OnePlus Open: all the news about the company’s first foldable

OnePlus loves to tout its “no compromises” tagline, but in the case of its first foldable phone, a few more compromises would have been good.

The main problem is the price: $1,700. Is the OnePlus Open a phone that feels worthy of such a high price tag? In some ways, yes. The flat edges exude iPhone in all the right ways. It’s thin for a foldable, without the chunkiness of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. And when you open it up, the crease down the middle of the inner screen all but disappears. It’s a lovely object to hold and use.

The OnePlus Open is the first foldable from Oppo sub-brand OnePlus. Preorders start today for $1,699 (€1,799 / £1,599) ahead of retail availability on October 26th. Check out my colleague Allison Johnson’s complete thoughts in our full review or read on for an overview of the device’s specs and features.

Although the Open is a first for the OnePlus brand, it’s pitching the device as a collaborative project with parent company Oppo, which has previously released the Oppo Find N and Find N2 foldables in China. It means the OnePlus Open is effectively a third-generation foldable and will even be sold as the Oppo Find N3 in the company’s home market. But OnePlus is keen to emphasize the OnePlus-y inclusion of an alert slider on the foldable, which it sees as one of the brand’s signature features.

OnePlus founder Peter Lau has already confirmed that the OnePlus Open shares its design with the Oppo Find N3, but new leaks are shedding light on just how similar the two devices look. The biggest difference is that the OnePlus Open is getting a global launch, while the Oppo Find N3 is exclusive to China.

Last night, leaker Evan Blass shared a set of images showing what appears to be the Oppo Find N3. The images show the device in four colors — black, green, gold, and red — along with marketing materials that reveal some potential specs. That includes a 5.8mm thickness, 245g weight, and a 4,805mAh battery that’s supposed to fully charge in 42 minutes. The leaks also show off the fingerprint sensor on the side of the phone, as well as the OnePlus-style alert slider.

The OnePlus Open is set to arrive on October 19th, and this is our first official look at the folding-style phone. In an official teaser image provided to The Verge, it looks to be a relatively thin design with at least one fan-favorite feature: a three-stage alert slider.

OnePlus president and COO Kinder Liu isn’t being shy about the phone’s potential. In a conversation conducted via translator with The Verge late last month, he told us it would “bring the foldable experience to new heights.” That’s a big claim to make about your first entry into a market where Samsung has dominated for years, but according to Liu, this device — which parent company Oppo will release under another name — has been a long time coming. His statements throughout this article have been edited for clarity.

German tech site WinFuture shared leaked marketing shots of the the OnePlus Open today and claims it will arrive in the US on October 19th for around $1,700.

The pictures show OnePlus’ rebadged Oppo Find N3 is more Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 than Pixel Fold — it’s taller than it is wide when you pop it open — and it has OnePlus’ characteristically circular three-camera array. The images show it in two colors: green and black.

OnePlus and Oppo are releasing the same foldable phone under different names, OnePlus confirmed in an announcement emailed to The Verge today. The company says that Oppo chief product officer Peter Lau, who co-founded OnePlus, directed teams at both companies to develop the phone in tandem to be released under both brands in different markets, though the email did not say which phone will go where.

OnePlus didn’t name the phones in the announcement, but they’re the phones rumored to be called the OnePlus Open and the Oppo Find N3.

After OnePlus confirmed that it’s launching a foldable phone earlier this year, now we finally have some information about what to expect. A set of leaked specs provided to MySmartPrice by OnLeaks reveals that the device, which may be called the OnePlus V Fold, could come with an impressive 7.8-inch inner display.

That’s larger than the 7.6-inch inner screens on both the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Google Pixel Fold, but it still doesn’t beat the China-exclusive Xiaomi Mix Fold 2, which comes with an 8-inch inner display.

This year’s Mobile World Congress is shaping up to be a real fiesta for unconventional form factors, and OnePlus is the latest company to join the celebration. At a panel discussion today, the company announced its intentions to launch a foldable phone in the second half of 2023. That’s about the extent of the details we have for now, though it seems like a safe assumption that the device will look a lot like one of the existing foldables on the market from Oppo — OnePlus’ parent company.

With companies like Apple and Google yet to enter the foldable market, Oppo is now on its second round of folding phones — though they’ve mostly been limited to China. The Find N was a tablet-style foldable released in 2021 with a surprisingly refined design for a first-gen product. Oppo followed it up in late 2022 with the Find N2 and Find N2 Flip. The latter is a clamshell-style device in the vein of Samsung’s Z Flip series, and it’ll be Oppo’s first foldable available in Europe when it goes on sale in just a couple of days.