OnePlus Open Review Two Months In: The First Real Threat to Samsung’s Foldable Throne!

The foldable smartphone has come a long way since its inception in 2019. However, since 2019, Samsung has refined the folding form factor to offer the best mainstream foldable smartphones that are easily accessible to global audiences.

In India, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is in a league of its own, only competing against the Tecno Phantom V Fold, which is nearly half the price and not quite at the premium level. But back in October 2023, OnePlus decided to introduce the first real competitor to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in India, the OnePlus Open.

PROS

• Flagship-grade Performance
• Vibrant & Bright OLED Display
• Crease is Barely Visible
• Excellent for Multitasking
• Excellent Battery Life
• Super-fast Charging (Adapter Included)
• Versatile Cameras
• Slim & Light Form Factor

CONS

• Expensive
• No Wireless Charging
• No IPX8 Rating
• Sub-Par Selfie Camera

OnePlus Open Price in India

The OnePlus Open price in India is set at Rs 1,39,999 for the sole 16GB/512GB configuration. In terms of pricing, the OnePlus Open is the closest challenger and the only one that can currently threaten the dominance that the Galaxy Z Fold smartphones have enjoyed for the past couple of years in the Indian foldable smartphone market.

In our recent smartphone awards, we crowned the OnePlus Open as the best foldable smartphone of 2023. And after a couple of months with the handset, let's see if it lives up to our expectations.

Design & Build

The OnePlus Open comes in Emerald Dusk and Voyager Black shades, although the former uses a glass back, while the latter opts for a vegan leather rear panel. Our OnePlus Open review unit arrived in the Emerald Dusk shade, which is akin to Eternal Green variant of the OnePlus 12 5G.

The matte glass back on the Emerald Dusk feels more premium than the black variant and is around 6 grams heavier and 0.2mm thicker. However, despite the extra heft, the OnePlus Open is still India's lightest foldable smartphone. Additionally, the panel was resistant to fingerprints and smudges.

The OnePlus Open is durable as well as it is TÜV Rheinland certified to withstand one million folds, although we couldn't test it out ourselves. OnePlus says it can withstand over 100 folds a day. However, we averaged around 20 folds on a regular day. The OnePlus Open also uses a tough titanium alloy hinge.

The hinge is one of the impressive parts of the device, allowing you to unfold the Open flat on a surface. Moreover, the crease was barely visible, allowing for a seamless experience. The handset also comes with an IPX4 rating for splash resistance, the one area where it loses out against the Galaxy Z Fold 5. You have to appreciate just how close the OnePlus Open comes to a regular flagship when folded.

Displays

At the heart of all good foldable smartphones are two great displays, and OnePlus doesn't disappoint. First, there's a primary 7.82-inch LTPO3 OLED screen with a 2,440 x 2,268 pixels resolution and a pixel density of 426 PPI. The panel has an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate (1Hz to 120Hz), a 240Hz touch sampling rate, and 1440Hz PWM diming. The screen also offers stylus support, although an official accessory is yet to be released.

The OnePlus Open also has an almost 1:1 aspect ratio, making it incredibly comfortable to use, irrespective of the viewing angle. Moreover, the phone also has an impressive peak brightness of 2,800 nits, making it easily visible under direct sunlight. The main screen also supports HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision formats as well as Widevine L1 to stream high-res content across OTTs.

The display features three color modes - Natural, Pro and Vivid. Additionally, the panel also has three modes to enhance on-screen visuals, including Image Sharpener, Video Color Boost, and Bright HDR Video Mode. Lastly, the main display on the OnePlus Open is protected by a layer of Ultra-Thin Glass.

Unlike most foldables, OnePlus gives the cover screen the same treatment as the main one. The OnePlus Open boasts a 6.31-inch LTPO OLED external display with a resolution of 1116 x 2484 pixels and a pixel density of 431 PPI. The 20:09 aspect ratio of the cover screen felt no different than a regular smartphone, which allowed us to seamlessly transition between phone and foldable.

The cover screen also features the same peak brightness (2,800 nits) and adaptive 120Hz refresh rate (10Hz to 120Hz) as the main display. The panel also came with all the same HDR (HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision) and Widevine L1 support as the main screen. The one main difference here is that the cover display is protected by a Ceramic Guard, which OnePlus says is 20% tougher than Gorilla Glass Victus.

Performance

For performance, the OnePlus Open uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset paired with the Adreno 740 GPU, which is in line with every other Android flagship from 2023. The phone also comes with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. OnePlus also promises efficient cooling for good heat dissipation with "cross-channel thermal conductivity".

In Geekbench 6, the OnePlus Open managed a single-core score of 1072 points and a multi-core score of 4098 points when folded. However, we saw different results when the handset was unfolded, with the phone managing a single-core score of 1471 points and a multi-score score of 4651 points. Gaming performance on the OnePlus Open was also quite impressive.

There's a Pro Gamer mode, which allows you to enjoy demanding AAA titles at max settings. Some of these titles include Diablo Immortal, Call of Duty: Mobile, Asphalt 9: Legends, and Injustice: Gods Among Us. The phone also stayed relatively cool while gaming and recording videos. Moreover, the phone also handles multitasking effortlessly. We didn't notice any difference between the OnePlus Open and any other flagship smartphone in general.

Cameras

OnePlus doesn't make any concessions with the cameras on the Open. The foldable smartphone features a 48 MP Sony LYT-T808 "Pixel Stacked" CMOS primary sensor with an f/1.7 aperture, PDAF, a 24mm focal length, and OIS support.

The main camera is paired with a 48 MP ultrawide Sony IMX581 sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and PDAF as well as a 64 MP OmniVision OV64B telephoto shooter with an f/2.6 aperture, OIS, and 3x optical zoom. Additionally, there's a 32 MP selfie camera on the cover display and a 20 MP camera sensor on the internal screen.

All three cameras on the OnePlus Open support 4K video recording at 60fps with always-on EIS as well as 4K 30fps Dolby Vision video recording. The selfie cameras support 4K video recording at 30fps with EIS. Lastly, the rear camera system on the OnePlus Open is fine-tuned in collaboration with Hasselblad.

In daylight, the main camera captures images with a ton of detail and maintains a good level of sharpness. And the results were consistent across the board. The main camera also captured natural colors with a nice vivid look, while not going too hard on the processing. We did notice some images looked a little more contrasty than usual and dynamic range was not always on point.

The main camera also has a 48 MP mode that allows you to squeeze in a little more detail. In low light, night mode kicks in automatically and gives you some excellent results. Night mode delivered in terms of color accuracy and dynamic range, while maintaining good detail in shots and eliminating most noise.

Moving on to the ultrawide camera and the results were pretty good. The ultrawide maintained good color consistency and retained a good amount of detail. Additionally, edges didn't appear distorted, and noise very rarely popped up in daytime shots. However, the same can't be said in low light, where the ultrawide can't keep up with the main camera in terms of detail and dynamic range, even with Night mode turned on.

The 64 MP telephoto shooter outputs sharp images with good contrast and decent dynamic range. The colors tend to look vivid and are consistent with the main camera, while noise levels were generally low. The 64 MP camera offers 3x optical zoom but goes all the way up to 6x lossless quality with the aid of software. We found that image quality took the first big hit after 10x zoom.

At night, the telephoto camera maintains its high detail levels, while lowering noise and reproducing natural-looking colors. The results here were better than those on the ultrawide lens by a mile. The OnePlus Open does have two bang-on average selfie cameras, with the 20 MP shooter doing a solid job for video calls but little else.

On the other hand, the 32 MP shooter did have good dynamic range and natural colors, but images looked softer. However, the OnePlus Open is a phone with two screens and this enables you to use the rear camera system to capture some of the best selfies you'll see on a smartphone. The main sensor on the Open was our go-to camera for selfies.

Videos taken in daylight our sharp with no noise and good dynamic range, while footage was quite stable. Low light or nighttime video recording was where the OnePlus Open didn't quite live up to expectations. We've seen the Vivo X100 Pro do a lot better here.

When laid down vertically on a desk, the camera controls shift to the bottom of the screen and the top half can be used as the viewfinder. Overall, the OnePlus Open has some of the best cameras we've tested on a smartphone. The cameras here can easily compete with some of the best flagships around in some categories, although it does struggle in the video department.

Software

In terms of software, the OnePlus Open boots Android 13 with OxygenOS 13, which was customized for foldables. The app layout and customizations on the OnePlus Open were pretty similar to that on the OnePlus Pad (Review). OnePlus is also promising four major Android updates and five years of regular security updates on the OnePlus Open.

The Always-on display on the OnePlus Open can be customized to your liking and can be turned on, off, or scheduled. The power saving mode allows you to turn the Always-on display with a tap or by moving the device. The app drawer and notification and control centers look similar to the OnePlus Nord 3 (Review) but expand when the Open is unfolded.

However, the main highlight on the software front is the new OnePlus Canvas feature. This feature allows you to open three apps simultaneously in split-screen mode when the phone is unfolded. This worked extremely smoothly and allowed you to seamlessly transition between apps. You can also use two apps simultaneously in split-screen mode with one app opened in a floating window.

The Open also allows you to save different combinations of three apps and access them whenever you need to. Additionally, the UI across various system apps has been optimized to make use of the large primary screen on the Open. The OnePlus Open also works in a semi-opened state, although we didn't test this feature.

The OnePlus Open also features an integrated Game Center and Zen Space app to minimize distractions and smartphone usage in general. Apart from Google's File manager, OnePlus comes with its own File Manager app. The OnePlus Open comes with the regular proprietary OxygenOS apps and supports the RAM Expansion feature.

Overall, the software on the OnePlus Open is relatively clean and has a ton of customization options. OnePlus also offers flagship-grade software support. The OnePlus Canvas feature was undoubtedly the best part of the software experience and allows you to fully utilize the phone's hardware. This feature shined while playing Raid: Shadow Legends as we were able to run the turn-based game, watching YouTube videos, and drop a message simultaneously.

Battery

The OnePlus Open packs a relatively large 4,805 mAh battery, which lasted a whole day with a little left to take into the next one. On most days, we couldn't push the OnePlus Open's battery beyond the 80% mark. And on the one occasion where I woke up with just 10% battery life, the 67W charging support got me up to 90% in 30 minutes.

The downside is there is no support for wireless charging on the OnePlus Open. However, unlike brands like Samsung, Apple, and Google, OnePlus includes an adapter in the box, which is capable of taking the phone from 1 to 100 percent in just 42 minutes. Moreover, the OnePlus Open is also rated A by TÜV SÜD for 48-month system fluency.

Audio And More

OnePlus' first foldable smartphone also features an impressive set of speakers that offers quality spatial sound with decent bass. The OnePlus Open also features a side-mounted fingerprint reader and Face Unlock, although the latter is less secure. Connectivity options include 5G (n71 5G band coverage), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, 4G LTE, GPS (L1+L5 Dual Band), GLONASS, Galileo, and more.

Verdict

So should you buy the OnePlus Open? The easy answer is 'yes', but here's the long answer too! OnePlus offers a compelling package with its first foldable smartphone. In terms of hardware, the OnePlus Open boasts the best displays, software, and chipset of any foldable smartphone. Moreover, it also offers an excellent set of cameras that can go head-to-head with any top-end flagship.

Then there's the solid battery life and super-fast charging, a winning combo for any smartphone. The OnePlus Open's build is also quite tough, while maintaining an elegant design and sleek form factor, for a foldable, i.e. Audio quality and connectivity options were also pretty good. Oxygen OS is not quite as refined as OneUI on the Galaxy Z Fold smartphones.

However, this is OnePlus' first attempt at a foldable smartphone and the overall software experience wasn't bad. The utility of OnePlus Canvas cannot be understated. It takes the software experience on the Open from decent to good. Another caveat here is the lack of a dedicated stylus accessory.

Then there's the IPX4 rating, which isn't quite good as the IPX8 rating on the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Additionally, the OnePlus Open lacks wireless charging as well. But these are far from deal breakers. Software is only going to improve with time and OnePlus is sure to introduce a stylus sooner or later.

And while the IP rating cannot be changed, the fast-charging adapter in the box more than makes up for the lack of wireless charging. We think the hardware on the OnePlus Open is the best of any smartphone we've seen thus far, earning it an easy recommendation in our books. If you ever want to go the foldable route, while still enjoying the standard flagship smartphone experience, look no further than the OnePlus Open.