OnePlus Nord 2 to be announced in Q2 2021, no longer uses Qualcomm chipset

OnePlus' interest in the mid-range smartphone market took many by surprise, although we suspect the Chinese company couldn't keep the prices of its top-tier devices low enough to still deserve their tag of “flagship killers.”

Even if that isn't entirely true, many fans have been wanting cheaper alternatives to OnePlus' flagships and company delivered. Unfortunately, OnePlus' first take on a mid-range smartphone, the One Plus X was a commercial failure, even though the phone was quite appreciated among fans for its design.

The new OnePlus Nord phones on the other hand seem to be very popular and not just in those markets where the Chinese company is known for having huge pools of fans. For example, the mid-range OnePlus Nord N10 5G and N100 are hugely popular in the US, not to mention that these phones sell very well in India and across many European countries.

Following the success of the Nord N10 5G and N100, OnePlus plans to launch yet another Nord series phone. This time, however, the company will no longer use a Qualcomm chipset like it did until now but will include a MediaTek SoC (system-on-chip), which is typically cheaper.

AndroidCentral reports that reliable insider sources claim that the next mid-range smartphone from OnePlus will be called Nord 2 and that it will be powered by MediaTek's Dimensity 1200 chipset, a new SoC that was officially unveiled back in January.

MediaTek's Dimensity 1200 chipset is usually meant for flagship smartphones and it's built on a 6nm process. More importantly, the chipset comes with global 5G connectivity support, eight processor cores, and a Mali-G77 GPU (graphics processing unit).

On paper, the Dimensity 1200 is much better than any other Qualcomm's 700 series chipset, which is probably the main reason OnePlus chose MediaTek as the sole chipset supplier for its upcoming Nord 2 mid-range smartphone. If the price of the Nord 2 is right, this will be another huge win for OnePlus and its customers.