OnePlus Open's first official look shows off new gapless hinge

Pete Lau, Founder of OnePlus and SVP and CPO of OPPO, recently confirmed that the OnePlus Open and OPPO Find N3 are the same device. Now Lau is giving us an official look at an early build of the foldable.

In an interview with Lewis Hilsenteger, host of the YouTube channel Unbox Therapy, Lau gives details about OnePlus’s first foldable device. Hilsenteger was also given an early build of the handset to show off in the video.

According to Lau, OnePlus has over 600 patents relating to the hinge. Given the hinge plays such an important role in foldable phones, it makes sense as to why the company would focus so hard on that aspect of the device.

The hinge design they decided to go with is gapless, like the Find N2. However, this hinge is reportedly 37% smaller than the one in the Find N2, with 31 fewer components.

To show off the gapless design, Lau had Hilsenteger close the OnePlus Open with a sheet of paper stuck inside. The phone is then shown dangling from that sheet of paper without any noticeable slippage.

Thanks to the video, we get a look at the handset from a few different angles. Most notably, the phone appears to have raised bezels that are decently thick in size. However, a few parts of the phone were covered up by paper, including the camera bump.

The phone is expected to be announced on October 19. We’ll have to wait until then to see if OnePlus stuck with the design shown off in this video.