OnePlus unveiled the Nord CE 3 Lite 5G earlier this week, but only for Europe, India, UAE, and a handful of markets in the Asia Pacific, leaving out North America in the process. The device has the guts to rank among the top budget smartphones this year, so it would be a bit of a shame if it weren’t available in the United States. The good news we’re hearing is that the Nord CE 3 Lite is, indeed, headed stateside unlike previous Nord “Core Edition” smartphones.
A OnePlus Community forums user, Some_Random_Username (via Phone Arena), claims the manufacturer could be gearing up to release the 5G mid-ranger stateside, albeit under a different moniker. They were apparently able to dig into the device’s out-of-box OxygenOS build, A.07, to find clues about the smartphone maker’s plans to launch a rebranded model of the device in the US.
More specifically, the screenshot you see below reveals the string market-name=OnePlus Nord N30 5G, just under Nord CE 3 Lite 5G. The two devices have the same project ID, indicating that we’re talking about the same phone with two different names.
Some_Random_Username was also able to find the device’s FCC ID in its system settings: 2ABZ2-AA534. We have not seen compliance documents for the device surface at the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology — that would be a crucial late-stage indicator months in the making that would practically cement the Nord N30’s release in the US.
The community forum user then speculates that the phone could sell via T-Mobile and/or Metro by T-Mobile in the US, which makes sense given the partnership between the carrier and OnePlus in the past.
American buyers would have plenty to look forward to if they’re upgrading from, say, a Nord N10 5G, including the 6.72-inch FHD+ screen (120Hz), the largest screen ever on a Nord device. Other specs on the soon-to-be N30 aren’t as spine-tingling — especially for those familiar with the Nord N20 5G — but still impressive nonetheless: there will be a Snapdragon 695 5G chipset and a 5,000mAh battery that supports OnePlus’s 67W SUPERVOOC wired charging standard. That said, a bump from 6GB to 8GB of RAM is sure to be appreciated and there’s a good chance that the company will offer both 128GB and 256GB storage options in the United States.
Streamlining device releases may help OnePlus’s software department provide more updates in a timely and reliable fashion to budget-oriented Nord phones like the CE 3 Lite 5G/N30 5G.
