The OnePlus Open Apex Edition Looks Fancy Enough To Drive

Sure, OnePlus is saying that its refreshed Open Apex Edition (no relation to Apex Legends, sadly) foldable phone is inspired by Hasselblad’s 503CW 60 Years Victor Red Edition—whatever that means—but let’s be real: This thing, with its Crimson Shadow faux leather casing, looks like the interior of an expensive, mid-life crisis sports car. But instead of driving it to the club to recapture some sliver of lost youth, you use it to post depressing vacation selfies on Instagram.

Because nobody wants to see a middle-age dad, up way past his bedtime, drunk-swaying to Dua Lipa’s Houdini beneath an angry strobe light, truly. But I digress.

Admittedly, I never got a chance to test out OnePlus’ debut foldable device, the original Open, back in 2023. I have, however, used several of Samsung’s excellent Folds, including last year’s Z Fold5, and I walked away rather impressed. I do tend to prefer the expanded screen real estate of a fold-out phone, especially for gaming, and judging from reviews, it seems that OnePlus might have a slightly updated winner with 2024’s Open Apex Edition. If you don’t already own an Open, that is. Otherwise, it might be worth saving money and waiting for the inevitable Open 2.

While it sports an upgraded 1TB of internal storage and a new VIP security chip for quickly turning off the device’s microphone and camera within apps, this is, at a basic hardware level, the same phone as last year’s model, notes Android Central. Same respectable displays, same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, same 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, same outdated water resistance, and same lack of future system updates to reliably count on. So for the $1,899 asking price, you’re getting what’s essentially a decent mid-generation refresh (in a fancy deep red colorway, yes) for your aforementioned mid-life crisis.

One of my ongoing complaints regarding Samsung’s Fold phones is the annoyingly slim cover screen. It’s terrible for gaming, and even though I’m usually playing stuff on the larger inner screen, it’d be nice to have the occasional option for comfortable external play. Apparently, the OnePlus Open, and the Apex Edition by hardware relation, both have a more agreeable cover screen aspect ratio, and I’d be interested in trying that out with my mobile gaming library. Speaking of, 16GB of RAM is more than enough bandwidth to run most mobile titles smoothly, I’d wager.

Overall, this looks like a very solid foldable phone, and I’m hoping to get my hands on a review sample soon for benchmarks and a side-by-side comparison to Samsung’s offerings, most notably in the gaming department.

You can order the Open Apex Edition now on OnePlus’ website.