Rumours suggest that OnePlus could be entering the world of foldable phones some time this year. Reports say the company may already have two devices in the works already, likely based on the Find N foldable series that has already been released by OnePlus parent company Oppo.
Here’s all we know so far about the as yet unnamed – and so far unofficial – OnePlus foldable phones.
When will the OnePlus foldable phone be released?
OnePlus has yet to actually confirm that it will release any foldable device, so there’s no indication of when or if it might arrive.
Tipster Max Jambor has teased that the launch will come this year, in an only slightly cryptic visual leak for the announcement:
We also have some reason to believe the first foldables are coming soon because the company has trademarked names for them in China: OnePlus V Fold and OnePlus V Flip. That obviously suggests that two phones are coming in different form factors, and that they must already be in the works. Mukul Sharma, the journalist who first spotted the trademarks, even reports that according to his source the phones have begun internal testing.
How much will the OnePlus foldable phone cost?
As with the release date, we don’t have any solid details about how much you’ll need to spend to buy a foldable phone from OnePlus. What we do know is that many rumours suggest that the OnePlus foldables will be heavily based on the Oppo Find N series, presumably the latest Find N2 and Find N2 Flip, so we can use their prices as a guide.
Here’s how much the Oppo Find N costs in China, where it’s on sale now:
If the rumours are true, then the OnePlus foldable could have very similar price points to that of those listed above.
What specs and features will we see in the OnePlus foldable phones?
Indian tech site PriceBaba was where the strongest rumours about the OnePlus foldable originated. In April 2022 it posted a story outlining that the new foldable would be “a copy of Oppo’s Find N.” This was in collaboration with tech reporter Yogesh Brar who regularly contributes to sites like 91Mobiles, which specialises in leaks about new devices.
This isn’t as unusual as it might sound, because OnePlus is one of the subsidiary companies of BBK Electronics, which also owns Oppo, Realme and Vivo. We’ve also seen in the recent past that the two brands in question now share teams for R&D and design.
Still, the Find N is now over a year old, so it’s likely that any new OnePlus foldable would be more closely based on the follow-up Find N2, or its clamshell Find N2 Flip sibling.
Pete Lau, the chief product officer for both OnePlus and Oppo (and one of OnePlus’s founders) has shared a tease of what appears to be a foldable phone’s hinge on Twitter, confirming that work is still ongoing on more foldables. This could simply have been a reference to the second-gen Oppo Find N, but it’s just as possible that this is our first look at a component from the OnePlus folding phones.
It could be that BBK is looking at developing different brands in particular marketplaces. OnePlus is well established in the US, UK, and European markets, so it could be a strategy that OnePlus launches essentially the same device as Oppo, but for the West, while Oppo will focus on the Asian markets where the name recognition is stronger.
With the Vivo X Fold unveiled in April 2022, it would seem reasonable to assume that the remaining BBK companies, OnePlus and Realme, enter the fray quite soon, which would be made much easier by the sharing of technologies across their brands. It thus seems most likely that the eventual OnePlus foldable will be based on either the Oppo Find N or its follow-up.
It’s a more compact form factor compared to the Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 that also launched last year.
For now, you can check out our guides to the best new phones coming in 2023 as well as the best phone deals to see if you can pick up a bargain.
