OnePlus Open review

The competition

The OnePlus Open launches at €1,800 for its one and only 16GB/512GB version, which is a bit lower than the Galaxy Z Fold5's launch price. It is shaping up to be the first truly global competitor to Samsung's Fold hegemony, and it's looking promising. The Open is an incredibly well-built smartphone with top-notch specs across the board and a super versatile device serving as a phone, a tablet, and a portable camera. And it just excels in everything.

The OnePlus is going to be available in the US, in the EU (excluding markets with an active OnePlus ban), Asia and more. No other foldable has had this large reach since Samsung's Fold series.

Unfortunately for OnePlus, the Galaxy Z Fold5 can be found with a 30% discount across many retailers, which makes its 512GB model about €400 cheaper than the Open. The Z Fold5 trumps the Open with S-Pen support, complete IPX8 water resistance and wireless charging capabilities, plus it has an under-display internal camera, which is cool. But its cover screen is not that convenient with its 23:9 aspect ratio, its screens are not as sharp, it doesn't offer high-quality zoom beyond 3x, and there is no support for macro photography. Oh, the Open is also thinner and lighter. We can argue the Open is the better-designed and executed foldable smartphone if the stylus support isn't a must. It appears to be compatible with a certain Oppo stylus but that one is hard to find in the West.

The OnePlus Open is an identical smartphone to the Oppo Find N3, which launches in more colors and for a cheaper price at €1,650. As far as we can tell, there is only one difference between the two models besides the colorways - and that's RAM - it's 16GB for the Open and 12GB for the Find N3. We guess this could explain the price difference. There is also a good chance the two models will never be sold concurrently on any single market.

The €1,900 Pixel Fold, albeit heavier, is a good alternative. It has an IPX8-rated glass design, equally great OLEDs minus Dolby Vision, powerful Tensor G2 chip, and all-round Google camera experience with a 48MP OIS primary, a 10.8MP 5x tele and a 10.8MP ultrawide. The cover selfie should produce nicer photos and it supports PDAF. The phone has more limited availability, but it is still available globally.

Finally, the Huawei Mate X3 is as thin and light as the OnePlus Open, but just like the Fold5, it does support stylus input and is completely waterproof with an IPX8 rating. The Mate X3 has an inferior Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 4G chipset, and its selfie cameras are quite basic, but its main setup delivers outstanding photo and video quality across the board, and it has longer 5x optical zoom. The Mate X3 costs the same as the Open in Europe, and if you are fine with the GBox solution for Google's apps, you shouldn't have any problems. Still, the Open feels like the smarter choice.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 • Oppo Find N3 • Google Pixel Fold • Huawei Mate X3

Our verdict

The OnePlus Open is a great addition to the foldable segment, one that has everything to make the Galaxy Z Fold5 sweat. The Open has a classier and supposedly sturdier design; it's thinner and lighter. And it became evident it has better displays - both are of higher resolution, higher color bitrate, and support Dolby Vision. The cover one also offers a much more convenient aspect ratio.

The OnePlus Open runs on the latest available (at the time of writing) Snapdragon chip, and its cooling solution and software optimizations make for a nicely stable performance with no harsh throttling or frame heating.

We also found the battery life of the Open to be great, no matter if it was closed or open. The charging speed is more than adequate; the 3-speaker Dolby Atmos experience turned out good, too.

The Hasselblad cameras are thoroughly impressive with natural rendition and overall impressive photo and video quality across the board, day and night. We are particularly fond of the selfies, portraits, and closeups shot with this setup.

The two dedicated selfie cameras are average at best, the cover selfie cam has some haziness, too. But we don't see these used for actual selfies, their main purpose should be video calls anyway.

Finally, the OxygenOS 13 is incredibly feature-rich and highly customizable, while the foldable-exclusive Open Canvas multi-tasking is super clever once you get the gist of it. OnePlus is promising 4 years of major Android updates and another one of security patches, too.

The OnePlus Open is not the perfect foldable, even if it came very close. It doesn't support HFR gaming, the cover camera captures hazy photos, but the most frustrating thing we experienced was the camera app avoided using the actual telephoto camera for zoom photos at night, which is a shame as it snaps superb photos.

The OnePlus Open is an excellent alternative to the Fold5 if a stylus is not a must and if you don't plan on taking it underwater. And it has presented itself as the more versatile and higher-spec smartphone.

Yes, we enjoyed this OnePlus, both Open and Closed. It is one of the best combinations of a smartphone, tablet, and cameraphone, and we highly recommend it, especially once its launch price has settled a bit.

Pros

• Outstanding design and build, IPX4 splash proof.
• Excellent foldable OLED, 120Hz, bright, color-accurate, Dolby Vision.
• Superb cover OLED, 120Hz, bright, color-accurate, Dolby Vision.
• Good battery life, fast to charge.
• The Dolby Atmos 3-speaker setup works quite well.
• Flagship-grade performance, dependable stability.
• Impressive photo and video quality from the rear cameras.
• Superb portraits and selfies with the rear cameras.
• Feature-rich software, great for multi-tasking.

Cons

• No HFR gaming.
• The cover selfie produces hazy photos.
• The tele camera should fire more often at night.
• A compatible stylus is hard to find.
• No wireless charging.