4G skyrocketed smartphone sales and 5G - with the promise of blazing speeds, reliability and enhanced responsiveness - is taking it to a new dimension. As infrastructure grows at a steady pace, 5G enabled smartphones, for now, are just about doing what 4G phones do, only a little quicker; but that’s enough for 5G smartphones to be the talk of the town.
OnePlus revealed today that they'd be expanding their software update and support system for new devices and old devices back to OnePlus 8. To make this happen, OnePlus is "working on integrating the codebase of OxygenOS and ColorOS." According to OnePlus OxygenOS Product Lead Gary Chen, this is a change that users wont likely notice on their phones - meaning there'll be no major change to the software UI, for now.
Microsoft has long exited the smartphone rat race and, save for the lone Surface Duo, it is letting others make the phones that it then integrates with its Windows platform. That hasn't stopped others from trying to make Microsoft's old promises come true, even without Microsoft (or potentially against Microsoft's policies). With the announcement of Windows 11 and its native support for ARM64, it's no surprise that some enterprising developers are taking the OS to places and devices Microsoft would never approve of.
OnePlus just revealed its first Nord phones of the year, and both fall below the bar that the first OnePlus Nord set last year. Its true successor is still coming, even OnePlus said so, but details about the OnePlus Nord 2 are still unofficial. As is the company's practice, OnePlus might start teasing the phone closer to its launch, but, thankfully, we may already have a clear picture of the OnePlus Nord 2, literally, too, thanks to these new renders.
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.
This week might have been one emotional roller coaster ride for OnePlus fans. The company debuted the OnePlus Nord CE 5G as expected but made a blunder in asking OnePlus 7 owners about their experiences with a non-existent feature. It then surprisingly announced the OnePlus Nord N200 5G before it announced a sort of merger with sibling and rival OPPO. The latter event may have generated a lot of concern and questions among OnePlus fans, but the company is putting at least one doubt to rest, reassuring international OnePlus users that it will be sticking to OxygenOS, at least for the foreseeable future.
OnePlus and OPPO are merging their R&D teams, and bringing the two companies closer together as OnePlus co-founder and CEO confirms that the phone-makers will now "further integrate." OnePlus will continue to operate as a separate brand, Lau insists, though it's expected that the new organizational setup will be a shortcut to more cost-effective development.
![OnePlus Nord N200 5G brings $240 Android to T-Mobile USA [Updated]](https://www.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/N200-Single-1-1280x720.jpg)
OnePlus is bringing another affordable 5G Nord smartphone to the US and Canada, with the OnePlus Nord N200 5G promising fast speeds, a 90Hz display, and an unexpectedly low price tag. In the US, it'll be offered on T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile's 5G network, with both prepaid and postpaid availability.
OnePlus takes great pride in how it handles customer feedback, sometimes even conceding its position to accommodate their requests. It is, however, far from perfect as this latest incident around a user survey demonstrates. It may have been a simple clerical error but when OnePlus asked owners of the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7T about the Always-On Display feature that came with OxygenOS 11, those owners were up in arms because that feature was not made available to those devices without prior warning or explanation.
The OnePlus Nord family has gained a new midrange option, with the affordable Nord CE promising attainable performance along with the return of some much-loved features. While it may closely stick to the current OnePlus design language, the Nord CE restores the 3.5mm headphone jack that has been progressively disappearing from most modern smartphones.
OnePlus already confirmed its next Nord series phones but it has also teased one that's yet to come. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G won't exactly be the OnePlus Nord OG's successor but more like a distilled version of it. There will still be a OnePlus Nord 2, or at least the leaks and rumors claim, and this latest information dump reveals not only a MediaTek Dimensity 1200 5G process but could also have high-end components that will give the mainline OnePlus phones a run for their money.
OnePlus has been trying to diversify its products recently and not just by launching new devices like its first-ever smartwatch. Last year, it also introduced a new Nord series that seems poised to flood the budget and mid-range smartphone markets in the US and elsewhere. All throughout, however, OnePlus has solidly been a Qualcomm smartphone house as far as the processors that it uses go. It might be planning to diversify that as well as leaks about a OnePlus phone powered by MediaTek's Dimensity 5G chipset continue to arrive.