The latest foldable phone to make its debut in an increasingly crowded market may just turn out to be the best. The OnePlus Open goes on sale October 26, and already this upstart foldable is already drawing favorable comparisons with the Galaxy Z Fold 5, a mainstay among these kinds of devices. (In fact, we've conducted our own OnePlus Open vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold face-off to see how the two foldables compare.)
Our OnePlus Open review found plenty to love about the first-ever foldable phone built by OnePlus — so much so that it's now our pick for the best foldable phone over Samsung's premium handset. That's a very high bar to clear, but we found five reasons why the OnePlus Open tops the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
The OnePlus Open has the bigger displays
Let's be honest — you're getting a book-style foldable phone because you want a bigger display than the typical smart phone. After all, more screen real estate gives you more space for getting things done on the go. And lots of screen space is one area where the OnePlus Open excels.
Unfold the OnePlus Open and you're looking at a 7.82-inch Flexi-fluid AMOLED panel. That's the biggest display on any phone, dwarfing even the Galaxy Z Fold 5's expansive 7.6-inch Super AMOLED screen. The Open's screen isn't just bigger, it boasts a sharper resolution, too — the main screen has a 2440 x 2268 resolution compared to 2176 x 1812 on the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Even when the OnePlus Open is closed shut, it gives you more screen to work with. The 6.31-inch cover display on that phone is just a little bit larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 5's 6.2-inch exterior screen.
The OnePlus Open offers outstanding multitasking features
It's not just having all that screen space — it's also knowing what to do with it. And the OnePlus Open has one of the best approaches to multitasking that we've seen on a foldable device.
We don't say that lightly. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 made some improvements to its own multitasking features, and those were among our favorite things about the latest version of Samsung's foldable phone. We particularly like the new gestures that allow you to launch a second app and the expanded taskbar that shows four recently used apps instead of just two.
But consider the Open Canvas features that are front and center on OnePlus' new phone. You can run three apps at once in any size you prefer — if an app is optimized to run in full-screen mode, that's how it will run. You can switch your view on the fly, with apps shifting around the OnePlus Open's screen depending on which one you need to work with.
My colleague John Velasco calls this "without a doubt the best multitasking experience I’ve checked out in a foldable phone." He also likes the fact the Canvas can save up to nine multi-app presets, where you group together different apps that you can launch simultaneously.
Essentially, the Canvas feature takes your foldable phone and completes its transformation into a tablet. It's a feature that makes this phone very appealing to anyone who prizes productivity.
OnePlus Open has longer battery life than Galaxy Z Fold 5
Keeping a foldable phone powered up is no mean feat. It's challenging enough to supply enough power to a normal-sized screen — try keeping a larger display going along with an exterior panel and you can understand why foldables traditionally struggle in our demanding battery test, where we have phones surf the web continuously until their battery dies.
The Galaxy Z Fold 5 posted a pretty impressive time on our test, lasting just shy of 11 hours. That more than an hour longer than the average phone and a 1.5-hour improvement over the Galaxy Z Fold 4. It also happened to be one of the best battery test results we've recorded for a foldable — until the OnePlus Open came along.
OnePlus' foldable held out for an average of 11 hours and 45 minutes before its battery ran out. Yes, that time was recored with the main display set at 60Hz, but the best the Galaxy Z Fold 5 could do when we disabled its adaptive display was a time of 11:25.
If you need another mark in the OnePlus Open column, consider charge times. The Open can charge at speeds of 67W, compared to a tepid 25W for the Galaxy Z Fold 5. The blazing charging speed allowed us to get a drained OnePlus Open to 85% after 30 minutes of charging.
The OnePlus Open comes with more storage
You won't be hurting for storage if you buy the OnePlus Open. At a time when 256GB of storage in the base model of a phone is something only premium models seem to ofer, the OnePlus Open features 512GB in its one and only configuration. That's double the capacity of the base model of the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Yes, you have the option of upgrading to a 512GB Galaxy Z Fold 5, but that adds another $200 to the other steep $1,799 price tag of Samsung's foldable. And that brings us to perhaps the most important point...
The OnePlus Open costs less than the Galaxy Z Fold
You can buy the OnePlus Open for $1,699 — $100 less than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 starting price. It's true that $100 isn't that huge a difference, but when you're paying four figures for a foldable phone every little discount helps
And in terms of discounts, OnePlus is more than happy to sell you an Open for less than its asking price. A preorder promotion lets you trade in any phone, regardless of what condition it's in, for a $200 discount on the price of an Open. OnePlus has indicated that trade-in discount will be permanent even after preorders end, with trade-ins lowering the cost of its phone to at least $1,499.
OnePlus Open outlook
None of this is to dismiss the Galaxy Z Fold 5, which remains a top foldable. In fact, it even tops the new OnePlus in some areas such as performance and camera output, especially in low-light settings.
But it took Samsung five tries to reach this point with its Fold product. The OnePlus Open has made a strong impression right out of the gate. And if you're considering a foldable device, this new model should be right at the top of your list.
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