One of the biggest factors slowing down the mainstream adoption of foldables is durability — users don’t know how well these devices will age against day-to-day usage as compared to something like a regular smartphone. If you were in the market for the newOnePlus Openbut were concerned about its long-term durability, we have good news for you.
There’sa lot to like about OnePlus’s first foldable, bringing much-neededcompetition to the likes of Samsung and Googlein North America. While its specs, form factor, battery life, and cameras are as good as they get on foldables, there was no way to know if the OnePlus Open would stand the test of time without going into the future. Thankfully, we now have the next best thing: a heart-wrenching durability test that subjects the device to extreme abuse to simulate years of use. Spoiler alert: it survived to tell the tale.
YouTuber Zack Nelson, akaJerryRigEverything, put the OnePlus Open through its paces in one of his classic durability tests to vet how the foldable would age. As with most modern smartphones, the Open passed the scratch, burn, and ingress tests with ease.
The outer 6.31-inch cover display with proprietary Ceramic Guard protection had little trouble against a Mohs level 7 pick, but the inner screen with the Ultra Thin Glass was easily damaged with level 3 scratches. This isn’t surprising, though, as the flexible screen is actually closer to toughened plastic than to glass. Other foldables on the market have fared similarly when it comes to their folding screens. Luckily, the back panel and camera module are rather scratch-resistant.
The hinge on the OnePlus Open is claimed to be strong enough to withstand over a million folding cycles. While that’s a difficult metric to test, Zack did add some gravel and slammed the phone open and shut multiple times to try for edge cases. The choice of hardware and the IPX4 ingress protection design lived up to expectations and kept dust and debris out of the hinge mechanism. In fact, the Open issurprisingly durable against hard dropsas well.
Things get more exciting with the last test, where the OnePlus Open is bent in all directions, in both folded and unfolded formats. This is where most foldables fail — including theGoogle Pixel FoldandMotorola Razr+— owing to their thinner profile and hinge structures.
When unfolded open and bent backward (the direction in which the phone is not supposed to be folded), the OnePlus Open exhibited some flexion beyond 180° but returned to its original state once the pressure was relieved. Even the flexible screen continued to function perfectly, just that it no longer snapped shut the way it used to.
The choice of materials, such as titanium alloy and carbon fiber in the frame of the OnePlus Open, along with the refined hinge design, enables the device to be strong and relatively lightweight. With this success, OnePlus has set the bar higher with its first foldable, reaffirming our belief that it isthe best foldable currently available.
