OnePlus Aurora set to go head-to-head with budget rival from Motorola

After entering the premium smartphone tier with its recent lineup of devices, and winning T3's Best Phone and Gadget of the Year awards for the OnePlus 8 Pro, OnePlus returned to its roots with the OnePlus Nord which offered a combo of key specs at a great price; what's more, it's 5G-ready, meaning you're getting the must-have smartphone essentials for an absolutely bargainous price of £379.

Unfortunately, the Nord isn't making its way to North American shores just yet, but there's rumours of another cheap OnePlus handset headed that way, code-name OnePlus Aurora. But another challenger has entered the fray before that's been made official – say hello to the Motorola One 5G. 

• PS5 secret slips out – gives Xbox Series X a huge advantage
• The PS5 just got absolutely SMOKED by this 1000fps gaming PC 💣

The Motorola One 5G is launching in the US on AT&T and Verizon with a very enticing price tag of somewhere below $500, although the company has yet to share the finer details of the exact price. Ironically, this is the same move that OnePlus pulled with the Nord, which ended up with a very reasonable starting price, and not the £499 we were wary of.

The device will house the same Snapdragon 765G chipset as the Nord, and will also boast the same 90Hz refresh rate, although the panel is a 6.7-inch FHD LCD rather than the Nord's AMOLED display, so it'll be less vibrant side-by-side.

The Motorola One 5G will come with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, compared to the Nord's starting model which has an 8GB/128GB configuration. However, none of this is bad news, as the OnePlus Aurora is said to be even cheaper than the Nord, meaning some further sacrifices will have to be made to keep costs down – but Motorola may just have pipped it to the post. 

• Best smartphones: the very best phones, ranked

On the camera-front, the Motorola One 5G has a quad camera set-up on the back (48MP + 8MP ultrawide + 5MP macro + 2MP depth sensor), and a dual 16MP + 8MP ultrawide pairing on the front. This is comparable to the Nord for the rear-facing cameras, but OnePlus pulls ahead with the selfie cameras.

To meet such a low price point, there are going to have to be some compromises – especially if you want a 5G-ready device. The Motorola One 5G might not knock your socks off, but we'll wait to hear a final price before making any judgements. The handset should be launching in the next few weeks, so we'll keep you posted. 

Source: Tom's Guide

• Black Friday 2020