OnePlus Nord N200 5G update commitment is a slight improvement

Despite a few blunders here and there, OnePlus remains one of the darlings of the smartphone market. That image, however, seems to be slowly disappearing thanks to one too many missteps in the software department. That may have been one of the primary reasons, or at least the public justification, for OnePlus' "merger" with OPPO. The fruits of that joint effort probably won't be felt until months or even years later, as the case of the OnePlus Nord N200 5G seems to prove.

Given it has the "Nord N" brand, most probably didn't have high expectations when it came to the OnePlus Nord N200 5G's software updates. After all, its predecessors, the OnePlus Nord N10 5G and the Nord N100 shocked OnePlus fans who have grown accustomed to the company's rather generous promises on the front. The two would get only one major Android update to Android 11 that has yet to arrive, and security updates have been sparse or slow or both.

Speaking with 9to5Google, OnePlus confirmed that the Nord N200 5G would also get just one major update. That would be Android 12 that at least hasn't been released to the public yet, giving OnePlus more time and fewer excuses to prepare the update for the phone on time.

The "improvement" comes as three years of maintenance updates, including security updates and perhaps some minor fixes from OnePlus. That's one year more than what was promised for the OnePlus Nord N10 and N100, but the company has yet to clarify how often those updates would come. That could range from monthly updates to quarterly to even bi-annual releases only.

OnePlus definitely hit the nail on the head when it basically admitted its software updates needed a good amount of polish. Whether that required merging with OPPO is probably still questionable. The biggest question is, of course, whether it will actually have the intended effect, and OnePlus fans will have to look beyond the Nord line for the answer.