Economies of scale mean that once a product becomes popular, it costs less too. But that causes a Catch-22 – it’s difficult for an expensive product to become popular. Right now that is the problem facing foldables, especially the horizontal variety.
Last week’s poll shows that the OnePlus Open is a very promising phone. It might even be the best in class that the markets outside of China have seen. And yet… well, the pie chart speaks for itself, 40% of voters have interest in the Open, but find it too pricey.
To be fair, it costs less than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold5 (unless you get in on one of the Samsung deals, which are fairly frequent, but OnePlus has a deal too). Either way $100/€100 less feels trivial when you’re looking at a $1,700/€1,800 price tag. Alas, that’s not a problem that will be solved overnight – even several years after the first foldables hit the market, the prices are still fairly high.
Other than that, there was the usual contingent of “I don’t want a foldable” voters. For some that means any foldable, though we don’t think that people looking at a large horizontal foldable will buy a small flip foldable as an alternative.
Those aside, few think that there is a better horizontal foldable in their market right now. OnePlus (and, let’s be honest, Oppo) deserve kudos for the impressive hardware that they built. And OxygenOS 13.2 with the new foldable-centric features managed to impress, even coming from the foldable version of One UI that Samsung has been polishing for years.
In case you missed it, check out our OnePlus Open review, we also have a video review.
