OnePlus Open

It's been a little difficult to watch OnePlus from the sidelines over the past few years. The marriage to sister company Oppo has meant that the two have been able to look each other in the eye, but it also means that some of the most crucial advances have been the exact opposite. Suddenly it was called "SuperVOOC" and arrived with USB-A connectors instead of USB-C, suddenly wireless charging was missing even on flagships, suddenly their phone cameras were downgraded from 3x to 2x optical zoom. Even the now iconic "alert slider" was eliminated on the OnePlus 10T, only to miraculously return shortly after.

But all of this disappears like dew from a bright sun once you hold the {OnePlus Open}, the company's first foldable and the first real competitor to the {Samsung Galaxy Z Fold} and the {Google Pixel Fold}. Bar a few missteps, this is a redemption for OnePlus, a singular moment where all the ambition is back, and boy has it been missed. While this isn't a flagship killer, the slogan "never settle" is true again for the first time in a long time.

The OnePlus {Open} weighs 239 grams and is approximately 11.7 millimetres thick when folded. That doesn't mean it feels like a standard smartphone to hold, but it does mean you don't notice in the same way that you're holding a phone with so much more technological versatility as you might have done in the past. It's IPX4 certified, offers dual SIM support and you can charge the 4805mAh battery in 42 minutes on 67W charging, and you get the charger as well. However, and it's worth pointing out several times, there's no wireless charging. This is problematic to say the least, especially when OnePlus themselves introduced a blazing fast wireless charger a few years ago because "regular speeds weren't fast enough" for them, and now OnePlus has introduced their most expensive phone ever that doesn't support that charger. Unforgivable.

That said, that's pretty much my only complaint about the hardware. Sure, the fingerprint reader on the side isn't quite as responsive as some of the ones the company has used in the past under the screen glass, but it works. The aforementioned alert slider is back, the back is made of satin glass that repels fingerprints, the camera module is so gigantic it's almost alluring and it feels great to hold and use.

Up front we have a 6.31-inch LTOP3 Super Fluid OLED display with Dolby Vision at 1116x2484 pixels. It supports 120Hz, and 2800 NITS too, and is colour calibrated in such a way that almost every other phone on the market, and that's almost including the {iPhone 15 Pro Max}, is put to shame. Unfold, and you have another 7.82-inch LTPO3 AMOLED panel, also running at 120Hz and 2800 NITS. There's a great cohesion here between the two panels, and it's truly one of the best parts of the overall experience.

We're basically just running stock {Android} here. Sure, there are little OxygenOS touches here and there, but this is as close to Pixel-esque Google as possible, and unlike the {Pixel Fold}, the OnePlus {Open} is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 space, i.e. "bleeding edge", and it never got hot or sluggish during the entire testing period, and it doesn't matter what we threw at it.

The OnePlus {Open} has been described by others as "the apex foldable", and it's easy to understand why once you start using it. Apart from the lack of wireless charging, all the functionality is here, and this versatility is met with rigorous design, a sense of simplicity previously missing from the market and a focus on lightning-fast, snappy performance.

OnePlus also has a few tricks up its sleeve when it comes to multitasking. They call this solution "Open Canvas", and with two fingers you can swipe from the top down when the phone is open and instantly split programmes, so to speak. You can even have three apps in focus and switch between them quite intuitively. Overall, the OnePlus {Open} is the most comfortable foldable phone to use on a daily basis, and by making these features so easy and seamless to use, you'll somehow be persuaded to use them more often.

It's hard not to be drawn to the mildly gigantic camera module on the back, but I actually think it's downright beautiful. It looks like the lens of an old-school camera somehow, it's nostalgic. On the camera island we find a 48 megapixel 24mm wide with optical stabilisation, a 64 megapixel 70mm telephoto with 3x optical zoom and a 48 megapixel ultra-wide lens at 114 degrees. Hasselblad is again responsible for colour calibration and you can shoot up to 4K/60fps, or super-slow 1080p/480fps with gyro-based electronic stabilisation. It's actually been a while since I've checked in with OnePlus in terms of their ambitions to compete more directly with Samsung and perhaps especially Google, but a lot has happened since the Hasselblad partnership was introduced with the OnePlus 9. The colour calibration is still neutral, but now has just a little more pop without over-saturating the colours. There's a sharpness thanks to improved dynamic range across all three lenses, and while the camera doesn't quite know what to do in low light conditions, this is a camera system I could easily trust in all respects.

OnePlus is, in other words, in, and if you're only interested in foldable phones, and measure primarily against the {Galaxy Z Fold 5}, then there's simply no real competition here - OnePlus is paralysing Samsung in this regard.

Even if you sacrifice wireless charging (you shouldn't have, OnePlus), you're getting the most versatile {Android} phone on the market here. And it's even around £500 cheaper than the equivalent {Z Fold 5} with 512GB. Both the software and hardware make it look like OnePlus has made many foldable phones over the years, because the final product is so infinitely refined. Should you buy a foldable phone? That's still hard to say, especially if you're worried about long-term wear and tear, which we have a hard time testing here. But we can say that we'll be following up with more content on {Open} in the near future, just to give you an idea of what it's like to live with. But awesome it is, and recommendable? Yes, without a doubt.