Top 10
The best new tech heading your way
1 ONEPLUS OPEN
£1,599, oneplus.com
OnePlus loves to make a splash. Its first folding phone – which is, for all intents and purposes, the exact same device as the Oppo Find N3 that will be launched elsewhere in the world by OnePlus’ parent company – doesn’t look or feel anything like a debut: it breaks a bunch of foldable records right out of the gate.
The OnePlus Open is, for example, the slimmest foldable on the market, measuring just 5.8mm thick when unfurled. It’s 245g, making it lighter than many flagships that don’t fold, thanks to OnePlus’ use of titanium, carbon fibre and a super-streamlined waterdrop hinge design. And don’t mistake its lightness for weakness, because there’s an eight-axis pressure relief system built into the top edge to prevent excess flex from snapping it in twain.
Finally Samsung has real competition. And not just ‘someone doing something vaguely similar’ competition. OnePlus and Oppo are putting all of their considerable weight in this direction, acting fearlessly in the face of Samsung’s more cautious, slowly iterative approach to folding phone tech. The 6th-gen Galaxy Z Fold seems set to stick with the same just-okay camera sensor as the 4th-gen Z Fold; the OnePlus Open, on the other hand, has the best sensor yet put into a foldable.
This might not take over the market – Samsung’s ecosystem and marketing muscle seems too strong – but it firmly places OnePlus as a contender, the position where the company has always been most comfortable.
The cover screen is a not unsubstantial 6.31-inch QHD+ AMOLED, operating between 120Hz and 10Hz, sporting a 20:9 aspect ratio – this feels like a proper phone, even while folded.
T3 SAYS...
OnePlus has, it says, tested the Open to withstand a million folds, simulating 100 folds a day for over ten years. It’s also been drop tested to bounce back from a fall from 1.5 metres. We wouldn’t go at this with a hammer, as such, and it’s only IPX4 rated against water and dust, but it should last a while.
The 48MP primary camera uses a custom Sony-made stacked CMOS sensor backed by five-axis OIS and EIS, which works in photo and video modes. Alongside it is a 64MP telephoto lens, the largest on any foldable, with 3x optical and 6x digital zoom. There’s also a 48MP ultra-wide camera, and any of the three can be used as the main camera.
2 RUARK R810
£3,000, ruarkaudio.com
The Ruark R810 throws a long way back. It’s redolent of the days when music appliances were literally furniture, in terms of its stature, its woody materials, its radiogram looks, and the fact that it is literally furniture. But don’t be fooled by its timeless styling an
