OnePlus has had a busy time at MWC 2023, showing off a OnePlus 11 Concept phone, letting us deliver a hands-on OnePlus Pad review, and revealing a OnePlus 45W Liquid Cooler. But the company might have saved the best for last.
In a panel hosted by TechRadar’s Senior Phones Editor Alex Walker-Todd, we learned from Kinder Liu, President and COO of OnePlus, that the company is building its first foldable phone, and plans to launch the device before the end of 2023.
Specifically, this OnePlus foldable is set to land in the second half of the year, so sometime between July and December.
Speaking about the phone, Liu said: “Our first foldable phone will have the signature OnePlus fast and smooth experience. It must be a flagship phone that doesn’t settle because of its folding form, in terms of industrial design, mechanical technology, and other aspects. We want to launch a device that aims to be at the pinnacle experience of today’s foldable market.”
So it sounds like this will be a no-compromise phone, and will probably also therefore be very expensive. That said, most OnePlus phones – including the OnePlus 11 – are slightly cheaper than a lot of their rivals, so there’s some hope that the same might be true of the company’s first foldable.
OnePlus hasn’t revealed anything else about this phone yet, but it has said that more information will be revealed in the coming months. This is a company that tends to drip-feed information ahead of launches though, so we may well learn most of the details before the OnePlus foldable is fully unveiled.
Analysis: it could be similar to the Oppo Find N2
While OnePlus hasn’t said more about its foldable phone, there are some clues as to the form it might take.
For one thing, we’ve heard rumors of a OnePlus foldable for a while, and the more recent ones suggested that it might be based on the Oppo Find N, which was only available in China.
OnePlus is a subsidiary of Oppo, so that’s certainly a possibility; although since we heard these leaks, the Oppo Find N2 launched, so basing the OnePlus foldable on the newer phone seems more likely.
The Oppo Find N2 is also only available in China (though the Oppo Find N2 Flip has launched more widely) so in most of the world it wouldn’t be a competitor to a OnePlus device.
This is just speculation though, so don’t be surprised if the OnePlus foldable is something completely different; but for reference, the Oppo Find N2 has a 7.1-inch 1792 x 1920 foldable display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 5.54-inch 1080 x 2120 cover screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 4,520mAh battery with 67W charging.
It also has a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and a triple-lens camera with a 50MP wide snapper, a 48MP ultrawide, and a 32MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom. That’s an impressive assortment of specs, so if the OnePlus foldable is based on this then it could have a great shot at ranking among the best foldable phones.
