OnePlus Open First Impressions: Creaseless and gapless beauty

The book-style foldable space is largely ruled by Samsung. It’s been almost four years that the Z Fold devices are leaders in the premium foldable segment. But that appears to change now. OnePlus has taken the wraps off its much-awaited foldable smartphone, the OnePlus Open. The Open will compete neck-to-neck with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 in the global markets including India. At a glance at the phone, it does look promising. Using it for almost an hour, made me adore its form factor.

With that said, here’s my first impression of the OnePlus Open, the foldable phone that may just get the foldable space even more exciting.

Practical design, Solid in-hand feel

As soon as I picked up the OnePlus Open for the first time in my hands, I could clearly tell that it was the perfect fit for me. That’s mainly due to its design. The foldable phone isn’t too narrow or too wide, it’s just in the center. OnePlus has gone with a practical design for the Open, probably, Oppo has a role to play in it, since it’s basically the Oppo Find N3 for the global market.

The phone is also fairly lightweight for a foldable coming at 239 grams and is easy to hold, both when folded and unfolded. However, the massive rear camera bump is something am not a fan of. It also affects the phone’s weight distribution by a slight margin I feel. And also, it reminds me of the Find X6 Pro, which had a gigantic camera island.

As for the design, the first major thing that I instantly noticed while using the phone was the gap-less hinge design. When folded, the phone leaves no gap, making the overall construction of the phone solid.

The next thing I noticed was the Alert slider, glad to see that OnePlus retained it on the foldable. Upfront, there’s a 6.31-inch large display that’s useable by all means, unlike other foldable phones’ cover screen which feels sort of restricted (Obviously, I’m talking about the Galaxy Z Fold 5 here).

The cover panel on the Open is bright and smooth at 120Hz. When unfolded, there’s a 7.82-inch large screen, which is an LTPO 3 panel with up to 120Hz refresh rate and a 2440 x 2668 pixels resolution. Interestingly, there’s almost no visible crease on the phone. OnePlus appears to have done some black magic here.

Both panels are way bright at 2800 nits. Content consumption on either of the screens will be bliss, as I played a demo video in my little time with the device to get an idea of the screen. One thing that hindered my viewing experience was the punch-hole cutout on the primary panel. It’s just too big and noticeable.

A good set of cameras

One area where the OnePlus Open shines on paper is the camera. The device features top-notch hardware having a main lens, ultrawide, and mainly the telephoto unit on the back. The setup is led by a 48MP Sony LYT-T808 main lens, a 48MP Sony IMX581 ultra-wide lens, and a 68MP OmniVision OV64B telephoto lens. In studio lighting, the phone captured good shots, although nothing to conclude since that would require us to use the phone for a prolonged period. The telephoto lens has 3x optical zoom and 6x in-sensor zoom, which is handy. Video-wise, it lacks 8K video recording and the maximum it can do is 4K 60fps. There’s OIS for smooth footage.

Powerful by all means

Apart from this, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and the 4,805mAh battery inside the phone need testing to offer a verdict. Although, the phone did feel snappy, thanks to that hardware including the 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM. The OnePlus Open is probably the fastest-charging foldable phone with its 67W charging speed. This will allow the device to charge to its brim in less than an hour.

Optimised Software

Lastly, the software. The device boots on the Android 13-based OxygenOS 13 and not Android 14, as some leaks pointed out. So it’s the same base software you get on the OnePlus 11. However, OnePlus has tweaked it to suit the foldable ratio. It has added a taskbar for quick opening of apps and to enhance the multitasking experience. It’s similar to how it is on the Z Fold 5.

Interestingly, OnePlus is staying committed to its long-term software support promise with the OnePlus Open. The device will get four years of software updates and five years of security updates.

With its practical design, a useful cover screen, a good set of cameras, a powerful chipset, and long-term software support—the OnePlus Open looks to be a compelling foldable package.