OnePlus Open Review - They Got It (Almost) Perfect
I took the OnePlus Open with me to Vegas to test the cameras, battery life, and more. And this is one of my favorite phones released in the last year - here’s why.
Hey I’m Shannon Morse and I do in depth reviews of the tech devices that I’m currently nerding out over. Thank you to OnePlus who sent over this phone for review.
This is the first foldable release by OnePlus, and it is $1699.99 MSRP, however you can get a great deal on these devices with trade ins and sales. It’s available in Emerald Dusk or Voyager Black. In the box you get a case, an 80W SUPER VOOC power adapter, and a cable. By the way, lil tech insider fact - Oppo is OnePlus’s sister company - which is why you see VOOC used on Oppo phones too! Also Oppo came out with a folding phone that looks extremely similar to this one - called the Find N3. If you ever win a trivia night for that random bit of info let me know.
I’m impressed by the build quality of this phone, especially since it’s a first foldy from OnePlus. Unlike it’s competitors, this first gen foldable didn’t feel like a beta test - it feels fine tuned and premium. It’s lighter than other folds at 239 grams - that’s a little over 8 ounces. And it’s a little over 6” in height, and 2.88 inches wide. It’s also not a thicc boi, so when folded I was impressed that the depth is on par with my standard phones. Unfolded it feels really thin, but since the materials include titanium alloy, carbon fiber, and a smooth, strong hinge, I didn’t feel like I was gonna break it due to that thinner form factor. That hinge is satisfying to snap close and open. I also like that there’s a small dip in the design so I have a place to stick my nail to open it. The alert slider is here! And I like the placement. It’s very tactile and I love the haptic vibration feedback you get when you change it between silent, vibrate, and ring.
The displays are both 2k AMOLED, 120hz, 2800 nits peak - that’s real nice. The front display is a 6.31”, while the internal folding display is 7.82”. And this screen pairing is one of the biggest selling points of this phone. First, the outer display (or the front display) is wide enough to be very comfortable to type on and feels like a very normal aspect ratio. It’s really easy to go from a traditional phone to this foldy since the display feels really normal - it doesn’t feel squished. It’s a flat display, no curves, with minimal bezels and a screen protector pre installed. It is LTPO and goes down to 10 hz.
Let’s open it, the crease is nearly invisible when unfolded. It’s really big - I had tons of fun multi tasking on this display - more on that in a bit. I also really enjoyed this big screen for playing games. By the way, huge thank you for recommending Genshin Impact to me as a tester game for these reviews - I’m a big Zelda fan and I am loving the open world concept with multiple characters.
Back on topic, the display is really beautiful and when you’re using it, it’s hard to notice the crease. It’s barely there - even when you run your finger over it, it’s very smooth and you can barely feel it. We have the familiar screen cover on the folding display as well - but obviously, take care of your folding devices - these screens are not going to be as durable as our traditional glass, but OnePlus put this thing through a certification for a million folds - which would be like 100 folds per day for 10 years. It’s also LTPO 3.0 and goes down to 1hz.
By the way, this channel is my career, I put a lot of work into it, and this video isn’t sponsored, but I want to shoutout my Patreon and Youtube membership smores members for supporting my channel. They get access to a private discord and early access to any videos I have ready to go before they publish to youtube, and a monthly livestream plus a lot of other perks. The join button on youtube is below, and my patreon is patreon.com/shannonmorse if you wanna sign up - you dont have to - videos will always be free to watch, but the memberships keep the videos coming even when the sponsorships aren’t there. Huge thank you to my smores members - let’s get back to the review!
On the rear: MAIN LENS - at the top is the 48MP 85 FOV f/1.7 aperture sensor.
On the left: TELEPHOTO - 64MP 3x Optical zoom lens, f/2.6 aperture sensor. 6x in sensor zoom. 120x Ultra Res zoom.
On the bottom: ULTRA WIDE - 48MP 114 FOV wide angle lens, f/2.2 aperture sensor.
4k 60 fps
Front camera (foldy screen): MAIN LENS - 20MP, f/2.2, 91 FOV
Front camera (cover screen): MAIN LENS - 32MP, f/2.4, 88.5 FOV
4k 30
First, location tags are on by default so turn those off for security.
For once, I can finally say that the cameras on a foldable were really impressive. You know how I keep harping on foldables for having potatoes for cameras? As in, the camera quality makes it look like you’re looking at a potato. Hasselblad teamed up with OnePlus on this phone to create an excellent pairing - with a 48MP quad pixel sensor.
I tested the cameras in low lit conditions at Meow Wolf Omega Mart in Vegas (which, highly recommend - I love that place).
I really loved the selfie photos I got from the rear cameras. You can flip to the rear cameras using this icon, then the cover display turns into your preview monitor for the selfies. Taking advantage of that f1.7 aperture and bigger sensors does help in low light. For example, this selfie with the back lit art behind me was so good. It’s so clear, even though my face was in some shadow. It brought out so much detail, even the little frizzy hairs are defined. That’s not a one off either - here’s a photo in the same room.
Here’s the wide angle with some tests in low light. Again, really clear photos, details in my face don’t disappear. I think some details were oversharpened, but the colors look great. Smartphone cameras generally don’t do as well with red backdrops - you lose a lot of those details - but that’s a problem I’ve noticed with tons of smartphones - like here’s one from the S23 Ultra - similar issue.
People looked at me weird but it was fun to use the timer to take some selfies while I was alone at Meow Wolf.
Non selfies with those rear sensors look really lovely. You get some great depth of field. The hues in the sky are pretty blues, clouds don’t get blown out.
But shots of moving subjects were blurry from time to time - that’s a shutter speed issue. You can switch to Action Shot but I prefer the overall aesthetic you get from non-Action Shot photos.
Portrait mode pushes Hasselblad in your face - comparing the 3 zooms to 3 different hasselblad lenses. If you’ve seen my smartphone reviews, I’m not big on portrait modes anymore. I personally feel the aperture from the main lens without portrait mode looks way more natural.
Portrait modes on the OnePlus Open are good, but you can see some inconsistencies - especially in my hair where it’s not quite sure where to focus.
The front facing camera on the cover screen did great as well. With the sun behind me, it still brightened up my face and the details. I had a lens flare in a few photos but I thought it looked kinda artsy. The front facing cameras do have optional face softening filters which kinda freak me out because they can make you look so uncanny valley, and the bokeh is not as strong. The selfie cameras do seem a little cooler compared to the rear lenses - so my skin tone looks more yellow or cooler than with the rear cameras. Clarity and sharpness is better on those rear cameras too, especially in low light settings.
Videos look great! In my tests, the audio sounded really high quality, like I could probably record a youtube video via this mic and no one would notice. The stabilization is great as well.
The internals include a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 16GB RAM and 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Again, great for gaming. And my experience editing some videos was very smooth. I didn’t experience any lag between the cuts, or issues with playback. Exporting 4k shorts was also quick.
The battery charges at up to 67W wired, which equates to 0-100 in 43 minutes. And it’s a big 4805 mAh battery, with a very good standby power drain. I’m reviewing a lot of phones right now so on the days I wasn’t using this one, the battery barely drained.
It ships with a Wifi 7 radio. And the wifi speed is loads faster than my older S23 Ultra I would say by about 2x.
The face unlock defaults to requiring eyes to be open, and it’s really quick. The power button is also fingerprint scanner - which means it’s capacitive. It’s very quick to unlock.
I’ve always liked OnePlus’s mobile operating system, build on Android - it ships with Android 13 and mine is updated to OxygenOS 13.2. Weirdly, it also ships with one of the worst offenders in privacy - the Facebook app. All of Google’s usual services are also preinstalled.
Open Canvas extends split screen apps beyond the display, so you can split screen more than one app and choose which ones you want to focus on. You can also use the little bar at the top of your apps to extend their viewing size - called fast focus. You can also hop into split screen quickly by swiping two fingers down the middle of the screen. Drag and drop files between apps or from the taskbar. And use triple split to multi task between 3 apps, with Smart orientation to display them the correct way. You can pinch with 4 fingers to squish them all into a different view, but this doesn’t work great if you have long nails. You can also continue using an app when closing the phone by swiping up on the cover display.
When watching shows or playing games, the dual speakers sound level and balanced. Really great overall.
So, with such an impressive phone, what are the downsides? Well, the new Samsung Galaxy Fold 5 can be submerged in water. This one can’t - I would recommend avoiding water because the rating on this one is IPX4 - which is quite low compared to other foldies. That means it can be splashed but no long exposure to water.
OnePlus also didn’t include wireless charging on the OnePlus Open - I’ve read this is because they opted for the super fast wired charging. But that means I can’t use my normal wireless charging I have on my nightstand, I have to use a cable instead. A slight miss in my opinion, but I do love the fast wired charging, though you do have to have that compatible charger, which comes in the box.
This is one of the very few foldies that I was really impressed with for the price point, which is slightly cheaper MSRP than the Pixel Fold or Samsung Fold 5. It’s hard for me to recommend anyone spend full price on a foldable - they’re just so expensive right now - but if you can get one of these under a grand via promotions or sales, then yes, go for it. Notably, foldies aren’t for everyone - they’re multitasker prosumer products really. So I’ll be checking out the OnePlus 12 and 12R as well on the channel if you are looking for a traditional (and less expensive) phone from OnePlus.
