OnePlus Open Review (Apex Edition): I’m Hugely Impressed!

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88%

88%

• Camera

  9
• Display

  9
• Design

  9
• Performance

  9
• Value for Money

  8
• User Ratings (0 Votes)
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If there’s one request I’ve had to review a phone more than any other, it’s the OnePlus Open.

I think there are several reasons for this. Firstly, it is, clearly, a stonkingly good device; the reviews I’ve caught wind of, and the people I’ve met who have used it pretty much confirm that – no one has a bad word to say about the OnePlus Open.

Secondly, this is OnePlus’ first foray into the world of foldables. Originally launched in October last year and co-developed with Oppo (who call it the Find N3), the Open immediately won a legion of expectant fans. Like pretty much every OnePlus product launch.

There are three foldables I’ve used this year which I’ve really enjoyed…

I wondered if Google had mastered it with the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold (there’s just something about that phone).

Then I considered if the Honor Magic V3 is the best (it’s impossible not to be impressed).

And then I switched to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and loved it ( it successfully became my daily device for a couple of months).

Now, finally, I have the OnePlus Open to hand (in Apex Edition form) and the big question is: can it sway me from the others?

Specs and pricing

The OnePlus Open is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and has 16GB of RAM. There’s a 4,805mAh battery inside which is capable of 67W SUPERVOOC charging (1-100% in just 42 minutes), and it has IPX4 water resistance.

The big internal display is a 7.82-inch AMOLED unit with a 2K resolution and 2,800 nits of peak brightness. The AMOLED cover display offers the same resolution and brightness, albeit scaled down to 6.31 inches.

Price-wise, you’ll pay £1,299 for the 512GB version which comes in either Voyager Black or Emerald Dusk. Not bad, eh?

The OnePlus Open Apex Edition I was sent for review doubles the storage to 1TB, adds a new Crimson Shadow deep red colourway and a tweaked alert slider which instigates a new VIP mode. The latter essentially disables the mic and camera, which adds an additional layer of privacy that can’t be found quite as easily on most other smartphones. The price of the new Apex Edition? It’s £1,499 in the UK. Again – not bad, eh?

The good news is that OnePlus still offers a £100 guaranteed trade-in scheme for any old phone you might have knocking around, which can bring those two already-impressive prices down further.

Design and display

The OnePlus Open isn’t as thin as the Honor Magic V3, and it’s only a smidgen thinner than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. But just look at it.

This is, without a doubt, the best-looking foldable I’ve used so far.

The OnePlus Open (particularly in Apex Edition get-up) looks expensive, smart, and as though it is, clearly, a serious bit of kit. That’s what we should expect from foldables; they’re still priced far beyond most ‘normal’ smartphones. The fact the Open is so much more temptingly priced compared to the competition makes it a no-brainer almost immediately.

I’m a big fan of it being the least slippery foldable smartphone I’ve used, too, thanks to that vegan leather rear casing. The mixture of matte and polished metal is rather lovely, too, even if it isn’t unique in the foldable category.

Those of you who are crease-conscious will be glad to hear that the OnePlus Open barely has one, once that big internal display is fully revealed. It’s there, obviously, but it’s incredibly shallow, rarely catches the light, and never interferes with play.

On the subject of the displays, they are just the right size, plenty bright enough, and the bezels are as thin as they need to be. The camera housing on the back also looks purposeful, and the Hasselblad branding shows that it means business.

I’m rarely bowled over by how a phone looks these days, but I was in this case.

Performance

We should remember that the OnePlus Open is a year old now, and despite the Apex Edition only arriving a couple of months ago, it’s still running last year’s Snapdragon chip.

Does that matter? No. These chips are so fast, so capable, and so AI-ready that they’ll last most normal people (me included) for at least two or three years. The fact the new Apex Edition has 1TB of storage for such a relatively low price is even better news – as is the inclusion of 16GB of RAM for anyone with a serious use case for their foldable phone.

I’m a fan of OxygenOS 14. It’s a fairly mild dusting of Android 14 and offers just the right degree of multitasking for the internal display. The more I use foldables, the more I realise that basic multitasking is enough. On the OnePlus Open, you can have up to three windows side-by-side in split view (with one just out of view unless you select it), and a floating window which can be resized and moved around freely. You can save those window displays as groups for future access, too. 

It’s this kind of thing that really shows the power of that Snapdragon chip, and I’m pretty sure offers more than enough productivity-fuelled multi-window goodness for most people.

Camera

There are three cameras on the rear of the OnePlus Open – a 48MP main, 64MP telephoto and 48MP ultra-wide. We get up to 3X optical zoom (which is the DSLR equivalent of 70mm) and a touch of Hasselblad within the portrait mode, which mimics the super-expensive camera company’s imagery with XCD lenses.

As always, I’ll provide a few sample photos to get you talking, because this is still the most subjective part of any smartphone review:

Although I’ve not had long enough to develop a fully rounded opinion of the camera performance just yet, I like the initial photos I’ve shot with the OnePlus Open. I wish we had 5x optical zoom but the 3x does a good job in its place, and zooming into 6x digitally is perfectly useable. Those Hasselblad-inspired portraits are nice, too.

If you’re wondering about video capture, it can shoot up to 4K at 60FPS, which is still overkill for most people, but the imagery produced is great.

Conclusion

The OnePlus Open may not be the youngest kid on the foldable block, and I might be rather late to the party with my review, but the arrival of the Apex Edition gave me just the right excuse to at least put my foot in the ring.

This is a brilliant foldable smartphone – the best I’ve used so far. It’s not the thinnest and it doesn’t have full water resistance, but it does everything else just perfectly. More importantly, it makes me very excited for what’s to come next from OnePlus in this space.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the OnePlus Open is that it’s the first foldable I’ve used which I can easily recommend to people who are on the fence about these devices. It’s priced very fairly, the crease is barely noticeable, and it looks very special indeed.

Is this finally a no-brainer of a foldable phone? Yes, it is.

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