I am actually surprised that Apple is leading the charge on this. They already have a super affordable $399 phone with a flagship processor (albeit on a dated design) but their flagship flagship phone goes for under $700 now (and if the rumors are true for iPhone 12, even cheaper than that). I was really disappointed in Samsung for not only getting rid of the headphone jack but also getting ride of their affordable flagship series the S10E with no S20E. Here is hoping this holiday season will incentivize other manufacturers to do so. I doubt OnePlus will make a huge change in this space; my only hope is other Chinese brands go with a cleaner Android look rather than a bloated mess they have now.
Here in EU they're not "leading" in that sense since iPhone SE costs round 499 EUR here (PT price, translates to about 573 USD), which is a large jump up from US price, even considering the added VAT.
It's a good entry point if you want to be in the Apple ecosystem, but for 500€ you can get plenty of good smartphones, especially from Realme / Xiaomi. Now Oneplus got back into the scene. I hope they give at least 3 years of support to the phone, it's about time they creep up to Apple in that regard.
“I hope they give at least 3 years of support to the phone, it's about time they creep up to Apple in that regard.”
Did you mean system firmware updates? If you did, you shouldn’t compare Apple’s firmware updates to Android devices. We all know Apple is a crook. They always try to shove new firmwares down your throat just to slow down your phones.
the problem is that Apple did not disclose to it's user. Apple did not nerf your phone performance do you would buy their new device, but to help save it's battery life.
if Apple deliberately slows down your phone performance for planned obsolescence, then iOS 12 shouldn't improve performance at all, yet it did as shown by Ars Technica iOS 12 review
"We all know Apple is a crook. They always try to shove new firmwares down your throat just to slow down your phones." everyone just ignore the kids/trolls they love starting flame wars for stuff the is widely debunked...
You’re talking about 3GB RAM (LPDDR3?) vs 8GB LPDDR4X, 64GB ROM vs 128GB, 1821mAH vs 4115mAH, tiny IPS vs 6.44 in. 90Hz SAMOLED....etc. LAME!
Until the day that you can install Android on iOS to benchmark those Apple’s processors so you can compare those results to Android’s Snapdragons’ fairly... In the mean time, your praise for Apple’s processors is obsolete.
In case you didn’t know, you can always root an Android phone and install a pure version of Android on it.
What about windows and android? 8cx on windows and 855 on android gave similar benchmark scores.
And you just cant root any android phone either. You have to make sure the oem allows bootloader unlock, the phone us popular enough to have custom roms, the dev actually provides support, etc. Or you could make your own rom and install it.
I'm not sure comparing raw specs like that is much help. The screen would be the most noticeable difference, with storage definitely being next, but battery capacity means nothing without knowing relative platform efficiency and the same goes for RAM. I remain completely unconvinced that there's any real practical point to having more than 4GB of RAM in a smartphone.
I should note that I'm not really defending Apple here. The iPhone SE2 looks like good value if you consider the SoC you get - or for some reason absolutely need an iPhone - but everything else about the design is woefully outdated. I'd have pointed at the camera setup as the biggest indicator that you're getting ripped off.
OnePlus has always been focused on the sub-$500 price point. It's only in the last couple of years that Chinese brands have made legitimate inroads in the high-end market.
i was introduced to wireless charging back in 2011 with the hp tablet that was dumped. Then i purchased the HP Pre 3 witch also had wireless charging. Its ridiculous that its not a standard feature on all phones nowadays .
It really should be on everything thats not a budget phone. People buying midrange phones are looking at design and features; wireless charging is a quality of life thing, it shouldn't be regulated to flagship devices.
My requirements for choosing a phone are. 1. Android 2. Good design 3. Good camera 4. Wireless charging
I'd also prefer to have. 1. A stock or near stock Google experiance 2. It be in smaller form factor
I feel like OnePlus has been so close with all their phones for years but they never have wireless charging on anything but their huge flagships.
is there a reason you require android? Should give iPhone a try though. I've been using both iPhone 11 and Pixel 4 as daily drivers and I'm finding myself leaning towards the iPhone 12 as my next phone.
I've the iPhone 11 Pro and have an Android OP6 currently. There are issues that won't let me use iOS at all, want to understand how you handle those? - I don't want the phone to vibrate or make any notification sound. I get notified via the notification LED on the phone and there's no way for this in the iPhone to do this. This is my biggest problem. - For goodness sake, need a silent mode icon on the screen, I don't keep checking the side slider position always. - No number key row in the iPhone keyboard .. this is unbelievable - I need very few icons on my home screen and 1 widget. Can't do this, except for the widget now maybe with iOS 14 - A good file explorer - Android quick settings panel feels more convenient than the control center.
Only that its what I know and invested into. That and I like the openness that Android represents.
I don't really have anything against Apple / the iPhone in fact I think the hardware is as good as it gets and iOS is pretty good too. What I don't really like the control that Apple exerts over its users and platforms.
Question, how does the power consumption of the SD765 compares against that of SD835 or SD845? Those were power-hogs, if I recall correctly (for a mobile device...).
sd835 is one of the efficient soc ever released, better than 845/855/865/765, because of 5g and high refresh rate display this year smartphone are not that good when it came to battery life.
"better than 845/855/865/765, because of 5g and high refresh rate display" You seem to be lacking the differentiation between SoC and device efficiency. SoC efficiency is independant of screen refresh rates and 5G support.
I think they meant that last part to be separate - i.e. 835 is more efficient than 845 etc., and then seperately, 5G and high-refresh mean current smartphones aren't great for battery life (outside of the SoC efficiency).
I don't know if 835 is necessarily the most *efficient* compared to the others, but it did mark a point where the need for further performance improvements started pushing power up again.
810 / 808 were the dodgy ones. 820/821 on 14nm was much better, 835 on 10nm was really very efficient (I have a phone with that in), 845 on 10nm again was similarly efficient but with a higher maximum power draw.
Pretty sure 765 is more efficient than the 845 and 835 due to the better 7nm manufacturing process and the fact that it simply cannot hit the same high power draw (fewer big cores, smaller GPU).
I love those DL/UL numbers for the modems. Its like you (theoreticaly) get gigabit for 5 whole minutes, before you get throttled to 3mbps for the rest of the month, and thats assuming you have an unlimited plan.
Well people wants phones to get back to that $500 range. So you are expecting a 865/855 in a mid range products? What will that do to price and their margins? If you want high end they have a products for that. Your complain makes no sense in the product category this phone is marketing too which is the mid range market.
What people expect and what is actually profitable for the vendor is two different things. And as far as I'm concerned android competes with android not apple. Most majority of apple users have bought into that ecosystem and vary rarely leave for the other side and vice versa. Apple creates their own SOC, where as Android vendors rely on ARM for their SOC. If they thought this was a viable option you would see it.
Well, you can buy 2 smartphones from its sister companies which offer sd855+, 90/120 hz screens, faster charging, versatile cameras, and you know what, all at the same fckin price. Well, if this is not one+ being apple of old days, I don't know what is.
Honestly I'd have been happier if they managed to pull in an 855 or even an 845 for the role. The 865 is gratuitously overpriced and 765 is a shitty consolation prize for the Qualcomm monopoly. It's definitely possible to make a $500 phone with the 855 in, especially now that it's not "cutting edge".
This is about the price I am happy to pay for a phone. GPU is not quite what you'd want, but to get a decent 90Hz OLED screen, decent RAM and storage, good camera, and 5G at the price is pretty good.
Sadly since Huawei are obscena negotium the cheap Honor phone range with Kirin chips that usually gave a flawed but decent CPU and GPU combination are not happening, and most of us are stuck with Qualcomm now as the SoC of choice for their mid-range phone.
I hope the reviews stick this up against 2/3 year old contemporaries, not just against other current phones, so we can see what an upgrade could provide.
Some corrections for the article: "The Nord is a special device for the company as it’s the first time since its inception that we’re seeing a product release outside of the usual flagship line-up." This sentence should be removed or edited, as OnePlus has released a specially designed budget device before, the OnePlus X.
Snapdragon 765 mentions in the table and article should be amended to say 765G. The "G" has slightly faster graphics then vanilla 765 chipset.
Maybe a footnote or other small mention should be made of the cheapest configuration: 6GB of RAM + 64GB of storage. That one is India only, for a USD equivalent of ~$335.
Agreed! Oneplus X was the first one that wasn't meant to be a "flagship killer". Ah, miss those days of Oneplus not just releasing flagships that cost nearly the same as the competition like they do now.
Yeah, I'm a 50/50 split of being pissed off with Qualcomm and OnePlus for that trend. My first OnePlus phone was the 6 and it may have to be my last, because I'm not paying $1000 for a phone without a headphone jack, and I'm sure as hell not buying a brand-new $500 phone with an SoC that's not really any better than my 3-year-old design.
Funny how everyone seems to have forgotten how the first 3 generations of OnePlus phones were in this price range, and they were all flagships too. It's what catapulted them to fame. And now, look...
They were even cheaper than this! They all had some sort of significant disadvantage compared to the "true" flagships of the time, though, but it was sometimes worth it because of that sweet price.
Also the "true" flagships were mostly around $600 back then. Heady days!
"Footprint-wise, the phone is similar to the OnePlus 8, and comes in at 158.3 x 73.3 x 82.2mm which is a sweet-spot form-factor." I was afraid of that. Question: is that really true for you all? I have the oneplus7 and I really like it but if I could I would change one thing: make it smaller. It is too big to handle. It is so large that I can put it on a stand to watch youtube on which is what a tablet should do. The phone is so large I have to use bags and holsters to carry it. HTC One M7 had a 4.7inch screen which was perfect. With the tiny bezels these days you could make a kickass 4.7-5.0inch phone that is small enough to be called a phone and not a phablet like 99% of all phones. Oh and make it 16:9 again please. The extra space I get on the phone is just black bars and makes the phone far longer than it needs to be.
Long aspect ratio is good for wide aspect ratio movies (search them on tic toc lol) supposed “benefit” of less scroling and better gaming (you move controls out of the viewfinder).
Same size portrait keyboard, landscape browsing is just terrible and most of the display is kept as safety margins anyway.
My Nexus 5 is probably the phone shape I've been happiest with. Something shaped almost exactly like that but with better cameras, fingerprint reader, an OLED display and better speakers... damn that would be good.
We technically do, albeit from Chinese manufacturers that are probably not that available internationally. E.g. Redmi K30 Pro, Nubia Red Magic, Xiaomi Blackshark 3 etc.
I have to say that when the SoC costs $150 on its own, that is a fairly big ask. Maybe not impossible, but you'd be cutting margins so thin as to really screw any chance of decent software support.
I don't understand the stupid trend of adding useless cameras. Couldn't they be able to use either UltraWide or Zoom lens to do macro? Dump the useless depth sensor and the "normal" selfie camera. A single 8MP (or upgrade to 16MP) ultrawide would be better. And add wireless charging. Surely that' would save some space and possibly even being cheaper
+1 on this. Macro and "depth sensor" are both basically useless and two selfie cameras is overkill. I'd rather have 3 rear modules: wide, standard, tele. Use the best available sensor size and OIS for all modules to make them actually worth having, ignoring the megapixel nonsense.
Doing proper macro on the standard optics is hard, but if you're only getting 2MP from the sensor you might as well just focus as close as you can on the main sensor and crop. 😬
Interesting device, but not so great on the lack of removable storage. I'd like to be able to pull a microSD card in the event of a failure and move my data to another phone rather than having whatever is on the handset die with the phone in the event of some sort of failure. Then, of course, there is also the lack of a removable battery which is just on-going stupid that Apple started and everyone else sheepishly followed in the name of forcing upgrades while proclaiming supposed thickness reduction benefits that are fairly meaningless. Lots of dumb about this design that puts it more in the $100 USD range as a disposable handset which is how it was designed from the outset by OnePlus despite its markup.
Never settle is abandoned here. 765G is nowhere near 855, let alone 865. It just has 5G. Using MTK 820 or 1000l is a far better option at this price point. Look at the Reno 3. It's the same price, but without the high refresh rate. Cameras are better actually.
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MooseMuffin - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
I hope this is a sign that companies are going to really compete in the sub-$500 price point again.quiksilvr - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
I am actually surprised that Apple is leading the charge on this. They already have a super affordable $399 phone with a flagship processor (albeit on a dated design) but their flagship flagship phone goes for under $700 now (and if the rumors are true for iPhone 12, even cheaper than that). I was really disappointed in Samsung for not only getting rid of the headphone jack but also getting ride of their affordable flagship series the S10E with no S20E. Here is hoping this holiday season will incentivize other manufacturers to do so. I doubt OnePlus will make a huge change in this space; my only hope is other Chinese brands go with a cleaner Android look rather than a bloated mess they have now.serjrps - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Here in EU they're not "leading" in that sense since iPhone SE costs round 499 EUR here (PT price, translates to about 573 USD), which is a large jump up from US price, even considering the added VAT.It's a good entry point if you want to be in the Apple ecosystem, but for 500€ you can get plenty of good smartphones, especially from Realme / Xiaomi. Now Oneplus got back into the scene. I hope they give at least 3 years of support to the phone, it's about time they creep up to Apple in that regard.
sonny73n - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
“I hope they give at least 3 years of support to the phone, it's about time they creep up to Apple in that regard.”Did you mean system firmware updates? If you did, you shouldn’t compare Apple’s firmware updates to Android devices. We all know Apple is a crook. They always try to shove new firmwares down your throat just to slow down your phones.
Apple sheeps can go claim a part of $500 millions class action lawsuit here:
https://www.smartphoneperformancesettlement.com/
Fulljack - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
the problem is that Apple did not disclose to it's user. Apple did not nerf your phone performance do you would buy their new device, but to help save it's battery life.if Apple deliberately slows down your phone performance for planned obsolescence, then iOS 12 shouldn't improve performance at all, yet it did as shown by Ars Technica iOS 12 review
Skeptical123 - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
"We all know Apple is a crook. They always try to shove new firmwares down your throat just to slow down your phones." everyone just ignore the kids/trolls they love starting flame wars for stuff the is widely debunked...sonny73n - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
You’re talking about 3GB RAM (LPDDR3?) vs 8GB LPDDR4X, 64GB ROM vs 128GB, 1821mAH vs 4115mAH, tiny IPS vs 6.44 in. 90Hz SAMOLED....etc. LAME!Until the day that you can install Android on iOS to benchmark those Apple’s processors so you can compare those results to Android’s Snapdragons’ fairly... In the mean time, your praise for Apple’s processors is obsolete.
In case you didn’t know, you can always root an Android phone and install a pure version of Android on it.
iphonebestgamephone - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
What about windows and android? 8cx on windows and 855 on android gave similar benchmark scores.And you just cant root any android phone either. You have to make sure the oem allows bootloader unlock, the phone us popular enough to have custom roms, the dev actually provides support, etc. Or you could make your own rom and install it.
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
I'm not sure comparing raw specs like that is much help. The screen would be the most noticeable difference, with storage definitely being next, but battery capacity means nothing without knowing relative platform efficiency and the same goes for RAM. I remain completely unconvinced that there's any real practical point to having more than 4GB of RAM in a smartphone.I should note that I'm not really defending Apple here. The iPhone SE2 looks like good value if you consider the SoC you get - or for some reason absolutely need an iPhone - but everything else about the design is woefully outdated. I'd have pointed at the camera setup as the biggest indicator that you're getting ripped off.
Rookierookie - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
OnePlus has always been focused on the sub-$500 price point. It's only in the last couple of years that Chinese brands have made legitimate inroads in the high-end market.Operandi - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
FYI, to OnePlus and whoever else is listening; I've had wireless charging since my Nexus 5 and I refuse to go back.datastream2001 - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
i was introduced to wireless charging back in 2011 with the hp tablet that was dumped. Then i purchased the HP Pre 3 witch also had wireless charging. Its ridiculous that its not a standard feature on all phones nowadays .Operandi - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
It really should be on everything thats not a budget phone. People buying midrange phones are looking at design and features; wireless charging is a quality of life thing, it shouldn't be regulated to flagship devices.My requirements for choosing a phone are.
1. Android
2. Good design
3. Good camera
4. Wireless charging
I'd also prefer to have.
1. A stock or near stock Google experiance
2. It be in smaller form factor
I feel like OnePlus has been so close with all their phones for years but they never have wireless charging on anything but their huge flagships.
chaose - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
is there a reason you require android? Should give iPhone a try though. I've been using both iPhone 11 and Pixel 4 as daily drivers and I'm finding myself leaning towards the iPhone 12 as my next phone.Teckk - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
I've the iPhone 11 Pro and have an Android OP6 currently. There are issues that won't let me use iOS at all, want to understand how you handle those?- I don't want the phone to vibrate or make any notification sound. I get notified via the notification LED on the phone and there's no way for this in the iPhone to do this. This is my biggest problem.
- For goodness sake, need a silent mode icon on the screen, I don't keep checking the side slider position always.
- No number key row in the iPhone keyboard .. this is unbelievable
- I need very few icons on my home screen and 1 widget. Can't do this, except for the widget now maybe with iOS 14
- A good file explorer
- Android quick settings panel feels more convenient than the control center.
Operandi - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Only that its what I know and invested into. That and I like the openness that Android represents.I don't really have anything against Apple / the iPhone in fact I think the hardware is as good as it gets and iOS is pretty good too. What I don't really like the control that Apple exerts over its users and platforms.
nicolaim - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
This.yankeeDDL - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Question, how does the power consumption of the SD765 compares against that of SD835 or SD845? Those were power-hogs, if I recall correctly (for a mobile device...).brucethemoose - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
They weren't so bad IIRC... I'm on an 845 now. But I'm sure the 765 is much better.Now the 810, that one was the pig of the last decade.
rabidpeach - Sunday, August 2, 2020 - link
that was the only snap they did as a reference design from arm. the only one.Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Power is competitive on the CPU side, and a fraction on the GPU side. See the LG Velvet review of how the SoC performs: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15905/the-lg-v60-an...hemedans - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
sd835 is one of the efficient soc ever released, better than 845/855/865/765, because of 5g and high refresh rate display this year smartphone are not that good when it came to battery life.Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
"better than 845/855/865/765, because of 5g and high refresh rate display"You seem to be lacking the differentiation between SoC and device efficiency. SoC efficiency is independant of screen refresh rates and 5G support.
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
I think they meant that last part to be separate - i.e. 835 is more efficient than 845 etc., and then seperately, 5G and high-refresh mean current smartphones aren't great for battery life (outside of the SoC efficiency).I don't know if 835 is necessarily the most *efficient* compared to the others, but it did mark a point where the need for further performance improvements started pushing power up again.
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
810 / 808 were the dodgy ones. 820/821 on 14nm was much better, 835 on 10nm was really very efficient (I have a phone with that in), 845 on 10nm again was similarly efficient but with a higher maximum power draw.Pretty sure 765 is more efficient than the 845 and 835 due to the better 7nm manufacturing process and the fact that it simply cannot hit the same high power draw (fewer big cores, smaller GPU).
brucethemoose - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
I love those DL/UL numbers for the modems. Its like you (theoreticaly) get gigabit for 5 whole minutes, before you get throttled to 3mbps for the rest of the month, and thats assuming you have an unlimited plan.Sharma_Ji - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
One plus trying to be new apple, thinking it's customers will purchase anything which has a 1+ logo on its back.A brand built upon Speed, using 765G is a shame.
Makaveli - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Well people wants phones to get back to that $500 range. So you are expecting a 865/855 in a mid range products? What will that do to price and their margins? If you want high end they have a products for that. Your complain makes no sense in the product category this phone is marketing too which is the mid range market.Calle2003 - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
People expect it because the 2nd gen iPhone SE has Apples flagship SoC A13.Makaveli - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
What people expect and what is actually profitable for the vendor is two different things. And as far as I'm concerned android competes with android not apple. Most majority of apple users have bought into that ecosystem and vary rarely leave for the other side and vice versa. Apple creates their own SOC, where as Android vendors rely on ARM for their SOC. If they thought this was a viable option you would see it.Sharma_Ji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Well, you can buy 2 smartphones from its sister companies which offer sd855+, 90/120 hz screens, faster charging, versatile cameras, and you know what, all at the same fckin price.Well, if this is not one+ being apple of old days, I don't know what is.
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Honestly I'd have been happier if they managed to pull in an 855 or even an 845 for the role. The 865 is gratuitously overpriced and 765 is a shitty consolation prize for the Qualcomm monopoly. It's definitely possible to make a $500 phone with the 855 in, especially now that it's not "cutting edge".psychobriggsy - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
This is about the price I am happy to pay for a phone. GPU is not quite what you'd want, but to get a decent 90Hz OLED screen, decent RAM and storage, good camera, and 5G at the price is pretty good.Sadly since Huawei are obscena negotium the cheap Honor phone range with Kirin chips that usually gave a flawed but decent CPU and GPU combination are not happening, and most of us are stuck with Qualcomm now as the SoC of choice for their mid-range phone.
I hope the reviews stick this up against 2/3 year old contemporaries, not just against other current phones, so we can see what an upgrade could provide.
NextGen_Gamer - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Some corrections for the article:"The Nord is a special device for the company as it’s the first time since its inception that we’re seeing a product release outside of the usual flagship line-up." This sentence should be removed or edited, as OnePlus has released a specially designed budget device before, the OnePlus X.
Snapdragon 765 mentions in the table and article should be amended to say 765G. The "G" has slightly faster graphics then vanilla 765 chipset.
Maybe a footnote or other small mention should be made of the cheapest configuration: 6GB of RAM + 64GB of storage. That one is India only, for a USD equivalent of ~$335.
Richlet - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Agreed! Oneplus X was the first one that wasn't meant to be a "flagship killer". Ah, miss those days of Oneplus not just releasing flagships that cost nearly the same as the competition like they do now.Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Yeah, I'm a 50/50 split of being pissed off with Qualcomm and OnePlus for that trend. My first OnePlus phone was the 6 and it may have to be my last, because I'm not paying $1000 for a phone without a headphone jack, and I'm sure as hell not buying a brand-new $500 phone with an SoC that's not really any better than my 3-year-old design.It sucks because I really love their OS build.
ads295 - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Funny how everyone seems to have forgotten how the first 3 generations of OnePlus phones were in this price range, and they were all flagships too. It's what catapulted them to fame.And now, look...
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
They were even cheaper than this! They all had some sort of significant disadvantage compared to the "true" flagships of the time, though, but it was sometimes worth it because of that sweet price.Also the "true" flagships were mostly around $600 back then. Heady days!
tkSteveFOX - Saturday, July 25, 2020 - link
No they didn't. Oneplus 3 and 3 pro were outstanding for the time and are still usable devices.zpeleg - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
I believe that you have a mistake in 256gb version European pricing. I think it should be 499 euro and not 599.drexnx - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
no 3.5mm jack, no wireless charging, no IP68?"never settle" though, right?
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
"Nobody else is offering this anymore so we can force you to settle, trololol"drexnx - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
*laughs in S10e*Fergy - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
"Footprint-wise, the phone is similar to the OnePlus 8, and comes in at 158.3 x 73.3 x 82.2mm which is a sweet-spot form-factor."I was afraid of that. Question: is that really true for you all? I have the oneplus7 and I really like it but if I could I would change one thing: make it smaller. It is too big to handle. It is so large that I can put it on a stand to watch youtube on which is what a tablet should do. The phone is so large I have to use bags and holsters to carry it. HTC One M7 had a 4.7inch screen which was perfect. With the tiny bezels these days you could make a kickass 4.7-5.0inch phone that is small enough to be called a phone and not a phablet like 99% of all phones. Oh and make it 16:9 again please. The extra space I get on the phone is just black bars and makes the phone far longer than it needs to be.
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
The OnePlus 7 was 74.8mm wide which is quite bigger than the Nord or the OP8; it makes a big difference in device size feeling.GC2:CS - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Amen Bro.Long aspect ratio is good for wide aspect ratio movies (search them on tic toc lol) supposed “benefit” of less scroling and better gaming (you move controls out of the viewfinder).
Same size portrait keyboard, landscape browsing is just terrible and most of the display is kept as safety margins anyway.
Bezelless = unbearable.
4,7” 16:9 ftw. Best smartphone formfactor ever.
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
My Nexus 5 is probably the phone shape I've been happiest with. Something shaped almost exactly like that but with better cameras, fingerprint reader, an OLED display and better speakers... damn that would be good.Alistair - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
What we need is a simple flagship Snapdragon 865 phone for $500. The thing Google should be making if they were not so incompetent at making phones.One camera, all screen front, snapdragon 865, $500.
Retycint - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
We technically do, albeit from Chinese manufacturers that are probably not that available internationally. E.g. Redmi K30 Pro, Nubia Red Magic, Xiaomi Blackshark 3 etc.Sharma_Ji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Even meizu..Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
I have to say that when the SoC costs $150 on its own, that is a fairly big ask. Maybe not impossible, but you'd be cutting margins so thin as to really screw any chance of decent software support.dotjaz - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
I don't understand the stupid trend of adding useless cameras. Couldn't they be able to use either UltraWide or Zoom lens to do macro? Dump the useless depth sensor and the "normal" selfie camera. A single 8MP (or upgrade to 16MP) ultrawide would be better. And add wireless charging.Surely that' would save some space and possibly even being cheaper
Spunjji - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
+1 on this. Macro and "depth sensor" are both basically useless and two selfie cameras is overkill. I'd rather have 3 rear modules: wide, standard, tele. Use the best available sensor size and OIS for all modules to make them actually worth having, ignoring the megapixel nonsense.Doing proper macro on the standard optics is hard, but if you're only getting 2MP from the sensor you might as well just focus as close as you can on the main sensor and crop. 😬
PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
Interesting device, but not so great on the lack of removable storage. I'd like to be able to pull a microSD card in the event of a failure and move my data to another phone rather than having whatever is on the handset die with the phone in the event of some sort of failure. Then, of course, there is also the lack of a removable battery which is just on-going stupid that Apple started and everyone else sheepishly followed in the name of forcing upgrades while proclaiming supposed thickness reduction benefits that are fairly meaningless. Lots of dumb about this design that puts it more in the $100 USD range as a disposable handset which is how it was designed from the outset by OnePlus despite its markup.nicolaim - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link
There are several price errors in the article.zodiacfml - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
similar price and performance as my S8+ I bought in 2017.StormyParis - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
I think I still prefer the Redmi 10X 5G, because SD and Jack.Tyler_Durden_83 - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Would have been better to compare it to the 7 series as right now the prices are more aligned with it.Le Geek - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
Correction - Oneplus Nord is not the first Oneplus phone outside their flagship line. Remember Oneplus X?Fergy - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
"similar price and performance as my S8+ I bought in 2017."6GB RAM vs 8GB
A73 vs A76
Adreno 540 vs 620
Yeah....the same...
tkSteveFOX - Saturday, July 25, 2020 - link
Never settle is abandoned here.765G is nowhere near 855, let alone 865. It just has 5G. Using MTK 820 or 1000l is a far better option at this price point. Look at the Reno 3. It's the same price, but without the high refresh rate.
Cameras are better actually.