Pete Lau has started teasing the OnePlus Fold with pictures
Samsung, Xiaomi, and Motorola all introduced their latest foldable phones just days ago and the Google Pixel Fold is apparently also back from the dead. Oppo might have two bendable phones in the pipeline. There was a holdout in 2020, who was not sold on the idea of foldable phones, but he appears to have started teasing his company's first foldable phone.
OnePlus CEO has apparently posted pictures of OnePlus Fold's hinge
Smartphone manufacturers have started opening up to the idea of foldable phones. Huawei, Samsung, and Motorola were among the first mainstream companies to introduce foldable phones in 2019 and even though they have grown considerably in popularity since then, their sales still pale in comparison to conventional phones.
Samsung is so optimistic that it recently said that it expects its foldable phones to overtake sales of the Galaxy S line by 2025. Even Apple is said to be working on a bendable phone.
Back in 2020, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau had said that foldable phones weren't ready for prime time, and at that time, the company had no plans to launch a foldable phone. The company had researched the form factor but wanted to wait out for better display technology.
OnePlus' sister company, Oppo, wowed everyone with the Find N late last year which has a flat display with no crease and folds without a gap - just the things that OnePlus wanted.
Thus, it is no wonder that the OnePlus Fold rumors started swirling soon after the launch of the Oppo Find N, which despite being a great phone, couldn't threaten the dominance of Samsung's best foldable phones because it was China exclusive.
OnePlus software lead Gary Chen corroborated those rumors earlier this year and said that the phone would run a tweaked version of Android 13-based OxygenOS 13.
Today, Lau posted a couple of pictures on Twitter, asking his followers "What do you think this is?"
They clearly seem like pictures of a hinge and it unsurprisingly resembles Oppo Find N's hinge more than Z Fold 3's.
BBK-owned OnePlus and Oppo have started collaborating more closely than in the past on everything from design to software, so the OnePlus Fold might end up being a rebranded version of the Find N with OxygenOS instead of ColorOS.
Not that most OnePlus fans would mind, considering the Find N is not widely available. We can expect more teasers to drop soon. According to an earlier report, the device will be released in 2023.
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