When the new OnePlus Nord launched in Europe and India it was rumored that the device would be coming to other regions before too long – and it turns out that something Nord-related is definitely on its way to the US, although we're not sure exactly what.
Wired's Julian Chokkattu says OnePlus CEO Carl Pei told him that a Nord-branded phone – but not necessarily the OnePlus Nord itself – is set to arrive in the US later this year.
- Check out our OnePlus Nord review
- These are the best OnePlus phones
- The OnePlus 8T is coming soon
We're already into the second half of the year, so that means the OnePlus Nord 2, or whatever the first Nord's successor gets called, could be coming very soon.
Assuming this is a different handset to the original Nord, we don't know anything about this phone right now – not its chipset or camera specs or even if it'll be 5G-compatible.
It won't necessarily be an improvement on the original in terms of features or specs – we don't know if this phone will also launch in India and Europe, where the Nord is being released, and if it doesn't then OnePlus won't have to make this phone a distinct successor to the Nord.
Nord is now a phone line
If indeed it is a different handset, then it would confirm what we'd suspected already, and what OnePlus has hinted at – that 'Nord' isn't just a single phone from OnePlus, but rather a series of phones.
As we've already said, a Nord 2 wouldn't necessarily be a step up from the original Nord. Oppo, OnePlus' sibling company, released the original Reno in early 2019, but the Reno 2 phones in late 2019 didn't replace them, but rather flushed out the range with devices at more price points – so OnePlus could follow a similar strategy with the Nord line.
There's another reason why we wouldn't expect the next OnePlus Nord to be more powerful than its predecessor: we're expecting the OnePlus 8T to arrive later this year, which will likely be fairly top-end, and OnePlus likely wouldn't want that phone to have to compete with any mid-ranged 'Nord 2' devices.
We'll have to wait until OnePlus reveals its plans for bringing the Nord, or another Nord phone, to the US to know for sure – and hopefully we won't have long to wait.
