OnePlus just revealed the Nord N200 a few days ago as a new budget 5G phone, aimed primarily at the United States. The hardware is a good value for the $240 price tag, with a Snapdragon 480 and 90Hz screen, but OnePlus has a poor track record with software updates on its budget Nord phones. OnePlus has now confirmed its new Nord N200 phone will receive better (but still not great) software support.

The original OnePlus Nord has been slow to receive both major Android updates and security patches. OnePlus didn't release OxygenOS 11 (Android 11) for the phone until March of this year, which was pulled almost immediately due to performance and stability issues, then started rolling out again later that month. When OnePlus released the Nord N10 and N100, it only promised one Android upgrade for both phones and two years of security updates.

OnePlus has now confirmed to 9to5Google that the Nord N200 will receive three years of "maintenance updates" instead of the two-year promise given to earlier Nord devices. The company did not clarify an update schedule (e.g. quarterly or monthly security updates), and the phone will still only receive a single major Android update. The Nord N200 will ship with Android 11, so the phone's last OS upgrade will likely be Android 12.

It's disappointing to see OnePlus continue to slip behind with software updates. The company's phones were slow to receive an Android 11 update, and many models are on bi-monthly update schedules (or worse). Hopefully the further integration of OnePlus into OPPO will improve things, but only time will tell.