- OnePlus
OnePlus Open
Our top pickThe first foray into the world of foldables from OnePlus is an impressive debut. There's a large main display, a solid triple-camera system, and the ability to multitask with three apps at once. It also offers 67W fast charging.
Pros- Large 7.82-inch main display
- Good triple-camera system
- 67W fast charging
Cons- Expensive
- Large camera bump
- Not pocket-friendly
- Google/Pocket-lint
Google Pixel Fold
A good alternativeThe Google Pixel Fold is a very good foldable with high-quality 2K displays both inside and out. It has some useful features such as the dual-screen interpreter, and you can run two apps together in split-screen mode.
Pros- Pocket-friendly size
- Bloat-free OS
- Day-long battery life
Cons- Expensive
- Large main display bezels
- Poor fast charging speeds
Many of the biggest phone brands have dipped their toes into the world of foldables, with devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Motorola Razr Plus taking advantage of the development of flexible displays to offer a different experience. The latest phone maker to add a new model to the ranks of foldable phones is OnePlus, with the new OnePlus Open. How does this new foldable stack up against the competition? We go head-to-head with the OnePlus Open vs Google Pixel Fold to see which comes out on top.
Price, availability, and specs
The Google Pixel Fold was first released in June 2023, with a price tag of $1799/£1749. It's available in two colours: Obsidian (black) or Porcelain (off-white). There are two storage options, with both 256GB and 512GB models available.
The OnePlus Open is launching at $1699/£1599 and is available for presale from October 19, with open sale from October 26. The OnePlus Open is also available in two colours: Voyager Black and Emerald Dusk. The Voyager Black has a vegan leather back cover, with the Emerald Dusk has matte-frosted glass instead. The latter is a little less blue than the Emerald Forest colourway found on the OnePlus 10 Pro and a touch lighter than the Eternal Green of the OnePlus 11 5G. It's available with 512GB of storage.
Let's take a look at some of the key specs to see how the foldables compare.
OnePlus Open Google Pixel Fold Brand OnePlus Google SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Google Tensor G2 Display 6.2-inch AMOLED, 2484 x 1116, 120Hz (cover) / 7.82-inch AMOLED, 2440 x 2268, 120Hz (main) 5.8-inch OLED, 2092 x 1080, 120Hz (cover) / 6.7-inch OLED, UTG, 2208 x 1840, 120Hz (main) Battery 4805 mAh / 67W fast charging 4821mA / 30W fast charging, 7.5W wireless charging Operating System OxygenOS 13.2 based on Android 13 Android Front camera 32MP f/2.4 (cover), 20MP f/2.2 (main) 9.5MP, f/2.2 (cover) / 8MP, f/2.0 (main) Rear camera 48MP f/1.7 main, 64MP f/2.6 3x telephoto, 48MP f/2.2. ultrawide 48MP f/1.7 main, 10.8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide, 10.8MP f/3.05 telephoto Dimensions 153.4 x 73.3 x 11.7mm (folded) / 153.4 x 143.1 x 5.8mm (unfolded) 245g 139.7 x 79.5 x 12.1mm (folded), 139.7 x 158.7 x 5.8mm (unfolded), 283g IP Rating IPX4 IPX8
Design and build
Unsurprisingly, the basic design of these two foldables is fairly similar. When folded, both devices have the form factor of a standard phone, with a display on the front of the device. Using a hinge on the left edge of both devices, you can unfold to reveal a much larger screen on the inside. This main screen on the OnePlus Open is slightly taller than it is wide, whereas the reverse is true for the Google Pixel Fold.
The Voyager Black OnePlus Open measures 153.4 x 143.1 x 5.9mm when unfolded and 153.4 x 73.3 x 11.9 folded. Due to the different materials used in the rear cover, the Emerald Dusk variant is 0.1mm thinner when open or 0.2mm thinner when folded. In comparison to the OnePlus Open, the Google Pixel Fold has a smaller footprint, at 139.7 x 158.7 x 5.8mm unfolded and 139.7 x 79.5 x 12.1mm folded. Interestingly, the Pixel Fold is thinner than the OnePlus Open when unfolded but a touch thicker when folded.
Despite the larger dimensions of the OnePlus Open, it's the lighter of the two devices, at just 239g compared to the fairly hefty 283g of the Pixel Fold. The OnePlus Open actually weighs less than an iPhone 14 Pro Max, although it is heavier than the new titanium iPhone 15 Pro Max. Once again, the Emerald Dusk model is a little different, weighing in at 245g despite being slightly thinner than the Voyager Black model. The Emerald Dusk model features a matte-frosted glass rear that presumably is a little heavier than the vegan leather rear cover of the Voyager Black model.
The low weight of the OnePlus Open is due to the use of some proprietary materials, including a cobalt molybdenum alloy that the company claims is four times more robust than stainless steel and a titanium alloy. In comparison, the Google Pixel Fold uses a stainless steel hinge, with an aluminium frame and Gorilla Glass Victus back.
The camera bump is an obvious difference in the design of the two foldables. The Google Pixel Fold goes with a long, thin horizontal bump, which is noticeable but still reasonably subtle. The OnePlus Open goes all out, with a circular camera bump that's more than a third of the device's height. It's a similar design to the camera bump on the back of the OnePlus 11 5G, but the bump on the OnePlus Open is placed centrally, whereas the OnePlus 11 5G has the bump well over to the left. It's certainly a bold design that makes the OnePlus Open look a little like a washing machine from behind.
The other big difference on the exterior is that the OnePlus Open has the infamous alert slider on the right-hand side of the front screen, allowing you to switch between silent and vibrate modes quickly. This is the switch that caused such outrage when it was omitted from the OnePlus 10T.
Display
The larger dimensions of the OnePlus Open means that it's able to pack in larger screens both inside and out. On the front, there's a 6.31-inch 2484 x 1116 AMOLED display that has a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 2800nits. It has a slightly higher pixel density than the main display, at 431ppi. The cover screen is made from a glass ceramic that's reportedly even tougher than Gorilla Glass Victus to protect your screen against scratches. The front screen of the Pixel Fold is a 5.8-inch 2092 x 1080 display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1450 nits peak brightness. The pixel density is also a little lower, at 408ppi.
Unfold the OnePlus Open, and you will find a 7.82-inch, 2440 x 2268 AMOLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 2800 nits. The pixel density is similar to the cover display, at 426ppi. Inside the Pixel Fold is a 7.6-inch 2208 x 1840 OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It has a peak brightness of 1550 nits and a pixel density of 380ppi.
The bezels of the OnePlus Open are also noticeably smaller than those on the Google Pixel Fold; OnePlus states that the screen-to-body ratio is almost 90 per cent.
Hardware
The Google Pixel Fold runs on the Google Tensor 2 8-core chipset that's built on a 5nm process. The OnePlus Open runs on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 8-core chip that's built on a 4nm process. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is a more powerful chip and consistently comes out on top in benchmark tests, thanks in part to the 4nm process resulting in smaller transistors. However, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max both use the A17 Pro chip that's built on a 3nm process that can pack in even more transistors.
The OnePlus Open comes with 16GB RAM compared to the 12GB of RAM in the Google Pixel Pro. It's also possible to use the internal storage of the OnePlus Open as virtual RAM to add a further 4, 8, or 12GB of RAM to the mix.
The OnePlus Open supports both Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6E, with the Google Pixel Fold only supporting the slower Wi-Fi 6E standard. The OnePlus Open also has a dual 5G nano-SIM slot. In comparison, the Pixel Fold does have dual SIM support, but one of them needs to be an eSIM. Both foldables also feature a side-mounted fingerprint sensor.
Camera
The bold camera bulge of the OnePlus Open houses a triple-camera system. A 48MP main camera has an f/1.7 aperture and a 1.12µm pixel size. Alongside is a 64MP periscope telephoto camera with an f/2.6 aperture and a 0.73µm pixel size. The telephoto lens offers 3x optical zoom and a 6x in-sensor zoom. The Ultra Res digital zoom can go as high as 120x. The third camera is 48MP ultra-wide with an f/2.2 aperture and 0.8µm pixel size that gives a 114-degree field of view.
On the back of the Google Pixel Fold, there's a 48MP main camera with a f/1.7 aperture and 0.8µm pixel size. There's also a 10.8MP telephoto camera with an f/3.05 aperture and a 1.22µm pixel size. You get 5x optical zoom and Super Res digital zoom up to 20x. Finally, there's a 10.8MP ultra-wide camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 1.22µm pixel size that gives a 121.1-degree field of view.
The OnePlus Open also packs in two selfie cameras. The cover display has a 32MP, f/2.4 selfie camera, allowing you to take selfies when the OnePlus Open is folded. There's also a 20MP, f/2.2 selfie camera in the main display so that you can take selfies with the OnePlus Open unfolded, too.
The Pixel Fold has a 9.5MP, f/2.2 selfie camera built into the cover display for taking selfies with the Fold folded. Open it up, and there's an 8MP, f/2.0 selfie camera in the main display's bezel.
Software
The OnePlus Open runs on OxygenOS 13.2, which is based on Android 13, but has some tricks to take advantage of the additional real estate that a foldable can offer, which OnePlus calls Open Canvas. You can quickly split the main screen by swiping two fingers down the centre of the screen. You can pin a taskbar to the bottom of the screen, allowing you to access recent apps or drag and drop recent files or photos from the taskbar directly into apps.
If you're already in a split screen, drag a third app from the taskbar to work with three apps simultaneously. Active windows can be resized, with other windows slipping in and out of the display as you do so so you can take a quick peek at another app without leaving the main window. If you regularly use the same multi-app view, you can save up to nine presets for quick access.
The Google Pixel Fold launched with Android 13, but you can now upgrade to Android 14, which adds some new features to the device. One of the standout features is the dual-screen interpreter. On the main screen, you can see the input on the top half of the screen and the translation on the bottom. The cover display, which you face towards the person you're talking to, will then display the translation in a large font so that the person you're talking to can easily read it. It's a clever use of the multiple screens of a foldable device.
However, the Google Pixel Fold doesn't have the same level of multitasking options as the OnePlus Open. A split-screen mode allows you to run two apps side-by-side and drag and drop between them, but there's no option for adding a third app like there is on the OnePlus Open.
Both the Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open will receive four years of Android upgrades and five years of security upgrades, which is reasonable but a long way behind the seven years offered by the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.
Battery
Both foldables have very similar battery capacities. The OnePlus Open has a 4,805Ah battery that OnePlus says can last more than a day. We've yet to test this out in real life, but we'll update this article once we've put the OnePlus Open through its paces in hands-on testing. The Pixel Fold has a 4821mAh battery, and in our testing, it was just about able to make it to the end of a day without charging, although by the end of the day, it was definitely in need of topping up. With the slightly larger screen of the OnePlus Open, we'd expect the battery life to be a tad shorter than the Pixel Fold, so it will be interesting to see if it can make it to the end of the day without a top-up.
Where the OnePlus Open does stand out, however, is when it comes to fast charging. It offers 67W fast charging, which can take your OnePlus Open from 1 to 100 per cent in just 42 minutes. In comparison, the Pixel Fold only offers 21W fast charging, which can take the device from 1 to 100 per cent around an hour and a half, more than twice as long as the OnePlus Open.
OnePlus Open vs Google Pixel Fold: Which should you choose?
We've yet to test the OnePlus Open properly, but based on the specs, the Open does seem like the better option if you're looking for a foldable. It has a larger screen, smaller bezels, better cameras, faster charging, better multitasking, is significantly lighter, and is also a little cheaper. It remains to be seen how the main display holds up to constant folding and unfolding, but it definitely offers more bang for your buck than the Google Pixel Fold.
However, the Google Pixel Fold still has a lot going for it. The landscape orientation of the main screen may be more appealing to some and more suited to watching TV or movies. The smaller size of the Pixel Fold may also be more suited to those who like to carry their phone in their back pocket. There are some useful exclusive features, such as the dual-screen interpreter, and since it runs stock Android, you don't get the bloatware associated with Android skins. The Google Pixel Fold is worth a look if you're looking for a more pocket-friendly foldable.
