Did you know that OnePlus was preparing for the launch of a new Nord branded product? Neither do we, which is certainly unusual for a company that held two different announcement events for its latest Android flagship, one in China in December 2023 and one for the rest of the world last week.
Of course, the Nord N30 SE 5G is both a mouthful and a path humbler device than the cutting-edge OnePlus 12 and even the surprisingly affordable OnePlus 12R, which obviously makes us hope for a bumper price. At the moment, we don't know exactly how much this new 6.72-inch mid-ranger will cost, where it might be released and even when, as the company doesn't give any details on its website.
The 5G-enabled OnePlus Nord N30 SE appears to have gone official (without fanfare)
in the United Arab Emirates (of all places), containing among other things a decidedly mediocre MediaTek Dimensity 6020 processor and a fairly modest 4GB of RAM paired with a significantly more generous 128GB of internal storage.
Right off the bat, this sets up the Nord N30 SE at a lower price than the $300 Nord N30, which comes with a Snapdragon 695 chipset and 8GB of RAM under the hood in addition to the same 128GB of storage space local digital.
The SE variant also appears to ditch its 'normal' sibling's 120Hz screen refresh rate technology while retaining the 6.72-inch size and 2,400 x 1,080 pixel resolution. Then you have a 50 MP primary shooter instead of 108 MP placed on the back of the new handset, along with a 2 MP secondary depth sensor and no tertiary
camera.
Finally, the undeniably large 5,000mAh battery inside the Nord N30 SE 5G is equipped with 33W charging support, as opposed to the super-fast 67W capabilities of the non-SE N30, which actually. .. a decent but not great mid-range phone. this could be further improved by a sufficiently low price.
Of course, even that can't make the OnePlus Nord N30 SE a compelling global value proposition if availability is limited to a handful of Asian and European markets, which seems like a pretty safe bet at the moment given this very low-key . “ad” and this name is too convoluted.
