As the debut of the first rumored foldable from the OnePlus brand approaches, the company notes that flip phones just aren’t in the cards. This comes as its sister company, Oppo, releases the Find N3 – a flip phone.
The OnePlus foldable – rumored to be named the “Open” – will mark the first folding device from the OnePlus brand to date. It’s set to run top-end specs with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and house a pretty sick camera array that brings Hasselblad-branded hardware.
In a recent interview, Peter Lau – co-founder of OnePlus – dove into the technicality of developing a foldable for OnePlus. It’s noted that the OnePlus Open uses an updated version of the hinge found in the Find N2, which was developed under the Oppo namesake.
OnePlus has had a devoted following of Android users for many years now, and with the exodus of Carl Pei, it and Oppo – companies under BBK Electronics – have grown closer and closer in look and feel. Back in 2021, the two companies merged R&D teams, and Peter Lau became the lead of “brand synergy.” Since then, the lines between the two companies’ devices have somewhat blurred, and the latest lineup of foldable makes that case clearer than ever.
That’s why it’s incredibly interesting that OnePlus stated it has no plans to release a flip phone-style foldable at this stage. According to Pete Lau, the target for the OnePlus Open is set on “business elites” – doctors, financial workers, and executives. It seems that the target demographic doesn’t lend itself to flip phones, which have become so incredibly popular since their inception.
Target users of the first-generation folding phone of OnePlus are more like the business elites and technology elites. They are people who work in finance, they are enegineers, doctors, etc.. They are more or less the users of the…
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