The year 2023 has been a bumper year for foldables of both the clamshell and fold varieties with Motorola’s superb Razr+ proving to be a viable Galaxy Z Flip alternative and Google’s Pixel Fold taking on the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Now it’s time for the OnePlus Open to break cover with a flagship Snapdragon processor, 7.8-inch internal display, 48MP ‘Pixel Stacked’ main camera, alert slider, and a price tag of $1,699/£1,599. Unlike Oppo’s Find N3 foldable, the OnePlus Open is launching in the US, making it all the more interesting.
The Design
Available in Emerald Dusk which shimmers in the light thanks to the matte-frosted rear panel, the OnePlus Open’s camera housing takes inspiration from the excellent OnePlus 11 5G launched earlier in 2023. We’ve mentioned that the alert slider is present, but this time it’s been redesigned for the Open which has resulted in a slight increase in size on the outside whilst taking up less space internally.
At just 245g and 5.8mm thick when the display is unfolded, the Open will sit in a front pocket without feeling like a brick. The Flexion Hinge is made from just 69 parts and achieved 1 million test folds during its testing with the TUV Rheinland institute.
Basically, you can expect the OnePlus Open to be slim and sleek and according to the brand, barely different to a regular single screen phone when in a trouser pocket.
“The word ‘Open’ not only represents a new folding form factor, but also our openness to explore new possibilities allowed by bleeding-edge tech-solutions on the market. OnePlus Open provides unparalleled hardware, innovative software features and services built around the new form factor, continuing to live up to OnePlus’s Never Settle belief.” said Kinder Liu, President and COO of OnePlus.”
The Hardware
Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, the OnePlus Open should have the edge in the performance sector when compared to the likes of the Pixel Fold. With 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, the Open should have no problems with multitasking.
The 6.31-inch AMOLED cover display has a resolution of 2484 x 1116, an adaptive refresh rate of 10-120Hz, and is rated at up to 2,800 nits peak brightness. The Open’s internal AMOLED display also sports a peak brightness of up to 2,800 nits, plus a 2440 x 2268 resolution and 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate. There’s 4,805mAh of juice and support for 67W wired fast-charging present, with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, a trio of “Reality” speakers, and of course, the alert slider.
A 48MP (Sony LYT-T808) Pixel Stacked sensor with OIS takes position as the main rear camera, accompanied by a 64MP OmniVision (OV64B) telephoto lens with 6x lossless zoom and OIS and a 48MP (Sony IMX581) ultra-wide lens. There’s a 20MP selfie camera housed in the cover display punch-hole along with a 32MP selfie camera on the internal display. As has been the case with previous OnePlus flagship, Hasselblad has tuned the cameras.
That 48MP Sony LYT-T808 sensor is different to the usual IMX sensors in that it’s a “Dual-Layer Transistor Pixel” sensor which features a redesigned pixel architecture that both boosts light intake and takes up a smaller footprint. The 64MP periscope telephoto lens is capable of 3x optical zoom, 6x lossless zoom, and 120x Ultra Res Zoom, and takes advantage of a customized d-cut made on the lens exterior in order to fit into a device as slim as the Open.
Besides boasting dual-Nano SIM functionality, the Open also supports WiFi 6E, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, and NFC connectivity.
The Software
Running Android 13-based OxygenOS 13.2 out of the box, the OnePlus Open boasts a number of innovative software features including being able to show three apps in split view, the ability to switch an app session from the internal display to the cover panel (and vice versa), plus the usual Always-On-Display customizations.
Is the OnePlus Open the foldable you’ve been waiting for in 2023? On paper at least, the Open offers great value with a heady mix of hardware and some neat software tricks. You can place your $99/£99 deposit for the $1,699/£1,599OnePlus Open directly on the OnePlus Store via the link below.
