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Google’s foldable vision
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is Google’s second foldable and a big step up from the original Fold. It packs the Tensor G4 chip, two OLED displays, and a 4,650mAh battery.
Pros- Slim design
- Excellent primary display
- Long software support period
Cons- Finding a compatible wireless charger is tricky
- Relatively slow charging
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Great for multitasking
OnePlus Open
$1300 $1700 Save $400
The OnePlus Open is the company’s first attempt at a foldable. It features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, two LTPO OLED displays, and a 4,805mAh battery.
Pros- Excellent battery life and performance
- Solid displays
- Premium design
Cons- No wireless charging
- No availability via carriers
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a significant improvement over the company’s imperfect debut foldable. It does many things right and has excellent hardware. You also get the promise of Android OS updates for seven years and a solid overall performance. One of its main competitors is the OnePlus Open. This first foldable from the company has fantastic hardware, solid battery life, and helpful foldable software. So, let’s find out how the 9 Pro Fold stacks up against the OnePlus Open.
Price, availability, and specifications
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold carries a price tag of $1,799 for the base 256GB model, whereas you can buy the 512GB model for $1,919. In comparison, the OnePlus Open starts a little cheaper at $1,699 for the 512GB model. It’s also available in a 1TB model for $1,899. Unfortunately, there is no 1TB model for the 9 Pro Fold.
Both foldables are widely available. While you can buy the 9 Pro Fold from T-Mobile and Verizon, none of the carriers carry the OnePlus foldable, though the phone is compatible with all the major networks.
Here’s a quick look at the raw specifications of the two phones before we go deeper.
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Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold OnePlus Open SoC Google Tensor G4 Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Display type AMOLED, 120Hz OLED, 120Hz Display dimensions 8.0” (main); 6.3” (cover) 7.82″ (main); 6.31″ (cover) Display resolution 2152 x 2076 (main); 2424 x 1080 (cover) 2440 x 2268 (main); 2484 x 1116 (cover) RAM 16GB 16GB Storage 256GB or 512GB 512GB Battery 4,650mAh 4805mAh Charge speed 21W wired, 7.5W wireless 67W Charge options USB-C wired, Qi wireless Wired Ports USB-C USB-C SIM support Nano-SIM and eSIM Nano-SIM and eSIM Operating System Android 14 Android 13, OxygenOS 13.2 Front camera 10MP, f/2.2 32MP f/2.4 cover screen selfie camera; 20MP f/2.2 camera on folding screen Rear camera 48MP, f/1.7 main; 10.5MP, f/2.2 ultra-wide; 10.8MP, f/3.1 5x telephoto 48MP f/1.7, 64MP f/2.6 3x camera, 48MP f/2.2 ultrawide Wi-Fi connectivity Wi-Fi 7 Wi-Fi 7 Connectivity NFC, Google Cast, ultra-wideband (UWB), dual band GPS Dual-SIM 5G, LTe, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3 Bluetooth Bluetooth 5.3 Bluetooth 5.3 Weight 257g 239g IP Rating IPX8 IPX4 Colors Obsidian, Porcelain Emerald Dusk, Voyager Black Price $1,799 $1,700
Read our review
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review: Only pro on the inside
‘Pro’ just means ‘expensive’ here
Read our review
The OnePlus Open is what every foldable should be
OnePlus supplies the competition Samsung needs
Design and display
Premium and thin
Although there are some significant differences between the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the OnePlus Open’s designs, the overall shape is very similar. These smartphones have an aluminum frame with a glass front. The back is matte glass in the 9 Pro Fold. However, you get the matte glass back only in OnePlus’ Emerald Dusk color offering. The other two colors — Voyager Black and Crimson Shadow — have eco-leather backs. The two foldables are pretty thin, but Google has managed to edge out the OnePlus with a 5.1mm thickness. Otherwise, the Open is slightly smaller; this size difference means the Open is lighter.
While the 9 Pro Fold has a left-aligned rectangular camera module with rounded corners, the OnePlus Open sports a centrally-aligned circular camera module. Interestingly, OnePlus has placed the LED flash outside the camera module in the top-left corner.
The one advantage the 9 Pro Fold has over the Open is the IPX8 water resistance. The Open is only IPX4 rated, making it resistant to splashes.
Moving on to the displays, the foldables have nice, big displays. The 9 Pro Fold has an 8-inch primary screen with an LTPO OLED panel, 120Hz refresh rate, and 2,700 nits peak brightness, whereas the Open has a 7.82-inch LTPO OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and 2,800 nits peak brightness. So you get vibrant and lifelike images and tons of screen real estate for multitasking.
Unlike Samsung’s tablet-style foldables, the cover screens on the 9 Pro Fold and the Open are also very usable, and you won’t need to open the primary display most of the time. In fact, Google has packed the exact same display as the Pixel 9. The OnePlus Open’s cover display is not 20:9, but it’s pretty close. Both cover displays also have a 120Hz refresh rate and can get very bright. However, as the Open’s cover screen uses an LTPO OLED panel, it can enjoy a variable refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz, compared to Google’s 60Hz to 120Hz.
Software
Pixel experience or Oxygen OS
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has Android 14 out of the box with the same software experience you get on other Pixel smartphones. So, it’s a dependable and solid experience. The company has also improved the overall foldable software a bit since the original Fold’s debut. However, it still has a way to go until it catches up with OnePlus or Samsung. Still, you can run two apps side-by-side, create app pairs, have a picture-in-picture video window, and do more for multitasking. AI features are also a big part of the Pixel experience and will only increase in the coming years. While many of them feel gimmicky, some can come in handy and are helpful.
The OnePlus Open, on the other hand, was introduced with Android 13. However, it has since received the Android 14 update. As you can expect, Android is coated with OxygenOS, so you get a different software experience than a Pixel foldable. While OxygenOS is not without issues, one of the biggest positives is its excellent Canvas multitasking experience, offering plenty of flexibility. You also get floating window support and the ability to drag and drop between apps, making the most out of that 7.8-inch primary display. If you can get over the small headaches, its foldable software is pretty great.
The promise of software updates is one area where the Pixel is hard to beat. Google plans to offer Android OS and security updates for the 9 Pro Fold for seven years. This is significantly more than the promised four years of OS upgrades for the Open and five years of security updates. Keep in mind that Open has already had one OS update with Android 14.
Performance and battery life
Snapdragon still has an edge up
Google used its new Tensor G4 chip in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, whereas you get Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip in the OnePlus Open. Both are capable chips and deliver solid performance. However, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, despite being older than the G4, is a better chip for gaming and battery efficiency. It also doesn’t suffer from abnormal heating. Unlike the previous Tensor chips, Google has clamped down on the heating issues in the G4. While it’s not perfect, it’s much better. The presence of 16GB of RAM certainly helps the overall performance of the smartphones and will come in handy as AI features continue to creep into the software.
The OnePlus Open is a clear step up in the battery department over the 9 Pro Fold. Its 4,805mAh battery consistently delivers eight hours of screen-on time. In comparison, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s 4,650mAh battery is only good for around five hours of screen-on time. Part of the Open’s excellent battery performance is the fact that the phone tends to put apps in deep sleep to minimize background activity. This can impact the incoming notifications. The one solution is to toggle on background activity for essential apps, but it’s extra work.
The Open also offers fast 67W wired charging, but there is no wireless charging support. The Pixel is limited to 21W wired charging and 7.5W wireless charging. However, due to the charging coil’s off-center placement, it can be tricky to choose a wireless charger for the 9 Pro Fold.
Additionally, you’ll get Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, and dual-frequency GPS on both smartphones.
Camera
Great cameras, but for foldables
Given Google’s impressive computational photography skills, you would expect the Pixel 9 Pro Fold to wipe the floor with the OnePlus Open in the camera department. However, that’s not happening here. One of the biggest reasons for this is that, like other foldables, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold cameras aren’t on the same level as traditional smartphones. You get good camera performance but not the same level as a conventional flagship, such as the Pixel 9 Pro. This doesn’t mean OnePlus is succeeding just because Google is faltering. The OnePlus Open’s cameras also deliver excellent performance and are one of the best you can get in a foldable.
Specifically, the 9 Pro Fold’s 48MP primary camera captures solid shots in good lighting conditions. However, its low-light performance leaves a bit to be desired. You also get a 10.5MP wide-angle shooter and a 10.8MP telephoto camera, which also takes good shots, but the phone often relies on the primary shooter to capture low-light scenes.
The 48MP primary camera on the OnePlus Open is excellent. We particularly enjoyed the more natural look of Open’s captures. It also does a better job of capturing the contrast in photos than the 9 Pro Fold. It may not consistently deliver the best shots, but many of its captures are great.
You also get a 64MP telephoto camera and a 48MP ultrawide shooter. Although the ultrawide shooter is serviceable, the telephoto camera takes solid shots of faraway subjects without much effort. However, it struggles with HDR.
The selfie shooters on the two phones are fine, if unremarkable.
Which should you buy?
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the OnePlus Open are two of the three best foldables in North America right now. So it’s tricky to pick one of the two. However, the OnePlus Open edges out the Pixel 9 Pro Fold by a small margin by offering a better SoC, a lighter design, a more affordable price tag, and faster charging. It also has decent cameras, excellent displays, and good software with useful multitasking features for foldables.
Editor’s choice
OnePlus Open
The foldable to buy
$1300 $1700 Save $400
The OnePlus Open is a solid foldable that delivers on almost all aspects. It has excellent performance, a fantastic design, and impressive battery life.
However, if you prefer the Pixel experience, want a long software support period, and don’t plan to game much, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is an equally impressive alternative. It has excellent hardware, a capable chip, and good camera performance. The device also has a decent software experience and AI features. Moreover, it’s the slimmest tablet-style foldable you can buy in the US.
Runner-up
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold
An impressive alternative
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold shows Google’s getting closer to delivering a rock-solid foldable. A massive jump from its predecessor, it’s a good choice for folks who want the Pixel experience and a long software support period.
