What’s the Best Foldable of 2024? Honor vs Google vs OnePlus vs Samsung

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Foldable smartphones aren’t for everyone. In 2024, there are still two significant compromises.

The first is very subjective but illustrates where we are with foldable display technology. Buy a foldable today, and you’ll gain access to the biggest smartphone display you’ve ever seen – but it will come with a crease. Because it folds in half. And, thus far, no manufacturer has figured out how to get rid of that crease.

The second relates to price. Foldable smartphones are still incredibly expensive. As you’re about to find out, some brands are starting to break the mould in that regard, but if you want to buy the latest foldable phone and ensure you have enough storage to keep going for a couple of years, you’ll be pushing £2,000/$2,000 for the privilege.

However, if those compromises don’t trouble you too much, there are some serious upsides to owning a foldable device. The novelty of having that massive display never really wears off, and the productivity benefits you receive in return are significant.

As we near the end of the year, I thought I’d give you my thoughts on four foldables that have caught my attention during 2024 – the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6, Honor Magic V3, OnePlus Open Apex Edition, and Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Which one is right for you? What’s my overall winner? Let’s find out.

Who should buy a foldable phone?

Let’s cover this quickly, because, as noted, you need both the budget and appetite to own a foldable phone – and I don’t want you to waste your money.

For starters, you need the appetite for spending a lot of money on your smartphone. That isn’t unusual these days – and carrier subsidies certainly help – but this needs to be a device that means an awful lot more to you than ‘just’ being your phone.

It also helps if you just want something different. Smartphone manufacturers are constantly trying to think of ways to make their devices stand out from the crowd. Those that fold are immediately more interesting than regular phones, and that counts for quite a lot when it comes to the ownership experience.

The most obvious use case for a foldable smartphone, however, is the phone productivity guru. If you do pretty much everything on your phone – this will be a solid investment.

Price comparison

To make this as fair as possible, I’ve used the 512GB storage option as the point of comparison for all four phones, and as you can see, all prices are in GBP – because that’s my region and a region in which they’re all available!

All prices are correct as of December 2024.

• Z Fold6: £1,899
• Magic V3: £1,699
• OnePlus Open Apex: £1,599 (Apex edition is £1,699 with 1TB and 16GB RAM)
• Pixel 9 Pro Fold: £1,869

It’s worth noting that, at the time of writing, OnePlus is discounting the Open (both regular and Apex edition) pretty heavily, and it can be had for £1,199 at the moment, which is a bit of a bargain.

Winner: OnePlus Open Apex

Chips

We live in an amazing world where the chips that are included in smartphones are all – almost without exception – utterly brilliant. For all but the most intensive of users – or those who undertake a lot of gaming on their phones – if you buy a smartphone in 2024, it’s going to feel fast, fluid, and capable of everything you throw at it.

The chips in these four foldables are a bit of a mixed bag. The Z Fold6 and Magic V3 share the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (which has recently been surpassed by the 8 Elite), but Samsung always goes to great lengths during press conferences to explain that they receive a version that’s tuned for their requirements. So, they’re not identical.

The OnePlus Open is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 so, in real terms, a whole two generations behind. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has Google’s latest chip as its beating heart – the Tensor G4.

What does this all mean in everyday life? Not much – just re-read the first paragraph above. However, I need to pick a winner, and in this case, it’s a tie for the two phones with the latest (relatively speaking) Snapdragon.

Winner: tie (Z Fold6 and Magic V3)

Build quality

Let’s cut to the chase – these are all lovely-looking phones that befit their price tags. But I do need to dig into the merits of each one – and one or two concerns.

Z Fold6

Samsung has been making foldables for longer than any other brand on this list. Does it show? Kinda. The Z Fold6 feels premium and the hinge suggests that there are many years of development behind it. But it hasn’t really changed, looks-wise, for years. It’s still far too narrow for many when closed and considerably thicker than the other three devices on this list. Thankfully, the quality of those displays is top-notch.

Magic V3

Honor appears to have pulled off the impossible with the Magic V3. It is so impossibly thin that you’d be forgiven for assuming that it isn’t a foldable phone when closed. Despite this, the hinge inspires loads of confidence, and you never feel like treating it with kid gloves. Oh, and if you think the displays might have suffered during the weight loss – they haven’t; they’re superb.

OnePlus Open Apex

Although subjective, I think the OnePlus Open is the smartest-looking device out of the four we’re comparing today – particularly in Crimson Shadow Apex form. This is in no small part due to the choice of material on the rear casing and that purposeful camera bump. It always draws comments and for the right reasons.

Pixel 9 Pro Fold

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has received mixed reviews, but I’m a huge fan of Google’s foldable – particularly this second iteration. It feels like a revolution rather than an evolution because it not only fixes the issues of the first generation – it builds on the unmistakable Google Pixel design aesthetic, making it one of the most recognisable foldables on the market.

Winner: Magic V3

The crease

Given what I said earlier, it feels almost pointless to raise this as a point of consideration during a foldable phone comparison. They all have creases – just at varying degrees. There are subtle differences, though, and I appreciate those differences might sway your buying decision.

The Z Fold6 has a less pronounced crease than the Fold5, but it’s only marginally more shallow than that of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which has the deepest crease on this list. In second place is the Magic V3 which, again, appears to defy all logic and still do its best to hide the crease within that impossibly thin frame.

The crown, however, must be placed on the head of the OnePlus Open, whose crease barely feels like it made its way out of the R&D department.

Winner: OnePlus Open

Operating system experience

I was all set to do a deep dive on this section, but then I realised how long it would take and how little interest I have in spending that much time on something which, when stripped back, is rather a moot point.

All four of these devices offer multitasking, obviously. You’ll be able to fit up to three apps on the screen at once, along with a floating (or pop-up) window, or two. In my experience, that can all get rather messy, so I’d advise keeping things simple and sticking to side-by-side two-window multitasking only. That’s where foldables excel.

The Z Fold6 and Pixel 9 Pro Fold are heavily focused on AI, if that’s your thing, although it should be noted that the other two have the now-ubiquitous consumer-focused AI stuff built in, too. They just don’t shout about it quite so loudly in their marketing material (something of which I’m a fan).

All four devices have their own ecosystems into which they can slot. All of them also feel fluid and easy to use while whipping around the operating system. Samsung has a slight march on the other three in terms of software development, given how long they’ve been making these things, but the results of that aren’t particularly evident.

I can therefore only come to one conclusion for this particular point of comparison.

Winner: a tie across the board

Everyday photo performance

This isn’t intended to be an in-depth camera comparison between four foldable phones, because that would take forever and there are, after all, lots of those out there already.

I’ve therefore decided to take just one photo for comparison. It’s a relatively challenging subject with the sun beating directly into the lens and plenty of detail hiding in the shadows. I’d love to hear your thoughts on which device grabbed the best exposure here, but I’d also implore you to do your research on the camera capabilities of each phone before making a decision – it’s such an important element of ownership.

For me, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold still edges it because I love the Pixel look. It feels like I’m in the minority on this when it comes to Google’s latest foldable, but I don’t care – and that’s why smartphone camera performance is so subjective.

Winner: Pixel 9 Pro Fold

Conclusion

The great thing about these four devices is that they all offer something for the right audience and a great deal of value – again, for the right buyer.

I’d wager that you had a pretty good idea about which one is for you even before you started reading my words today. Equally, you may already have purchased your foldable and just fancied legitimising your purchase (that happens a lot, and it’s totally understandable).

As we head into 2025, there will of course be a new batch of foldable smartphones from which to choose. But given the longevity on offer from the chips, design, and operating systems in this list – and the fact there’s often a very tasty deal to be had – you can’t go wrong with buying one of these devices.

My overall winner is the OnePlus Open Apex. The price, design, camera system, and desirability factor make it hard to beat, and I can’t wait to see what OnePlus does next.

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