OnePlus’ reason for not releasing a new foldable this year doesn’t make any sense

Ben Schoon | Feb 16 2025 - 9:00 am PT

After releasing the most highly-praised foldable in recent memory back in 2023, OnePlus says it still won’t release an “Open 2” in 2025, and the brand’s reasoning for the delay doesn’t seem to make much sense.

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Foldables have only been around for a few years at this point, with Samsung’s original Galaxy Fold breaking new ground just back in 2019. There are some obvious reasons that it’s felt like that was a lot longer ago, but in all reality, this is very much still “new” ground for smartphones as a whole.

Yet, things have felt pretty boring for a little while now.

That’s because the main voice in foldables, Samsung, hasn’t been pushing the envelope. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a perfectly fine foldable, but it doesn’t change much compared to the prior four generations, and the same is true of the Galaxy Z Flip series. Outside of the new cover screen on the Flip 5, we haven’t seen any major or meaningful improvements in quite some time. But Samsung doesn’t exist in a bubble.There’s a whole market of competitors out there pushing things forward and showing what’s possible with foldables today, and it’s impressive. The Honor Magic V3 is a remarkably thin foldable. The Xiaomi Mi Mix Flip offers a killer setup for a flip-style foldable with a massive battery.

But the thing is, these brands aren’t applying any pressure to Samsung.

In large part, brands that are trying to push the limits of foldable smartphones are selling those devices in China, not to the rest of the globe. Even when they are sold internationally, they aren’t always the most appealing devices, whether than be for software deficiencies or pricing. And, in the United States, Samsung remained largely unchallenged for a long time.

The first foldable that really tried to give Samsung a run for its money in the US was 2023’s Google Pixel Fold, an ultimately flawed foldable that did deliver a surprisingly great foundation that was built into 2024’s excellent Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

But the device that really felt poised to pressure Samsung didn’t come from Google, it came from OnePlus.

2023’s OnePlus Open was based on the Oppo Find N3, and brought the prowess of Oppo’s existing foldables that’d been released in China to the rest of the world. The Open was immediately praised for its excellent hardware, great cameras, and shockingly-good software. Truly, this was the device that not only tried to challenge Samsung, but beat the original foldable brand on quite literally all fronts. And it seemed to be a hit. Not long after its launch, OnePlus said that the Open was hitting records for sales and selling out in just hours whenever it was restocked.

So why are we still not getting a sequel?

Earlier this week, OnePlus confirmed that it will not release a new foldable in 2025. The company acknowledged the expectations that the Oppo Find N5 would be the basis of an “Open 2” sometime this year, but says it won’t be releasing any foldables.

Why? That’s a good question.

OnePlus says that it decided not to release a new foldable in 2025 because, at its core, the brand wants to “[set] new benchmarks and [challenge] the status quo across all product categories.”

Looking at the Oppo Find N5, that argument makes no sense.

The Oppo Find N5, as we detailed in our hands-on earlier this week, is a stunning piece of foldable hardware. It’s remarkably thin and well-constructed and really just makes past devices look ancient by comparison. By very definition, the new “world’s thinnest” foldable sets new benchmarks, and by releasing such a device in the United States and other markets where Samsung lacks proper competition, OnePlus would be “challenging the status quo.” And, in 2025, the foldable market needs that, especially as Apple’s entrance looms.

It stands to reason that, after taking a backseat on the global stage for the Find N3, Oppo would want to give the Find N5 more room to shine. But that seems like an odd choice as OnePlus would be the only route for such a device to be released on a truly global scale.

This decision remains a head-scratcher, but ultimately, it’s just a shame that we won’t get “OnePlus Open 2” this year. It’s great news for Samsung, though, as the company’s upcoming foldables won’t feel any pressure as, for huge portions of the market, there simply won’t be many other options.

Hopefully Google will release a really good Pixel Fold this year?

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