OPINION: OnePlus President Kinder Liu took to the stage at MWC earlier this year not only to reveal the OnePlus 11 Concept, but to tease the company’s first foldable. Beyond that tease, and the fact that it’ll be out in Q3 2023, there’s little else to knowabout the device just yet – officially, anyway.
Thankfully, we’ve got leakers and other industry sources who help provide a good idea of upcoming smartphones well ahead of release. Initial rumours pointed towards a book-style foldable instead of a clamshell-style foldable, which led some to speculate that the OnePlus foldable could be a rebadged Oppo Find N2.
It’s logical in a way; Oppo is the parent company of OnePlus and the two have become increasingly similar in the past few years – you need only look at the specs of the Oppo Find X5 Pro and OnePlus 10 Pro to see what I mean.
That, combined with the fact that Oppo decided against launching its book-style Find N2 in the Western world, seemed to suggest to some that it could appear in the form of the OnePlus Fold (or whatever OnePlus ends up calling it).
That wouldn’t be a bad thing either. I was a huge fan of the original Find N and its relatively squat design compared to most other book-style foldables, and the Find N2 took things a little further with an improved hinge mechanism, better cameras and improved performance.
However, a collaboration between the ever-accurate @OnLeaks and price comparison site SmartPrix revealed not only early unofficial renders of the foldable, but key specs as well. What’s most interesting is that, if true, it seems OnePlus is working on an entirely new foldable and not simply reskinning the Oppo Find N2.
Per the unofficial renders, the OnePlus Fold differs in a number of ways, not least the inclusion of what looks to be a vegan leather rear – though the leakers say the final version may include glass or metal versions of the device.
Still, even without the material finish, there’s another distinct difference between OnePlus’ rumoured foldable and the Oppo Find N2; the camera bump. While the Find N2 sports a camera bump not too dissimilar to the Find X5 Pro, complete with a design that looks like it has been pushed out from the body of the phone, the OnePlus Fold has a centrally-placed circular camera housing.
Specs provided alongside the renders depict a capable camera set-up too, with a main 50MP Sony IMX890 snapper alongside an ultrawide and what looks to be a periscope zoom lens – a rarity among foldables in 2023 that could help the OnePlus Fold stand out from the competition.
It’s also said to include the yet-unannounced Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 2 chipset, a large 4,800mAh battery and 100W charging, with the latter being the fastest of any foldable if true.
So, while I’m a little disappointed that we won’t see something resembling the Oppo Find N2 officially released in the UK, US or Europe, OnePlus looks to be working on one of the most capable book-style foldables around and I can’t wait to find out more as we get closer to the release later this year.
Let’s just hope it follows the OnePlus model of being more affordable than the competition, because the £1,649/$1,649 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and £1,749/$1,799 Google Pixel Fold are far from budget-friendly.
