While the OnePlus 13 series seems to have the company set on its 2025 flagship ambitions, it’s usually this time of year when the Nord-series of affordable budget devices make a splash, and this year is no different.
OnePlus is teasing the Nord CE5 ahead of a launch event next week, and it’s shaping up to be a pretty solid low-cost offering. The entire package is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 8350 Apex SoC, a 4nm TSMC-made chip that OnePlus’s India-centric website is advertising as delivering excellent performance in both Battlegrounds Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile. It’s also rocking a 50MP Sony LYT-600 1/1.95″ main sensor with OIS support and the same RAW HDR processing first seen on the OnePlus 13 series this year, alongside 4K60 video recording.
It’s the battery, though, that’s stealing the show here — although that might depend on where you buy the phone. While the press release 9to5Google received from OnePlus promises a 5,200mah battery, the company’s Indian storefront is teasing a whopping 7,100mAh capacity. That is, obviously, a pretty big difference in power; while 5,200mAh cells are nothing to sneeze at, something 36 percent larger sure sounds awfully appealing.
We’ve reached out to OnePlus for clarification and will update when we hear back, but some fine print on one of the company’s images seems to clarify matters. “Availability of […] the 7100mAh battery variant varies by region,” reads the footnote you’ll find in the image above. That seems to confirm that the European Nord CE5 will be locked to a more standard 5,200mAh battery, while Indian customers get to experience what’s promised as true multi-day performance. No matter what the actual capacity of your device ends up being, expect the usual 80W SuperVOOC-branded fast-charging.
The Nord CE5 is far from everything OnePlus is debuting at its July 8th event. The company is also teasing the standard Nord 5 and the OnePlus Buds 4 on its Indian-centric storefront, though the former isn’t mentioned in European-centric press releases. As you might expect, the standard Nord 5 is a much more powerful device than its CE-branded sibling, with a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 SoC and an improved 50MP main sensor “stolen” from the 13-series. It’s unlikely to rock that massive multi-day battery capacity though, at least based on the early marketing materials shared on the site.
The OnePlus Buds 4 might be the most interesting product of the bunch, if only because they’re actually coming to the US. The company is teasing up to 11 hours of playback on a single charge, with an additional 45 hours provided by the charging case. Your ears can’t escape AI, though — OnePlus is including AI translation tools on its 4th-gen buds whether you want them or not.
Although neither Nord device is likely on their way to North America, OnePlus is delivering my neck of the woods one other product next week: the smaller 43mm OnePlus Watch 3. I quite liked this year’s wearable, but even as someone who prefers larger watches, it looked absolutely enormous on my wrist, and I’m pretty excited to check it out. Unfortunately, the rest of the news cycle isn’t quite as positive for OnePlus, as the brand is currently under government scrutiny here in the US.
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