. But the problem is that OnePlus is using optical hardware like the IMX 586 sensor. We have seen this set up before on the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 7T Pro. We already know that those phones are not considered to be great camera phones. It is highly unlikely OnePlus is able to provide a better camera with an even more inferior SoC like the Snapdragon 765G.

OnePlus touts a great display on this phone. It is neither the first one to do so nor is it the one providing the best refresh rate. The Poco X2 has a 120Hz refresh rate while the Realme X50 Pro has a both OLED panel and a 90Hz screen. This phone shouldn’t be much different. Remember, on iPhones including the 11, you don’t get OLED and high refresh rate. There is a reason for that as Apple is able to calibrate the LCD in such a way that it is utterly delicious in colour accuracy and the system-level optimization is so good that 90Hz isn’t needed. Regardless of what they end up with, the key will be basics. OnePlus has usually done a decent job, so one would hope for an encore.

One also gets the sense that OnePlus has become overconfident about fast charging. Its phones have never been known for their battery life. Its phones were known for warp charge which has always ensured that battery anxiety was never a thing. But now the competition has caught up and usurped it. The Nord is neither class-leading nor is it close to being the best. That 5G modem will also not help matters with battery life.

The last straw is this new design. Design is subjective -- like other OnePlus phones, it does seem to be quite ergonomic, but its design is derivative and boring. It does lose the hallmark centrally placed camera array which OnePlus phones have had since their inception.

OnePlus is trying to apply Apple’s playbook to its own reality. But it is a little delusional about that reality as it doesn’t have a chip like the A13 Bionic at its disposal. Don’t get me wrong here - this will be a good phone for most people except the fanatical enthusiasts.

The enthusiasts think it is going to be a game-changer when the reality is that there are numerous Android phones that are better than it on a technical level. It is the genius of OnePlus’s marketing that’s making this phone look better than what it is so one must also give the credit to OnePlus’s marketing team where it is due.

What the marketing doesn’t talk much about is the legendary OnePlus user experience. That’s what Carl Pei says in his interview with MKBHD. They are trying to replicate the user experience for the lowest common denominator. There will be a lot of good in this phone. It will feel amongst the fastest phones, and arguably faster than some of its rivals because of the Oxygen OS optimisation, even though it may not have the high-level gaming chops.

Android phones in the sub Rs 30,000 price point haven’t had the polish and fit and finish on the software that OnePlus’s phones have been known for. The Nord will change this, I have no doubt. The Nord will set a high bar for software support on sub Rs 30,000 smartphones in India. Earlier in the year, OnePlus pushed out the Android 10 update for the OnePlus 5 which is a phone from 2017. That kind of thing is absolutely alien in Android these days. Nord will buck the trend. This will be a rare phone that will have software support even after 2 years.

The older OnePlus phones also feel fresh with constant updates. OnePlus has made a name for itself by having the ability to improve the hardware with constant software updates. The camera has been the biggest beneficiary of this. One can expect a basic Nord camera to reach new levels of performance through the ownership cycle.

The big narrative is the polish and fluidity of the experience. The Nord will arguably also be the first phone in the sub Rs 30,000 price point which sequentially improves which each software update. Everyone does software updates but OnePlus does them manically. OnePlus also takes user feedback seriously -- in fact so much so that it has quelled even its own apps in favour of core Google messages and dialler applications to make the experience more seamless.

At the end of the day, it is important to understand that OnePlus doesn’t design its own silicon like Samsung or Apple. So it has limits to what it can do on a hardware level. Even if it is giving you the moon, it may not be enough as phones like the iPhone SE have brought the sun to a lower price point. By that I mean, the limitations of the Snapdragon 765G chip. But it will make up for those deficiencies with its strength in software.

Software-wise, this will be the best phone in India south of Rs 30,000 only eclipsed by its elder siblings -- the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro. Hardware-wise, it will be good, but not game-changing. To me, that’s an equitable compromise for most people considering this will also make the phone more secure.

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