OnePlus Nord N10 5G and Nord N100 unveiled

OnePlus broke out of its “flagship only” mold with the release of the Nord, now the company is ready to dip even further into the mid-range and even graze the upper end of the entry-level market. In other words, Nord is now a series of phones.

OnePlus Nord N10 5G

The OnePlus N10 5G sticks close to the original formula with a mid-range Snapdragon, 90Hz display and a 64MP main camera. The N10 is aiming at a lower price bracket, though, so affordability considerations led to some changes.

The new model has a 6.49” display with 1080p+ resolution. There is one major change from the original Nord – the panel is now an IPS LCD, the first on a OnePlus since the OnePlus 2 in 2015. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3. Naturally, this moves the fingerprint reader on the back.

OnePlus Nord N10 5G in Midnight Ice

The rear camera on the Nord N10 is actually slightly better equipped than that of the original as it features a 64MP sensor inside the main camera while maintaining the 119° ultrawide camera with 8 MP sensor and dedicated macro and depth modules. The main camera can record 4K video at 30 fps and 1080p at 60 fps (going up to 120 fps in slow-mo mode).

A couple of things changed with the selfie camera. Good news – it’s only a single punch hole. Bad news – the 32MP main camera drops down to 16MP and the ultrawide lens is (obviously) gone.

The battery navigated the price reduction measures quite well. With a capacity of 4,300 mAh, it’s a fraction larger than the Nord battery and it charges just as fast with Warp Charge 30T (no wireless on either model). Also, this one has a 3.5 mm headphone jack, something we haven't seen on a 1+ in a while.

The N10 is powered by the Snapdragon 690 chipset, which is similar to the S765G chip though with several key differences. Long story short, it uses new two big Kryo 560 CPU cores (vs. 475) and a slightly downgraded GPU, Adreno 619L. The X51 modem supports only the sub-6 flavor of 5G, but the original Nord didn’t have mmWave connectivity, so that is a wash.

Before you judge the choices OnePlus made, let us tell you the price – a OnePlus Nord N10 5G will cost €350/£330. And that is with 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage (UFS 2.1). For comparison, an original Nord with 8/128 GB memory goes for £380.

Here’s the catch, though. Both new Nords have expandable memory, which might tip the scales if you have high storage requirements.

Also, unlike the original Nord, these two will launch in the US, though the exact details will be revealed at a later date.

OnePlus Nord N100

The OnePlus Nord N100 (no 5G here) is the entry-level offering, it’s price starts at €200/£180 for a phone with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage (UFS 2.1). But again, storage is easily expandable with a cheap microSD card.

This phone is based on the Snapdragon 460 chipset, a budget 11nm chip with Cortex-A73 derived cores and an Adreno 610.

The N100 has a 6.52” IPS LCD with 720 x 1,600 px resolution (and standard refresh rate). The display is again guarded by Gorilla Glass 3. Like the N10, this one has stereo speakers and a rear-mounted fingerprint reader.

OnePlus Nord N100 in Midnight Frost

OnePlus decided to focus on a longer battery life for this model, its power cell has 5,000 mAh capacity, at the expense of charging speed, which goes up to only 18W (given the extra capacity, Warp would have been nice). On the plus side, a 3.5 mm jack is present on this model as well.

This phone is equipped with a 13MP main camera, so photography is fairly basic. It’s technically a triple camera, though 67% of that is a dedicated macro lens and a depth sensor (both 2 MP). Video recording is capped at 1080p/30 fps for both front and back camera. The front camera has an 8 MP sensor.

Both the Nord N100 and the N10 are launching with OxygenOS 10.5. It’s still based on Android 10, but features the latest proprietary enhancements from OnePlus. The phones are coming to Europe early next month and will go on the other side of the pond soon.