OnePlus’ first foldable is still expensive and it has manufacturing problems, but it has the smallest crease of any squashable screen yet.
Compared to a few of my coworkers, I’ve been a real Debbie Downer regarding foldables. Huddled for drinks or games with friends, I’d receive the usual “oohs” and “ahhs” every time I took out a new foldable I was reviewing. Then I would tell them the price. They’d grimace and say some variation of “No way I’m spending that much on a phone.”
But beyond price, I haven’t got over the inherent problems with a thin, foldable screen. I didn’t think any phone maker could truly find a way to excise the crease enough to offer a satisfying “phablet” experience.
OnePlus proved me wrong.
The newly announced OnePlus Open is the company’s first real attempt to break into the foldable market. It comes in two flavors, a glass-backed Emerald Dusk Green and a vegan leather Voyager Black starting at $1,700. I had the phone for a week’s time before it went up for preorder. And since then, the Open made me realize foldables’ potential. More simply, my major gripe with squashable screens was the crease—that enormous gully in the middle of the interior display that made watching content or using apps far more annoying than they needed to be. OnePlus has come the closest any company has to making a hinge and screen that fulfill the promise of the 2-in-1 smartphone/tablet.
OnePlus, owned by the Chinese manufacturer Oppo, is the company’s first stateside attempt at the burgeoning foldable market. Oppo has its own flip-style foldable called the Find N2 and now the Find N3 foldable. Instead, OnePlus reportedly delayed its first big push into squashable phones and positioned itself to take on the market at the tail end of the year. What they’ve come out with has its issues—including some concerning manufacturing defects—but I’d wager that OnePlus’ screen design is what other companies will try and copy going into next year.
OnePlus‘ new phone has the least noticeable crease of any modern foldable. Though it stands out as the cheapest of its kind, there are lingering questions about durability.
OnePlus‘ new phone has the least noticeable crease of any modern foldable. Though it stands out as the cheapest of its kind, there are lingering questions about durability.
Pricing is still an issue. OnePlus seems to think it can come out on top with a $1,700 base price, which is about $100 less than either Google or Samsung’s latest foldables. Additionally, the Oppo-owned company is going hard on promotional deals. OnePlus claims that anybody ordering the phone from their site can get at least $200 and up to $1,000 off the Open with a trade-in. The company claims users can expect that $200 cash off no matter what phone it is, how old it is, or even its condition. It’s a big bold claim, and we’ll have to see how that shakes out with the new pre-orders running from Thursday until Oct. 25. OnePlus told us that the deal will last as long as new Open phones are up for sale.
The problem with giving the phone a rating was despite how much I enjoyed it, my phone had some glaring manufacturing defects. OnePlus seems to have made a similar mistake as Samsung did with its earlier foldables. The exterior screen protector on the Open seems to be coming off as a small air bubble formed in the top right corner. There’s what seems like another small line of air bubbles on the interior screen. Neither defect really disrupted my time with the Open, but it makes me nervous about how well the phone will survive in a few months, let alone years.
Still, I’ve been hoping some company would be able to crack the $1,500 price tag on new phablet foldables, and this is as close as we’ve seen so far. It’s still several hundred dollars more than most premium phones, including those made by OnePlus itself. You can snag excellent devices like the iPhone 15 Pro or the Pixel 8 Pro for $1,000 and save the extra cash for a rainy day. But on the other hand, if you have been jonesing for a foldable but stopped short of buying one because of that damned crease, this is the best experience you can get.
The benefit of my job is that I get to test a lot of phones in a row. This year we’ve already had the Google Pixel Fold and Samsung’s Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 make their debut.
