OnePlus Nord N20 May Make AMOLED Affordable At Last

OnePlus is bringing a new budget phone called the Nord N20 to the North American market, and this one will stand out in the segment by offering an AMOLED display. The company has shared some key specs and an official image with PCMag, while also confirming that the phone will be going on sale later this month. The AMOLED display measures 6.43 inches and has a circular hole drilled in the top-left corner housing the selfie camera.

But contrary to previous rumors, there is no high-refresh-rate magic to be seen here. The refresh rate is locked at 60Hz, a sacrifice OnePlus had to make between offering a 90Hz LCD panel or an OLED screen to keep the costs in check. OnePlus COO Kinder Liu told PCMag that the Nord N20's OLED screen offers better display quality, including a wider color gamut, than phones from other brands that fall in the same price bracket.

However, the OnePlus executive didn't share any details about how much the phone will cost once it hits shelves. For comparison, the OnePlus Nord N10 started at $299.99 and put a 90Hz FHD+ LCD display on the table. The market dynamics in North America are quite different from the hyper-competitive Asian markets like India, where brands like Xiaomi and Realme have been offering phones with 120Hz OLED panels at an even lower price tag, with more cameras and higher charging speeds in tow.

Talking about charging, the OnePlus Nord N20 will support the proprietary Super VOOC fast charging tech borrowed from Oppo, but the output will reportedly be capped at 30W, instead of the usual 65W in other markets. The phone looks quite sleek with iPhone 12-inspired flat sides and a rear panel without any visible camera island. The two main shooters — a 48MP primary camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide — stand out with distinctly large lenses and a raised ring around them. 

There is also a smaller tertiary camera lens, but there aren't any details about its purpose or megapixel count. When it comes to rumored specs about the upcoming OnePlus phone, it seems the model will pack Qualcomm's Snapdragon 695 processor paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage, but configurations with higher storage capacity might also be in the pipeline.

On the software side, OxygenOS 11 will run things out of the box. OnePlus Nord N20 will go against Samsung's new Galaxy A33 5G and budget phones offered by Motorola and TCL. But it appears that OnePlus has tasted success with the Nord series in North America, even though the Oppo-ification of its smartphone strategy has been met with less-than-favorable reception from its fanbase.