OnePlus Announces Foldable Phone
OnePlus announced today at MWC’23 that they are working on a foldable phone that will be released later this year. This is important news as it sets the stage for the first serious competitor to Samsung’s foldable phones in the US, which have been dominating the market for foldables. The upcoming OnePlus foldable could potentially upset this established status-quo.
OnePlus 11
A few weeks ago, OnePlus announced the OnePlus 11, streamlining their portfolio and leaving the door wide open for more exciting announcements later this year. COO and President Kinder 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.”
Hardware
OnePlus does not reveal too much about its upcoming foldable phone, but there have been rumors that the company could borrow most of the hardware from sister company Oppo. In particular, the Oppo Find N2 name has been regularly thrown in as the most possible “donor” for OnePlus’ foldable endeavor. The Oppo Find N2 was released in China back in December, with a large 7.1-inch internal display, Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.
Given that OnePlus will be released much later in 2023, we expect hardware improvements. Most notably, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 could be a very big performance and efficiency improvement that would make the OnePlus foldable phone a competitive entrant on the market.
