OnePlus is planning to announce a new budget smartphone called the Nord CE 5G this week. TechRadar has a render of the device straight from OnePlus itself, showing that, well, it looks quite a lot like the original OnePlus Nord.
The CE 5G, however, will be a little cut back in terms of specs. OnePlus’ product head Oliver Zhang tells TechRadar that CE stands for “Core Edition” and refers to a design philosophy where the company had a goal of “distilling the product down to the most important things.”
“You see mid-range phones on the market with very exaggerated specifications,” Zhang says. “We actively avoided some of those features and kept the things we felt would really make a difference to the daily smartphone experience, like fast charging (Warp Charge 30T Plus), a 90Hz AMOLED display, or 5G.”
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OnePlus itself has been guilty of these “exaggerated specifications” in the past — the original Nord, for example, had a “quad-camera” setup that included a 2-megapixel macro camera and depth sensor of dubious utility. The Nord CE 5G, on the other hand, makes do with three cameras on the back. That camera proposition, as well as the CE 5G’s processor and price, will be key to the product’s appeal.
Evleaks has posted several leaked images and a video of the Nord CE 5G, revealing some more features like a 64-megapixel main camera, 7.9mm thickness, and — unlike the original Nord — a headphone jack.
OnePlus Nord Core Edition 5G pic.twitter.com/9ovnqoXxKL
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) June 8, 2021
The full reveal is happening tomorrow, June 10th, at 10PM ET. The Nord CE 5G is being targeted at the European and Indian markets, according to TechRadar.