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It wasn’t long ago that I was sitting in the TechRadar office and one of my colleagues was talking his ear off about how book-style foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold don’t quite make sense were me.
I just couldn’t see the utility on a square, medium-sized screen running a smartphone operating system. I’d been an iPad user for almost a decade, and using large tablets for almost half my life convinced me that nothing could beat them for media consumption, reading, and light multitasking. News of the upcoming Huawei Mate XT – the world’s first triple smartphone expandable to a 10-inch tablet – further fueled this suspicion. But even as I watched my vision of the future unfold, my curiosity about conventional foldable phones simmered.
The thing is, I hadn’t used a foldable device for more than 15 minutes at a time, mostly while walking through a busy Samsung store. I’d never really fancied walking out with a Z Fold of my own thanks to its starting price of $1,899 / £1,799 / AU$2,749, but I was always impressed with the build, design and capabilities. Maybe – just maybe – my cynicism was born of unresolved curiosity.
When I got the chance to test out a foldable phone for a long time, I felt this curiosity flare up again. My first hour with the OnePlus Open was spent in a tech-driven trance as I opened it, then closed it, then opened it again, completely entranced by the technology on display (both literally and figuratively). A few weeks later, and I’m happy to report that I was wrong to doubt foldable phones – these things are absolutely amazing.
More screen, fewer problems
The central conceit of the OnePlus Open can be described in two words: big screen. Placing two phones side by side – as Samsung suggests with its Try Galaxy feature – makes it look somewhat similar to the Open’s 7.82-inch inner screen, but using one quickly reveals it’s more than just the sum of the parts.
Embedded videos in articles and other web pages can actually be viewed when the device is unfolded, rather than something to write down later or just scroll by. The form factor makes multitasking realistic, with two apps side by side and a third in a floating window. You still won’t be doing complex work on a device like this, but comparing web pages or watching a video in the background feels much more practical than gimmicky.
My first hour with the OnePlus Open was spent in a technology-driven trance
The OnePlus Open’s inner screen makes the smartphone a bona fide option for media consumption, rather than a compromise. As I passed through the airport on a recent trip, I was able to unfold the phone to take a look The penguin at every point I stopped before simply closing it and putting it in my pocket when things got moving again – I would never have bothered with the smaller screen of a flat phone or the bulky size of my 11-inch iPad Pro . The mini-tablet size also means more room for decent speakers – the Open is rivaled only by the larger iPhones for the best smartphone speakers I’ve ever heard.
A bigger screen means it’s easier to experience this sort of thing with friends, too. Bringing a smartphone into a conversation can be a risk because it’s awkward to ask someone to peer at a small screen. The Open makes showing a friend a photo or video clip much more fun for everyone involved, especially if you’re trying to share something across a table or across the room. The screen is just big enough to be inviting, and the hinge is a better conversation starter than any app or meme could hope for. Seeing people experience the fold for the first time still hasn’t gotten old.
I think there is also something to be said about the degree of intention implied by handing someone a device that he or she must hold with both hands. In fact, the Open inspired me to think about the way I use my phone. The cover screen remains useful for checking messages, quick Google searches, and taking photos, but even knowing that the inner screen waits after half a second of effort, I have to consider whether what I’m doing is worth putting on the big screen, and if not, whether I should put the phone down and go back to the real world.
A few compromises
There are of course some disadvantages to using a foldable phone. It’s generally accepted that battery life will take a hit, which is understandable if you ride on the large interior screen more often than not. I found myself needing to charge the OnePlus Open a few times mid-day, but was usually able to keep it going until late in the evening. Furthermore, phone makers tend to equip foldable phones with objectively worse camera specs than their flagship counterparts. For what it’s worth, I found the Open’s camera setup to be very impressive, but photographers might be enticed by the hipper specs and nimble ergonomics of a traditional flat phone (see the Galaxy S24 Ultra or iPhone 16 Pro Max).
The Open inspired me to think about the way I use my phone
There are also some issues that come with being foldable. I found a few apps, mostly older games like Professor Layton or Plague Inc. – didn’t respond well to folding or unfolding the phone while it was running, and I even experienced some crashes on Instagram when using the Open unfolded. It’s up to app developers to optimize their apps for the foldable platform, but there’s little incentive for them to do so while foldables remain a very small niche. And even as someone with large hands, the Open is undeniably big and heavy. Sometimes I felt it pressing on my wrist when using it with one hand, and the unique geometry isn’t always the most comfortable to hold.
Still, these feel like small prices to pay for access to a unique, customizable, and beautiful device. What surprised me about the OnePlus Open – and what I think probably sets it apart from some of its contemporaries – is how good it is as a regular phone. The 6.31-inch cover screen is not much narrower than my trusty old Huawei Mate 20 Pro and certainly feels a lot wider than the strip of a cover display of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. The front screen of the Open is a clear panel with high resolution and high refresh rate and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset gives the Open reliably fast performance.
Do you need a foldable one?
The foldable experience is not based on necessity. It’s not really necessary for Instagram to take up six horizontal inches of screen real estate, for you to read articles with two hands, for you to see such a wide range of apps in the app drawer – but it does. Nice.
When it comes to modern ultra-premium smartphones, we’re past the point of thinking about the necessity anyway. Most users actually find the bottlenecks in the A18 Pro chipset of the iPhone 16 Pro? Do shutterbugs reach the 100x zoom lens of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra as often as the 1x wide-angle lens? Is there anyone so impatient that he should… The eponymous charging speed of Realme GT5 240W? Much of the joy that comes with improving phone hardware is how much it improves the little things, the things we’ve been doing for years and will do for years to come, and the fact that in no time we can create a have a mini tablet display available. from the wrist* improves everyday web browsing, social media, video and music far more than I ever expected (*actually don’t open it this way).
