This has been a big year for foldable devices, with Google landing Pixel Fold, Samsung launching the latest products in its Fold and Flip lines, and Motorola finally coming up with an excellent option with the Motorola Razr Plus. But we may only now be seeing the best foldable phone of the year, as the OnePlus Open has just been announced, and it has a lot to offer.
For starters, this first foldable phone from OnePlus has an incredibly bright screen – in fact, it has two, with both the foldable main display and the cover screen reaching an impressive 2,800 nits of brightness. For comparison, the Pixel Fold comes in at 1,450 nits.
The foldable display here is a 7.82-inch 2268 x 2440 display with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the cover display is a 1116 x 2484 display and also has a 120Hz refresh rate.
Even without the high brightness, those screen specifications are competitive with those of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. Both screens on OnePlus’ phone have a higher resolution.
The OnePlus Open also has what appears to be one of the best camera setups on a foldable phone, as on the back you’ll find a triple-lens camera consisting of a 48MP main sensor, a 48MP ultrawide and a 64MP telephoto, suitable for 3x optical zoom. It also has a 20MP selfie camera.
Other specs on the OnePlus Open include a high-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, 16GB of RAM and a 4,805mAh battery that supports 67W charging, although there’s no wireless charging here.
Finally, we come to the design, with the OnePlus Open available in Emerald Dusk and Voyager Black shades, the former of which is a fancy name for green. The black model uses vegan leather, while the green model has a glass back.
Thinner and cheaper than rivals
Impressively, the OnePlus Open is just 5.8mm thick when open, which is in line with the Pixel Fold, and 11.7mm thick when closed, which is even thinner than the Pixel Fold or any other widely available foldable phone .
All that, and the OnePlus Open actually undercuts its main competition too, costing $1,699 / £1,599 (without availability in Australia), for which you get 512GB of storage. That’s the only configuration, but this phone undercuts the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Google Pixel Fold, both of which start at $1,799 / £1,749, and offer half as much storage for that money.
That lower price could be the OnePlus Open’s biggest win, but we’ll want to fully review the Open to find out if it’s as valuable as it sounds.