The OnePlus Nord series has been quiet for several months, but rumors about the OnePlus Nord 2 are starting to pick up steam, this time confirming that it will feature a completely new chip.

Weibo user Digital Chat Station repeated past rumors that the OnePlus Nord 2 will feature the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chipset instead of the traditional Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

We first heard this rumor back in March, when sources told us that the OnePlus Nord 2 would not feature the mid-range Snapdragon 7 series chipset. The original OnePlus Nord did, but the cheaper OnePlus Nord N100 and OnePlus Nord N10 5G were equipped with the Snapdragon 690 and 460 chipsets, respectively.

At the time, we noted that MediaTek's chips were much more affordable than Qualcomm's chips. This is partly due to the fact that MediaTek chips are not that popular, and also because these chips are usually found in many inexpensive phones. For example, the OnePlus Nord series.

Digital Chat Station's post confirms that old rumor and confirms that OnePlus is running on the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 (MT6893), even if it does not mention the OnePlus Nord 2 by name. This chip is designed to compete with Qualcomm's flagship 8-series chips, so it should be a significant upgrade from the previous mid-range 7-series chips. [The Dimensity 1200 has eight cores, including a 3GHz Cortex A78 prime core, three 2.6GHz A78 cores, and four 2.0GHz efficiency cores. It also supports refresh rates up to 168 Hz, supports ray tracing, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6, 5G and 5G dual SIM, and offers 200 MP photos and 4K HDR video recording.

That is not to say that the OnePlus Nord 2 is confirmed to have all of these features. However, the inclusion of the Dimensity 1200 means that if OnePlus wanted to, it could do so at a lower price than Qualcomm offers.

However, we should not expect the Dimensity 1200 to be able to compete head-to-head with the Snapdragon 888. After all, the Nord is no OnePlus 9, and MediaTek's chips have a history of being underpowered. As such, it is likely to lag behind top-tier phones.

But of course, the OnePlus Nord 2 is not built to offer the best of the best. Its predecessor offers many flagship features at an affordable price, but to achieve that affordability, some compromises must be made; for the SO for OnePlus Nord 2, one of the compromises may be overall chip power. Time will tell if that is indeed the case.