New OnePlus Open won't be launched this year
Similar to 2023, people expected the company to release a new OnePlus Open phone this year based on the recently unveiled OPPO Find N5. However, that won't be the case. In an open letter, OnePlus announced it won't launch a foldable phone this year.
Vale Gu, product manager at OnePlus, revealed that OPPO (OnePlus' parent company) will take the lead in the foldable smartphone segment this year. In a post, he wrote that OnePlus will “pause on foldable for this generation.”
The OnePlus Open trumped Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 5 by offering bigger screens, better camera hardware, a thinner and lighter body, a bigger battery, and faster charging at a lower price. The device managed to impress a lot of people. Many consumers liked the OnePlus Open due to its form factor, which offered a regular phone-like screen size and aspect ratio when it is folded.
This year, though, Samsung won't have to worry about OnePlus' foldable phone in markets like Canada, the US, and several European countries. In other countries, OPPO might launch the Find N5 to compete with the Galaxy Z Fold 7.
What about the OPPO Find N5?
The OPPO Find N5's design was revealed a few days ago. It is just 8.93mm thin, becoming the world's thinnest book-style foldable phone. It has a 6.62-inch cover screen, an 8.12-inch foldable screen, and a 5,600mAh battery with 80W fast charging. It has an IPX9 rating for water resistance.
OPPO's newest foldable phone is equipped with the 7-core CPU variant of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. It has two 8MP selfie cameras (the cover screen and the foldable screen), a 50MP primary camera with OIS, a 50MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, and an 8MP ultrawide camera.
It weighs just 229g, which makes it 7g lighter than Samsung's best foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition.
Galaxy Z Fold 7 needs to be thinner, lighter, and have better camera hardware
Even Samsung is said to be bringing a thinner foldable this year in the form of the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The phone will reportedly feature an 8-core version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite, bigger screens with wider aspect ratios, and possibly better cameras. However, it might not be as thin as the OPPO Find N5.
Samsung needs to improve the camera hardware by introducing higher-resolution ultrawide and telephoto camera sensors. It also needs to increase the battery capacity and improve the charging speeds of Galaxy Z series devices if it wants to compete with foldable phones from Chinese brands.
Image Credits: OnePlus, OPPO
