OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: a really close call

Digital Trends

OnePlus has officially entered nan foldable telephone fray, going up against nan likes of Samsung. In fact, OnePlus appears to person done a amazingly awesome occupation successful its very first attempt, blending refined hardware pinch a finely tuned package experience. OnePlus’ folding telephone is called nan OnePlus Open, and it’s a premier competitor of nan Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5.

OnePlus put eager camera hardware wrong nan OnePlus Open that puts it connected par pinch dedicated camera-centric flagships. It besides builds connected nan company’s lead successful artillery charging technology, particularly erstwhile pitted against nan top-tier phones from apical brands for illustration Apple, Samsung, and Google. Is it a due Galaxy Z Fold 5 killer? Read connected to find out.

OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: specs

OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: creation and hardware

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One of nan biggest creation flaws that Samsung addressed pinch its current-generation foldable is nan show wedge, which has been removed. All erstwhile Samsung foldables person had an unfastened spread erstwhile nan 2 halves are shut. This abstraction was an unfastened invitation to dirt, liquid, and different undesirable elements. The Z Fold 5 closes wholly level erstwhile it’s unopen and doesn’t person this problem.

Samsung made advancement this clip astir by paying typical attraction to nan soul foldable surface and nan hinge durability. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 offers IPX8-level protection from particulate and h2o resistance, while nan OnePlus Open is constricted to IPX4 certification and is little resilient. However, if history and my ain acquisition are immoderate indication, nan elastic sheet and nan underlying hinge parts are still vulnerable. And nan worst portion is that repairs don’t travel cheap.

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OnePlus has managed to lick that portion of nan problematic equation pinch a gapless creation successful its first attempt. When nan telephone is closed, location is nary spread near crossed immoderate edge. Both nan phones trust connected a metallic and solid foundation, but OnePlus erstwhile again went for a much exquisite concoction. Where Samsung uses stainless alloy and Gorilla Glass Victus, nan OnePlus Open embraces a cobalt molybdenum alloy and titanium alloy that is said to beryllium 4 times stronger than surgical-grade stainless steel.

Coming to nan show engineering, nan instauration is identical — a elastic Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) layer. But that’s wherever nan similarities end. Where Samsung adopts Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus, nan OnePlus Open takes nan Apple approach. The Chinese smartphone shaper utilized what it calls Ceramic Guard, which is said to beryllium 20% stronger than nan Gorilla Glass Victus connected nan Galaxy Z Fold 5.

Even successful nan aesthetics department, OnePlus has taken an separator complete its Samsung rival.  The OnePlus Open stays loyal to nan brand’s signature greenish reside pinch a frosted solid finish. But it’s nan 2nd trim, pinch a leather decorativeness added to it, that really stands out. There aren’t galore phones retired location — and surely not from nan mainstream brands sold successful nan West — that connection a leather-derived look connected phones.

Winner: OnePlus Open

OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: screens

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One of nan biggest trade-offs that Samsung made successful its quest to make foldable phones much comfortable was making them gangly truthful that one-handed usage is not overmuch of a chore. But successful doing so, nan institution went pinch a gangly facet ratio for nan screen show that really takes its ain toll connected nan personification acquisition because of overseas app scaling owed of tight horizontal space. On nan OnePlus Open, nan outer surface is simply a earthy 20:9 format, which intends you won’t look immoderate issues pinch really apps cookware retired connected this panel.

Otherwise, some nan panels are arsenic bully arsenic 1 gets connected a phone. On nan Galaxy Z Fold 5, you get a 6.2-inch HD+ screen surface and a 7.6-inch soul foldable sheet pinch QXGA+ resolution. But nan screens are of nan AMOLED assortment and connection a highest refresh complaint of 120Hz. On nan OnePlus Open, nan outer 6.3-inch show offers a higher 2K resolution, while nan soul surface is somewhat bigger astatine 7.82 inches across, pinch a noticeably higher solution of 2,440 x 2,268 pixels. Once again, you’re looking astatine OLED panels pinch a maximum 120Hz refresh rate.

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Both OnePlus and Samsung person baked successful their ain system-level tweaks for app model management. But nan Galaxy Z Fold 5 takes nan lead pinch tricks for illustration DeX, which fundamentally turns your telephone into a PC that offers an Android-derived desktop computing acquisition connected nan larger screen. Samsung besides makes it highly easy to usage nan telephone arsenic a secondary show for your PC courtesy of nan Smart View system.

It’s difficult to prime a victor present successful position of sheer quality, arsenic some phones connection screens pinch a vivid colour profile, capable brightness output, and freaky viewing angles. But if 1 were to nitpick, nan soul foldable surface connected nan Galaxy Z Fold seems much immersive, and that’s because of nan under-display camera tech that virtually hides nan information selfie camera and offers an all-screen experience. We’re still going to telephone it a tie, though.

Winner: Tie

OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: cameras

Christine Romero-Chan / Digital Trends

If 1 were to do a spec assessment, nan OnePlus Open’s camera hardware is leaps and bounds up of nan Galaxy Z Fold 5. On its maiden foldable phone, OnePlus has fitted an all-new Sony sensor pinch a fundamentally reimagined pixel-level photodiode architecture, which results successful photos pinch much specifications and tighter power complete colors. It’s a 48-megapixel optically stabilized sensor that sits alongside different 48MP electronically stabilized camera for ultrawide capture.

The telephoto camera is nan astir absorbing constituent here. Despite nan phone’s impressively bladed profile, OnePlus managed to cram successful a monolithic 64MP periscope-style telephoto camera that offers an optical zoom scope of 3x, in-sensor 6x zoom output, and up to 120x Ultra Res integer zoom coverage. The screen surface hosts a 20-megapixel selfie camera, while nan soul foldable sheet is location to a 32MP sensor.

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On nan Galaxy Z Fold 5, you get a 50MP telephoto camera, a 10-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 10-megapixel telephoto camera that delivers 3x optical and 30x integer zoom. This is simply a regular pancake format telephoto camera, dissimilar nan folded lens strategy you get connected nan OnePlus Open that guarantees a overmuch higher zoom output.

To grip selfies, Samsung’s foldable offers a 10MP camera connected nan beforehand and a 4MP under-display camera sandwiched betwixt nan foldable sheet halves. But successful nan latter’s case, invention comes astatine a cost. Since nan camera is covered by a furniture of pixels, nan last image turns retired noticeably softer, pinch mislaid specifications and a batch of software-side reconstruction done to it.

Winner: OnePlus Open

OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: internals

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Samsung’s foldable flagship relies connected Qualcomm’s 8 Gen 2 chip, paired pinch 12GB RAM and up to 1TB onboard storage. The OnePlus Open relies connected nan aforesaid processor, but offers 16GB of RAM and half nan highest retention astatine 512GB. There’s besides a virtual RAM installation connected nan array that borrows immoderate of nan UFS 4.0 retention and deploys it arsenic move RAM.

OnePlus takes a monolithic lead erstwhile it comes to nan powerfulness segment. The Chinese brand’s foldable telephone features a bigger 4,805 mAh battery. It offers support for 67-watt accelerated charging, pinch OnePlus claiming that you tin complaint nan telephone from quiet to 100% juice successful 42 minutes. There is nary support for wireless charging here.

On nan Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, you get a smaller 4,400 mah artillery that only goes up to 25W wired charging. However, it offers support for 15W wireless charging and besides nan installation to juice up different accessories for illustration earbuds astatine a 5W output by conscionable putting them atop nan phone’s rear shell.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5

OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: software

Christine Romero-Chan / Digital Trends

Software tin make aliases break a foldable phone, and astatine nan extremity of nan day, it matters a batch whether you for illustration Samsung’s One UI acquisition aliases OnePlus’ OxygenOS experience. Both foldable phones connection their ain return connected split-screen app multitasking, allowing up to 3 apps to enactment progressive astatine immoderate fixed time. Native Android apps return afloat advantage of nan larger surface existent property and unfastened into a two-page view.

OxygenOS has cultivated a fandom of sorts for customizability, but it doesn’t connection nan aforesaid benignant of elasticity successful tweaking nan UI and behaviour of apps that One UI 5.1 (or later versions) does. The Samsung Labs toolkit and nan Good Lock modules are nan champion examples of heavy system-level customization that isn’t disposable connected immoderate mainstream telephone retired there, foldable aliases otherwise.

Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends

The biggest advantage that nan Galaxy Z Fold 5 has to offer, from a powerfulness user’s perspective, is DeX, which fundamentally gives nan telephone ChromeOS-like superpowers, particularly erstwhile it comes to moving successful a mobile-derived ample surface experience. The OnePlus Open, conscionable for illustration its Samsung rival, besides offers useful screen-mirroring tools, but Samsung conscionable makes it much convenient to entree them.

What useful successful OxygenOS is an progressive community, and compared to One UI, OnePlus has been quicker astatine ironing retired package quirks owing to that. Both nan phones travel pinch an assurance of 4 years worthy of package updates. It isn’t arsenic bully arsenic iPhones aliases nan seven-year update committedness Google made for nan Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, but 4 years is still 1 of nan champion guarantees that Android manufacturers person to offer.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5

OnePlus Open vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5: verdict

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There’s only $100 worthy of quality betwixt nan $1,699 OnePlus Open and nan $1,800 Galaxy Z Fold 5. That’s not a negligible spread by immoderate agelong of nan imagination, but you person to support 3 important aspects successful mind earlier you determine to splurge connected 1 aliases nan other. First, Samsung has partnerships pinch astir each awesome carriers and unit outlets, pinch each doling retired charismatic offers connected its flagship foldable phone. Samsung’s ain speech deals and nan freebies (or shop credits) that it offers importantly bring down nan nett deed connected your wallet

Another facet that you request to support successful mind is nan truth that Samsung has a acold deeper beingness successful nan U.S. marketplace compared to OnePlus, so if you tally into repair and portion replacement situations, getting it done connected a Samsung foldable would beryllium a much convenient acquisition compared to OnePlus. Finally, that IPX8 certification tilts nan longevity standard successful favour of that Galaxy Z Fold 5, and that’s an important information erstwhile it comes to foldable phones.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Digital Trends has reached retired to OnePlus regarding nan brand’s repair and replacement argumentation for nan OnePlus Open and will update this article upon getting a response. From a worth perspective, some phones connection their ain group of benefits, but here’s nan lowdown.

If you activity nan champion camera acquisition and a standout creation that feels arsenic adjacent to a normal telephone experience, nan OnePlus Open is wherever you should look. If you worth marque assurance, can’t unrecorded without wireless charging convenience, and admit what Samsung has to connection connected nan package front, nan Galaxy Z Fold 5 should beryllium your adjacent foldable phone.

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