OnePlus Open Review: Great start to foldable phone journey

Last month, OnePlus launched the company's first-ever foldable phone OnePlus Open in India.

The new OnePlus Open looks great visually, but is it sturdy and able to deliver the seamless user experience we expect from an ultra-premium device? Let's check it out.

Design, build quality and display

Once you get your hands on the OnePlus Open, you can instantly feel how good the build quality is and also how light the device is. It weighs just 239 gm.

It has premium metallic rails with beautiful curvaceous corners around the screen. The hinge that holds the two panels so closely and stable too. There is hardly any space around the hinge for the dust to creep inside. Even on the other side too, when closed, the display panels tightly hold their place. You need two hands to open and use it. This is a clear sign of how solid the phone's build quality is.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

OnePlus Open boasts a newly designed hinge. Apparently, the company has used several patented technologies to reduce the number of components required to just 69 parts, compared to the 100-plus components typically required for standard folding hinge designs.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

In the new foldable phone, OnePlus has used high-quality carbon fibre, and aerospace grade metal including titanium to make the device light and yet durable. It also comes with an IPX4 rating, meaning it can survive accidental water splashes.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

OnePlus said it performed rigorous tests on prototypes of up to one million folding operations to ensure the premium device can serve the customer for several years.

Our review unit is an Emerald Dusk colour variant. It flaunts a smooth glass with a matte finish on the back and does an amazing job of repelling fingerprint smudges. On the other side, the 6.3-inch display with a 20:9 aspect ratio, which is perfect for one-hand usage. In the current crop of foldable phones, the cover display are usually narrow and way too compact to type messages. Here on the OnePlus Open, it comes in regular design and is way more simple to type and perform tasks single-handedly with less hassle. The company also offers Voyager Black colour option and this variant comes with premium vegan leather finish on the back.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

It should be noted that the company offers a matching cover case with the OnePlus Open retail box. It features a leather-like texture. This actually offers a better grip to hold on the device and also doesn't add too much thickness to the phone when folded.

OnePlus Open foldale phone with cover case on.

Personally, the only odd thing about the OnePlus Open is the massive circular Hasselblad-branded camera module, which protrudes a bit on the back. Initially, I had to struggle to adjust my hands to hold the device while playing games and watching multimedia content. But, after a couple of days of usage, the muscle memory kicks in and you forget about it.

It flaunts a 6.31-inch 2K(1116 x 2484p) AMOLED LTPO screen with 431 pixels per inch (ppi) and supports 120Hz refresh rate. It is protected by Corning's Ceramic Guard. In the last several weeks, I have been able to keep the phone scratch-free and hope to return the review unit the same way it came with the box.

As noted earlier, there is no limitation as such on the cover display and one can perform tasks single-handedly with ease. Also, the screen quality is really good and bright to read and view content without any issues.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

Inside, it flaunts a wide 7.82-inch 2K flexi-fluid AMOLED LPTO 3.0 screen, 120Hz refresh rate, and supports up to 2,800 nits peak brightness. It is protected by a triple-layered shield including an ultra-thin glass protective guard.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

In other foldable phones, the crease is easily noticeable and takes days to get over it. OnePlus Open has no such clear visible crease and one has to look from acute angles to find it. I want our readers to find the crease in the photo samples placed above and below this paragraph. This is an amazing feat by OnePlus engineers.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

Also, the bezels around the screen are uniform and the thickness is just perfect so as to rest the fingers around the edges while using the wide screen of the OnePlus Open to play games or watch multimedia content and read news.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

The display quality too, is fantastic. The blacks look darker and the RGB colours are rich and vibrant. One can appreciate how good the screen is when watching nature docuseries.

The speakers are really good too. They come tuned with the Doly Atmos system. Even at high volume, it manages to deliver great audio with less distortion.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

Also, the power button which comes with a fingerprint sensor works flawlessly.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

And, last but not least, OnePlus Open boasts the trademark alert-slider, which comes in handy to quickly switch between ring, vibrate and silent modes.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

Performance

In this aspect, the device is flawless in delivering smooth performance thanks to Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 silicon and is backed by 16GB LPDDR5X RAM (with RAM-Vita), which ensures the apps load faster.

Also, with the split-screen feature, you can operate two apps simultaneously on the same screen without any hint of lag-ness at all.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

Add to that the floating window feature allows users to open and leave apps on the screen and you can move and switch between them like on a carousal. The credit also has to go to engineers for developing OxygenOS (Android 13) fully optimised for foldable phones.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

Also, it works smoothly even with the heavyduty gaming apps such as Asphalt 9: Legends without any of over heating. Yes, it does get a bit warn but never overwhelmingly hot.

With a massive 512GB (UFS 4.0) storage, no matter how many photos and videos you shoot and apps you download, it can accommodate all of them without any worry of lack of space for a very very long time.

It features a 4,805mAh battery. If you have stable Wi-Fi connectivity at home and at the office, the device can last for a full day with normal usage. If you are fully dependent on the cellular data network all day and plan to stream content directly from OTT apps, you better have a power bank or carry the fast charger brick that comes with a retail box.

I have a one useful tip for such users. Before any trip planned the next day, make it a habit to download whatever episodes of the TV series or the movies, the previous night itself. This way you can enjoy the content offline and also save a lot of battery life.

And with a 67W charger, as advertised, it gets fully charged from zero to 100 per cent in under 45 minutes.

It supports 5G (on both physical SIMs and e-SIM) services offered by Airtel and Reliance Jio in India. Also, with Wi-Fi 7, the device is future-ready for high-speed wireless internet connection (up to 10Gbps).

OnePlus Open camera sample.

Photography

OnePlus Open houses a Hasselblad triple-camera module with--main 48MP (with 1/1.43-inch Sony LYTIA-T808 sensor, 1.12 μm pixel size, ƒ/1.7, AF, Dual-layer Transistor Pixel technology, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) backed by 114-degree 48MP Ultra Wide camera (with Sony IMX581 sensor, 1/2-inch sensor, ƒ/2.2, AF) and a 64MP Telephoto lens (OIS, OV64B sensor, 6X in-sensor zoom, 1/2-inch sensor, 0.7 μm, ƒ/2.6, AF) with LED flash on the back.

OnePlus Open camera sample.

With good light, almost all premium phones in the market deliver good results. OnePlus Open is no exception and performs great with capturing all the details in sharp and ensuring the colours are vivid and perfect to share on social media platforms.

OnePlus Open camera sample.

The real test for any phone to show its true potential is in low-light environments and indoors with controlled light conditions.

OnePlus Open camera sample captured indoors with controlled light conditions.

Here, the pictures were captured inside an airport and as you can see, the quality is top-class.

With the ultra-wide angle, it can manage to accommodate a vast area of the landscape without any optimisation technique to bend structures and squeeze them into the frame.

OnePlus Open camera sample with ultra-wide angle mode.

It supports 3X optical zoom and 6X digital zoom, where pictures look natural with very little quality. When tested, even up 10X from 30X, the pictures look decent with less noise. But, beyond that, it loses the quality and yet, manages to identify objects. [Check out the photo quality in the slide show].

With close-up shots, the OnePlus Open does an amazing job. It gets all the minute details accurately but of course, the colours are a tad warmer to make the things appear prettier than they really look through our eyes.

With the night mode, it does a fine job. The colourful lights come off vivid and bright in the dark night.

OnePlus Open camera's sample photos captured in the night.

OnePlus Open is capable of recording 4K videos in 30 and 60 frames per second. They are really good and stable, on par with most of the premium phones in the market.

On the cover display, it will feature 32MP, and inside, it has a 20MP sensor, which people will be more likely to use less. The 32MP main selfie camera takes nice photos in all light conditions.

OnePlus Open camera's close-up sample photos.

Even with video chatting too, it performs great provided there is stable internet connectivity.

OnePlus Open camera's close-up sample photos.

Final thoughts: OnePlus Open is a perfect tribute to the company's 10th year anniversary

2023 is a milestone year for OnePlus, as it is the company's 10th year anniversary in the smartphone industry. What better moment to celebrate than to bring its first-ever foldable handset to market?

Yes, it is a bit late to this niche ultra-premium segment, but OnePlus has managed to get all the things right in its first attempt with the OnePlus Open series.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

Two things that impressed me the most were the almost invisible crease in the folding region and the other is the compact design and perfect cover display, which has 20:09 aspect. It is wider than a conventional foldable phone and even when folded, it felt like using a regular phone and was able to operate easily single-handedly with ease.

Also, the phone's build quality is as premium as it gets and the camera hardware is really good too.

And, the price too, the company has balanced it right and having used the device for more than two weeks, the OnePlus Open is worth the Rs 1,39,999 price tag.

OnePlus Open foldale phone.

FYI, OnePlus is all set to bring the OnePlus 12 (in China) next month on December 4, the very same day it made its foray into the smartphone business ten years ago in 2013.

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