The Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open are very different foldables, but those differences are what make them the best ones out there.
Foldable smartphones aren’t “new” at this point, but 2023 was easily the most impactful year yet for the form factor. Two devices in particular stand out amongst the new releases – the OnePlus Open and the Google Pixel Fold.
As the 9to5Google team recently took a look at our favorite smartphones of 2023, I noticed that we were pretty evenly split when it came to foldables. A few of us picked the OnePlus Open as the best foldable, while others picked the Pixel Fold, and I think that comes down to the fact that these two devices are polar opposites, despite mainly being two versions of the same core idea.
Both the Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open are book-style foldables, offering a “normal” outer display with an inner display that opens up to offer effectively a small Android tablet. While this form factor hasn’t been the most popular – flip-style devices are definitely the best sellers thus far – they’re also the form factor that seems to be the one that can vary most in terms of hardware, but the conversation about OnePlus Open and Pixel Fold boils down to more than that.
There are two things you have to get right with a foldable.
One is hardware. Both foldables from OnePlus and Google are trying new takes on the “book” form factor that Samsung first introduced. Google’s Pixel Fold has a short and wide inner display the shape of a passport which opens to a super-wide inner display, while the OnePlus Open has a pretty traditional outer display that opens to a big, almost-square inner display. They’re different routes to the same end goal, but OnePlus has a objectively better end product in regards to hardware.
