Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold vs OnePlus Open: The foldable market is becoming crowded

Google is about to officially announce its next phones in roughly two weeks' time. That's a bit earlier than usual, but you won't catch us complaining! Aside from the regular Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro, we are also getting a larger Pixel 9 Pro XL… and a Pixel 9 Pro Fold. 

Yes, that's right, instead of the Pixel Fold 2, we are getting a foldable that carries the Pixel 9 Pro Fold name. The phone will improve on many aspects of the first Pixel Fold, changing the overall design, shape, and internal hardware. Important changes that will showcase Google's commitment to this new form factor.

In the other corner, we have the OnePlus Open. It's no secret that we were quite impressed with OnePlus' first crack at coming up with a competitive foldable phone. However, the OnePlus Open pioneer might be getting slightly long in the tooth now. 

Could the Pixel 9 Pro Fold use that as grounds for an assault?

Pixel 9 Pro Fold: pre-order at Best Buy + $350 Gift Card

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold succeeded Google's Pixel Fold from last year. The latest foldable offers a number of improvements over the first generation. You can pre-order yours at Best Buy with a $350 Gift Card. Trade-ins unlock up to $460 discount at Best Buy.

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Pre-order Pixel 9 Pro Fold with a $350 Gift Card

Pre-order the Pixel 9 Pro Fold at Amazon, and you'll receive a $350 Gift Card alongside your smartphone purchase.

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As we mentioned, the second-gen Google foldable phone will be scoring a serious redesign. 

The new Pixel 9 Pro Fold will be taller and slightly narrower, in contrast with the Pixel Fold, which employs a more rectangular shape and is wider when folded. That made the Pixel Fold quite the different foldable phone, a joy to use folded with a single hand thanks to the extremely usable cover screen.

We also expect the Pixel 9 Pro Fold to be thinner and lighter, though we don't expect Google to use of titanium on that one. 

A big visual change could be the vastly redesigned rear camera island. It's a pop-out camera island once again, meaning that it sticks out of the glass back in an imposing way, but it's also a dual-floored one now: we have two rows of cameras. 

Meanwhile, the OnePlus Open is a very lightweight foldable phone, with an overall weight of just 239gr (or 245gr depending on which color version you go for). The foldable is also employing a mostly square aspect ratio on the inside, but the cover screen also strikes the perfect balance between size and single-hand usability. 

One thing that has to be addresses is the display crease that's the crux of all foldable phones. Dread it, run from it, the crease arrives all the same. That said, the OnePlus Open has a mostly negligible crease that's the closest we've seen to a crease-free device. The Pixel Fold, on the other hand, had one of the deepest ones, so the Pixel 9 Pro XL has lots of room for improvement on that front. 

The OnePlus Open is an IPX4-rated device, meaning that it's not protected against dust but is splashproof. The recent Galaxy Z Fold 6 is resistant to dust larger than 1mm, so we are hopeful the Pixel 9 Pro Fold pulls something like that out of Google's pocket.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is expected to boast an 8-inch internal and a 6.3-inch external screen. Both displays will be OLED ones, with dynamic refresh rate ranging between 1 and 120Hz. We have an inkling that the two displays could feature very high peak brightness, just like the Pixel 8 series and likely the rest of the Pixel 9 range.

The OnePlus Open boasts an ever-so-slightly smaller inner OLED display, a 7.83-inch one, while the external one is also a 6.3-inch one. Both displays are LTPO 3.0 ones, which means that we have super-smooth dynamic refresh rate jumping between 1 and 120Hz (10-120Hz for the cover screen), depending on the context. 

You will find a hardware capacitive fingerprint scanner embedded right into the OnePlus Open's power button on the side, so no in-display fingerprint scanner here. The same applied to the Pixel Fold, so there's a high chance Google will use such a capacitive fingerprint scanner with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, too. 

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold will come along with the Tensor G4 chipset, which is based on a 4nm manufacturing process. Actually, all Pixel 9 devices will come with this chip. The Tensor G4 will be a pretty big jump in performance and efficiency in comparison with the Pixel Fold, which came along with the Tensor G2. 

The OnePlus Open, on the other hand, came with the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, which is no longer the best one available in Qualcomm's arsenal. However, it's still a pretty potent chipset that surely delivers outstanding performance for most tasks. 

That said, the OnePlus Open beat the Pixel Fold in our synthetic benchmark tests; the difference was quite stark in the graphics processing 3DMark Extreme test. Here's to hoping that the Tensor G4 in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold will improve on that.

The OnePlus Open has 16GB of RAM, and we expect the same for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, as the device will have some pretty demanding needs for on-device AI processing. The OnePlus Open doesn't have that many AI features, while we expect the Pixel 9 Pro Fold to be overflowing with such. 

Google's foldable will also be supported until 2031, including major Android updates, security patches, and feature drops; the OnePlus Open will get four years of software support––until 2027.

New rumors suggest we might get a slightly different camera setup on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The main camera could measure at 64MP and use the Sony IMX787 sensor. The ultra-wide one will likely use a 12MP Samsung 3LU sensor. Finally, the telephoto could utilize a different sensor, the 10.5MP Samsung 3J1.

As a refresher, last year's Pixel Fold came with a 48MP main camera, an 8.8MP ultra-wide, a 10.8MP telephoto camera with 5X optical zoom, and two selfie cameras, a 9.5MP external and an 8MP internal one.

Meanwhile, the OnePlus Open was also very well-equipped in the camera department. The phone came with a 48MP main + 48MP ultra-wide + 64MP 3X telephoto (6X in-sensor zoom, 120X max zoom). 

What's interesting is the stacked sensor for the main camera: it was one of Sony's new LYTIA sensors, the LYTIA-T808 in particular, and delivered very decent low-light image quality and dynamics.

Overall, with the use of AI and image enhancements, we are quite eager to see how Google will improve the camera experience on its foldable. The potential is certainly there. 

Also read: Pixel 9 camera: Expected specs and upgrades

We've heard that Google's next foldable phone will likely come with a battery in the ballpark of 4,560mAh, which doesn't sound particularly reassuring when compared to the Pixel Fold's 4,821mAh battery. Even though the Tensor G4 will surely be more efficient, it might not be able to cover for the major difference in battery life. Here's to hoping the new foldable will arrive with a larger battery. 

Meanwhile, the OnePlus Open fit a 4,806mAh battery with pretty decent endurance on board. Interestingly, the OnePlus Open and the original Pixel Fold were mostly tied in our custom battery tests, except for our 3D gaming test in which the OnePlus Open pulled a serious lead. Read more in the dedicated Pixel Fold vs OnePlus Open comparison!

Charging-wise, there is no competition: the OnePlus Open comes along with superfast 67W wired charging, which fully tops it up in just 43 minutes. And although the OnePlus Open has no wireless charging, it had a 67W charger in the box, which is great!

It's unclear if Google will throw much faster charging in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and we honestly doubt it. We are likely getting the same 33W wired and 23W wireless charging support on the upcoming phone, which will fully charge it in north of an hour and a half. 

Here's how the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the OnePlus Open specs will compare:

So, Google and OnePlus have already broken ground on the foldable market, but both of their first-gen phones have room for improvement in many areas (although it may be argued that the OnePlus device was superior). 

From the looks of it, Google will be turning things all the way up to 11 and will be improving many weaknesses of the first Pixel Fold.

Meanwhile, we don't expect OnePlus to be sitting idly. Yet, the OnePlus Open is still a very capable phone that doesn't feel stale at all. In fact, it's still one of the best foldables you might consider. 

Which one should you get? We will have to wait for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold to break ground in August, but currently, the clash between these two titans seems inevitable.