We've known for a reeeeeeealy long time that OnePlus is planning a return to the mid-range smartphone market, but interestingly enough, the company didn't just confirm the one Nord model last month. Instead, we were promised an entire new "affordable smartphone product line", with the first member of this (not so) mysterious handset family slated for a full announcement on July 21.
There was unsurprisingly no word on when we could expect additional Nord-branded devices to see daylight, but as it turns out, that may happen sooner than you thought. That's because a mysterious (this time for real) OnePlus phone appears to have recently paid Geekbench a performance-measuring visit with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 SoC on deck.
Since the 5G-enabled OnePlus Nord is already set in stone as packing a higher-end Snapdragon 765G chipset, this is clearly an entirely different device. A slightly humbler one, that is, which also comes with only 6 gigs of memory in tow compared to the 8 and 12GB RAM rumored options of the OnePlus Nord 5G.
By the way, the latter variant was seen benchmarked not long ago under the AC2003 model number, which is yet another reason why we believe this OnePlus BE2028 product is something else. In lack of a better assumption, we'll just call this thing the OnePlus Nord Lite 5G for the time being, although there's a close to zero chance the company will actually adopt that name for marketing purposes.
In case you're wondering, yes, the Snapdragon 690 processor that Qualcomm just announced last month does come with 5G support, and in addition to OnePlus, a whole host of other smartphone vendors ranging from Motorola to LG, TCL, and HMD Global are expected to use the chipset to further bring 5G handset prices down.
Of course, another important thing to mention is that preliminary Geekbench files remain incredibly easy to manipulate, so you shouldn't rule out the possibility of this "device" proving to be a (not so) elaborate hoax. After all, the "lito" motherboard just so happens to be routinely associated with the Snapdragon 765G processor, which however features a higher than 1.71 GHz CPU base frequency.
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That's confusing at the very least, so for the time being, we probably shouldn't consider the existence of a "OnePlus Nord Lite 5G" carved in stone. We should also absolutely not expect this undoubtedly affordable smartphone (if real) to be released anytime in the near future.
Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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