OnePlus to announce less than $500 Nord smartphone soon

Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus will soon announce its less than $500 Nord smartphone. It is expected to happen on July 10, in a week and a half. OnePlus has not yet confirmed any details.

The Nord will be the manufacturer’s first phone to cost less than $500 at launch, according to OnePlus, “for several years,” according to a video from the manufacturer. The OnePlus 5T from 2017 cost 499 euros at release, while the price of the OnePlus 6 exceeded 500 euros the following year. The manufacturer increased its prices every year by a few tens, until this year: the OnePlus 8 costs 150 euros more than the OnePlus 7T.

In the video, the manufacturer claims that the development of the smartphone took half a year, but that seems incorrect. Director Pete Lau showed a prototype of the smartphone in early January, now almost six months ago. It already had the design as it would now appear. One of the designers says in the video that it took three to four weeks to determine the design. It seems that the smartphone maker has taken longer to develop than the company wants its fans to believe.

OnePlus confirmed last week that a new line of smartphones is coming. The device would have a 6.55 “OLED screen with a refresh rate of 90Hz. It is presumably a Snapdragon 765-soc, combined with 6GB ram and 128GB flash storage.

Update, Wednesday: OnePlus says in a response that the development of the phone has indeed not taken six months, but about nine to ten months.

Previously released renders made by @OnLeaks, which presumably show the ‘OnePlus Z’