OnePlus Smartphones with Nord-Like Design, Fewer Cameras, Imagined in Video Render

OnePlus Nord-like smartphones have been imagined in a video render to show us what the company's upcoming budget phones could look like. Codenamed ‘Billie 1' and ‘Billie 2,' these upcoming budget phones have been visually imagined through a video render, but are believed to be fairly representative of what the final products could look like. The video shows the phones having a design, similar to the OnePlus Nord, but with single selfie cameras. One of them is believed to have three rear cameras, while the other, could have two cameras. Whether these phones would be global launches or would only be released in the US, is still uncertain at this point.

Max J (@MaxJmb) collaborated with Concept Creator to imagine two of the upcoming, budget OnePlus smartphones. Max J tweeted that even though the video render is purely based on their imagination, he thinks it could be very close to what the final product could look like. The render shows two OnePlus smartphones, with very similar design aesthetics to the OnePlus Nord (Review). However, the biggest difference is with the cameras. The phones are shown to have only a single selfie camera, in the hole-punch cutout of the display. One of them is shown to have three rear cameras, while the other only has two cameras.

One of the phones, if not both, could be heading to the US. OnePlus only launched the OnePlus Nord in India and European markets, but not in the US. However, Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus, recently had told Wired, that a Nord-branded phone would launch in the US later this year. The codename ‘Billie' isn't new information either, as a previous Geekbench listing showed an unknown OnePlus phone running on a Snapdragon 690 5G SoC, with the model number BE2028.

OnePlus announced its commitment towards 5G earlier this year, and so far, all it's phones launched in 2020 support 5G. If OnePlus will be targeting even lower price tiers with its upcoming phones, it could very well be looking at the recently announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 5G SoC, which is the only 5G-ready chip in that series. Coming back to the two rumoured phones in the video, one of them could be the Nord-alternative coming to the US but as for what it would be called, is still unknown. We'll have to wait for some more substantial leaks, to know exactly what we're getting.

Is Nord the iPhone SE of the OnePlus world? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.