Top 7 reasons to buy the OnePlus Open

The OnePlus Open is the best foldable phone available today, and it’s one of the company’s best devices yet thanks to the battery life, cameras, and impressive displays.

For the last five months I’ve been using the Open as my daily driver. Even when I’m testing other phones, I keep coming back to this amazing device and I’m constantly impressed with the speed editing videos, or running a few apps at once.

Read on for the top seven things that I love about the OnePlus Open. The Open is available for $1,499 U.S. and $1,999 Canadian currently, with a deal for $300 off, and OnePlus is also offering up to $850 Canadian off when you trade in your old phone.

The screens, of course

The OnePlus Open features a 6.31″ outside display, when the phone is closed, and 7.82″ display on the inside when it’s open. Both displays are 2K with up to 120 Hz dynamic refresh rate, and they’re sharp, bright, and look fantastic.

The outer display is great for taking calls, quick looks at social media and email, or just checking your calendar. The phone really shines though when you flip it open and get into videos, work, or gaming.

You can open apps full width–perfect for when you’re streaming a movie or a TV show, or jumping into a game–but I also love scrolling TikTok since it spreads out the icons and gives you space to see the whole video better. Opening YouTube, with 2K video, looks amazing.

And to top it all off, multi-tasking with the large display means that you can have up to three apps open at the same time, or open one app on top of another. It’s a feature I love when I’m working between email and my calendar on the go, but it works well for a lot of scenarios.

Cameras and Hasselblad quality

When you use most foldable phones, the cameras tend to be okay, but rarely anything special. The Open is the natural next step for OnePlus though, improving upon the OnePlus 11, with cameras that impressed me from the start. You can even use the rear facing camera to take selfies, with the front screen acting as a preview, with the shutter button.

Both the cover and the main display feature good cameras for selfies and video calls, with recording up to 4k/30 fps, and the quality is solid.

Where the Open shines though is with the trio of rear cameras, including a 48 MP Sony LYT-T808 “Pixel Stacked” CMOS, a 64 MP telephoto lens equivalent to 70 mm and up to 145 mm, and a 48 MP ultra-wide angle lens. The cameras work well in low light and there are multiple modes to get the perfect shot–including long exposure, slo-mo video, time-lapse, and panorama–but my favourite feature is Pro mode with Hasselblad.

With colour tuning in partnership with Hasselblad, and pro controls to get perfect results, not to mention capturing in RAW, the Open is impressive for portraits, landscapes, and artistic photography.

Battery life for the entire day

Battery life is one of the most important features on any phone today, and the OnePlus Open lasts for an entire day, and sometimes more. I can usually get at least 24 hours from one charge, even after watching videos, taking photos and video, and multitasking on it for hours. On lighter days, I can usually get 36 hours or more from one charge.

And when it’s time to plug in, the 67W SuperVOOC charging is incredibly fast, and only takes about 40 minutes for a full charge from 0%. A 50% charge takes a fraction of that, and it’s worth remembering that OnePlus includes a charging brick with their phones, so you don’t have to buy anything extra to get speedy charging.

Management features on the phone also let you optimize how apps use power in the background, so you can balance out performance and features with power saving, and power saving mode can keep the phone going for days, especially when the phone isn’t being used as much.

The best fingerprint sensor

In-screen fingerprint sensors have been a thing for a while now and I’ve never been a big fan. Generally they work, but they’re not the best, and it never felt natural unlocking with a fingerprint on the screen for me. The OnePlus Open solves this with a fingerprint sensor on the side of the phone that’s lightning fast, and it’s also the power button.

That means that when you go to turn on the phone, it unlocks instantly, and when you also have face unlocking enabled, I rarely ever see my lock screen unless I’m just glancing at the time. I pick it up, and it unlocks within a moment. I also love the tactile feel of this power/fingerprint sensor, making it easy to feel for the power button versus pressing the volume rocker, which sticks out a bit more.

Processing power and storage

From the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 CPU, to the 16 GB of RAM, and the 512 GB of storage, the Open is a powerhouse with room to spare for photos, videos, and apps.

I have had trouble running Adobe Premiere Rush on other phones, but the OnePlus Open runs it perfectly, and I have space for all my videos. Since I shoot a lot of video, having all that room is a big deal, and I’m consistently impressed by app performance.

Between these highlights and all of the other features I’ve mentioned, this is what makes the phone feel like a professional device, especially with the durable build quality.

Lightweight and durable

The Open weighs just 239 grams, lighter than any other folding phone, and almost the same weight as some other best in class cell phones. More importantly, the build quality–including the all-important hinge–is excellent, with titanium alloy, carbon fibre, and the front display features Ceramic Guard glass.

Tested for 1,000,000 folds, or 100 folds per day over 10 years, the Open is really built to last, and the box also includes a lightweight case that protects the back and the rear cameras, as well as the edges, with a lip so if it’s dropped face down, it will help protect the outside display.

And the OnePlus Open includes pre-applied screen protectors on the displays, so you don’t have to worry about scratches or marks on your phone.

The OnePlus ecosystem and OS

Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning the ecosystem that OnePlus has been developing over the last few years. In addition to earbuds, like the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 or the new OnePlus Buds 3, the OnePlus Watch 2 just launched, and last year’s fantastic OnePlus Pad that pairs seamlessly for files and screen mirroring.

I’ve been a fan of the overall quality and the types of features that OnePlus has been bringing to their devices, and I think it’s important to have this kind of ecosystem that users can embrace. If you want everything to work well together, an ecosystem like this makes a big difference for usability.

OnePlus also just launched OxygenOS 14 with Android 14 on the Open, delivering some of the best new Android features with a clean, smooth design.