OnePlus Made A Huge Mistake Canceling The Open 2 & Here’s Why It Hurts

OnePlus dropped a bombshell announcement yesterday, as the company said that it’s canceling the OnePlus Open 2. Well, granted the company said that the phone won’t launch in 2025, not that it won’t ever launch. But… to users, that sounds all the same, basically, and for a good reason too.

The OPPO Find N5 is too good to pass up on

OPPO has been hyping up its upcoming foldable smartphone for quite some time now. The OPPO Find N5 is its name, and that phone was expected to become the OnePlus Open 2, basically. The same happened with the OnePlus Open, as that is essentially a rebranded OPPO Find N3. The design and the specs are identical.

So, consumers were really hyped to get the OnePlus Open 2 based on the OPPO Find N5. OPPO already confirmed that the Find N5 will become the thinnest foldable in the world. It will be 8.93mm thick (or should I say thin)when folded, and only 4.23mm thick when unfolded. Considering that the original OnePlus Open arrived back in October 2023, the consumers were already waiting for almost a year and a half at this point.

OnePlus tried to rationalize its decision

OnePlus tried to explain why it made the decision. The company even said that it reached a decision to “pause on foldable for this generation” and that it doesn’t “signify a departure from the category.” So, there’s a chance that OnePlus is planning to return to foldables next year, in 2026. That’s not enough for users, though, of course.

Some of them were truly upset with the news and decided to voice their displeasure via Reddit. That is not surprising, as in some regions, like the US, for example, options for a book-style foldable are not as wide. Those consumers don’t get many foldables out of China, which is, arguably, truly great these days. The OnePlus Open 2 was their ray of hope, but OnePlus burst that bubble.

OnePlus gave us a political answer

With that being said, it’s easy to come to a conclusion that this is a mistake. OnePlus sure has its reasons, otherwise, it wouldn’t do it, but even without knowing exactly what those reasons are, we can safely say it’s a mistake. The OPPO Find N5 does seem like a true step forward. The OPPO Find N3/OnePlus Open were truly great devices. This phone is building upon what they had to offer.

It is not only significantly thinner, and also lighter on top of that, but it will allegedly include a considerably beefier battery, a silicon-carbon unit. It will bring a massive performance improvement with a brand new flagship chip, and a thinner camera bump, from what we’ve seen. As if that’s not enough, OPPO is also adding 50W wireless charging to the table, after it didn’t offer it at all on the last-gen model. A cherry on top if boosted wired charging to 80W, and three certifications for water resistance.

Perhaps the OnePlus Open sales numbers were not high enough?

The OPPO Find N5 is truly shaping up to be a monster foldable. A foldable phone that will attract users of foldables and beyond. So why did OnePlus opt to go in the other direction? Well, a couple of reasons are coming to mind. The first one is… sales numbers. It’s possible that the OnePlus Open did not sell as well as OnePlus had hoped. It was available in both the US and Europe, but we don’t know its sales numbers since October 2023. That could be the main reason behind this decision.

The US effect?

Another one could be the US itself. We all know what happened to Huawei there. Many smartphone OEMs are wary of attracting too much attention in the States. Many Chinese companies don’t even do business there in the consumer sense, so perhaps OnePlus figured it would be dangerous to disrupt the US market in such a fashion. That could especially be true considering that the new US president, Donald Trump, is making a lot of fast and questionable decisions lately.

That leaves Europe, though. Why not launch it in Europe? Well, the reasons could be the same, actually. The sales numbers could have something to do with it, while perhaps OnePlus didn’t want to rebrand a phone just for the European markets. Maybe both reasons are true in this case, we can only guess. With all that in mind, this definitely seems like a mistake on the company’s part.

Samsung may as well celebrate this decision

Samsung is still the ultimate leader in the global foldable smartphone department. It has also been resting on its laurels for years now. We have not seen significant innovation in the Galaxy Z Fold lineup for a long time now. Many people familiar with the foldable smartphone market see that. It seems like Samsung is losing its step in many categories, ranging from design, display crease, and thickness, to weight and camera performance. This seems to be the right time to hit it where it hurts.

When you have a product like the OPPO Find N5 on your hands, which is so easily marketable, it seems like a real shame not pushing it all the way. Don’t get me wrong, the OPPO Find N5 is getting a global version, but OPPO is not doing business in some markets in which OnePlus is. OnePlus is also, arguably, a better-known brand in both the US and Europe, which are two huge markets.

This is a huge missed opportunity

This device represents a true opportunity for OPPO to earn a name for itself in markets where it’s not as well-known at. It’s a device that easily attracts attention, as its design is… outstanding. The OPPO Find N5 is thinner than some regular, slab-format phones, like the iPhone 16 Pro Max, for example. It’s only slightly thicker than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, on the other hand. The weight is also not far off. Many would say that’s quite a feat of engineering, and that’s hard to disagree with.

We all know that OnePlus won’t flat out say the reason or reasons why the OnePlus Open 2 is not happening, well, at least not happening in 2025. We did get a political answer, in a way, but not the real reasons. There’s always a chance that OPPO will push harder in the availability department, and offer the OPPO Find N5 in more markets than ever before. The OPPO Find N3 didn’t even get a global launch event in 2023. The OPPO Find N5 is getting one on February 20. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that the availability will be much wider this time around.