The seven top foldables to buy

If you’re on the hunt for a book-style foldable smartphone in 2024, you’ll find no better than the OnePlus Open.

The OnePlus Open fixes a long-time complaint of book-style foldables; the cover display. While the likes of the Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold offer a tall-and-narrow and short-and-squat cover display respectively, the OnePlus Open sports a regular 6.3-inch 20:9 display with all the premium bells and whistles you’d expect from a flagship display, including an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, impressive peak brightness of 2800nits and a pixel-packed resolution.

This all means there’s no compromise using the cover display in place of the larger internal one for anything from replying to texts to casually scrolling on Instagram.

Of course, it’s all about the foldable inner display, and OnePlus has knocked it out of the park here too. There’s a much shallower central crease than the competition, so much so that it’s hard to see unless you’re looking at it off-angle, and there’s barely any change in tactile feedback as you run your finger over it. That means that the 7.86-inch OLED panel is an absolute joy to use, further improved by OnePlus’ unique Open Canvas multitasking software that lets you use three apps in full-screen mode with ease.

That stellar performance continues with the camera setup, boasting a trio of rear lenses that, unlike the competition, are all designed specifically for use in foldables. That translates to strong performance from not only the 48MP primary and ultrawide sensors, but the 64MP periscope lens in particular, delivering great shots at 3.5x, 6x and although images are pretty terrible at the full 120x, it does a good job up until the 25x mark.

Throw in strong performance from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, fast 67W SuperVOOC charging with a charger in the box and OnePlus’ signature volume slider, and you’ve got a very tempting book-style flagship that costs less than others on the market at £1,599 – it’s just a shame it’s not readily available on contract in the UK, making it a hefty upfront purchase.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter

Full review: OnePlus Open review

If you’ve got your heart set on a clamshell-style foldable, the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra should be of serious consideration. The Razr 40 Ultra takes the clamshell experience to the next level with a large 3.6-inch pOLED exterior display with a super-smooth 144Hz refresh rate.

The display is large enough not only to run widgets like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 but any Android app you like, allowing you to control smart home tech, reply to incoming messages and get directions from Google Maps without having to unfold the display. It not only cuts down on how often you’ll have to open the phone, but the folded form factor makes it comfortable to use too.

That’s not to say that you’ll always be using the external display, especially with a tall, narrow 6.9-inch pOLED display found within. It’s super smooth at 165Hz, and boasts LTPO tech that allows it to intelligently adapt the refresh rate depending on what you’re doing. The catch is that you can’t force that top-end 165Hz refresh rate, so it’ll only be available when the phone deems it useful.

The Razr 40 Ultra’s hinge also allows for a near-gapless fold that reduces dust ingress, an improvement on the older Razr (2022), and also manages to reduce both the visibility and the tactile feel of the crease on the inner display.

The 12MP main camera may not sound that impressive on paper but paired with OIS, PDAF and a wide f/1.5 aperture, it excels both in well-lit and low-light environments. It’s still not quite on par with top-end flagships, but it’s impressive for a slimline foldable and beats the dual 12MP offering of Samsung’s Z Flip 5.

The phone is powered by the two-year-old Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, which may put some off, but everyday performance is solid. It does tend to overheat when playing graphics-intensive games, however.

The 3,800mAh battery is an improvement on the Razr (2022)’s 3,500mAh cell and it’s capable of lasting all day, though it won’t make it that long into the second. It’s a good thing it charges in less than an hour with 30W fast charging tech.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter
Full review: Motorola Razr 40 Ultra review

If you’re looking for a mammoth battery and fast performance housed in the thinnest and lightest book-style foldable to date, then the Honor Magic V2 is the handset for you. 

With a folded thickness of just 9.9mm and dropping to just 4.7mm when unfolded, the Magic V2 is closer in width to standard smartphones than any other foldable that’s currently available. In addition to its slick build, it weighs just 231g, making it super lightweight. It actually weighs less than Samsung and Google’s foldables, as well as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. 

Despite its incredible thickness, the Magic V2 boasts a total battery power of 5,000mAh, in the form of two super slim battery cells. Our benchmark tests showed that 60 minutes of Netflix streaming resulted in just an 8% battery discharge. When you do eventually need to recharge, the 66W fast wired charge gets you from 1-100% in just under an hour. 

As a book-style foldable, the Magic V2 has two displays, a cover display and a larger internal panel. The 6.43-inch cover display resembles a regular smartphone display and even boasts a peak brightness of 2500nits, making it perfect for viewing in bright sunlight. 

Equally the OLED display of the 7.92-inch internal screen allows users to perform a variety of tasks, including split-screen multitasking, seamlessly. Although there’s yet to be a perfect foldable crease in the market, the Magic V2 does boast a very shallow internal crease, making any screen interruption minimal. 

The Magic V2 also runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, which, even despite being supplanted by a newer chip, is still more than sufficient for daily use. Perhaps more surprising is the fact the V2 is powered by Android 13 rather than the newer Android 14, which is already being rolled out in new smartphones. Again, this doesn’t necessarily affect the performance and ability of the Magic V2, but it’s worth noting that it’s technically not as proficient as a truly up-to-date smartphone. 

The Magic V2 also boasts three high-res cameras, including a 50MP main camera, 50MP ultrawide and a 20MP 2.5x telephoto lens with digital zoom up to 10x. This lens trio offers a higher megapixel count than alternatives from Google and Samsung too, although the OnePlus Open does technically beat the Magic V2 on resolution.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter

Full review: Honor Magic V2

Samsung continues to dominate the foldable market in 2024 despite increased competition from the likes of OnePlus, Motorola, Google and others.

Samsung’s latest edition of its flagship foldable – the Z Fold 5 – is the finest one we’ve reviewed to date, though it’s certainly a year for refinement. It’s very similar to the top-end Z Fold 4 from 2022, boasting the same general design, cameras, battery life and charge speeds, but there are key improvements including a redesigned hinge that finally allows the Fold 5 to close completely with no awkward gap.

It also boasts the custom Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset that makes it, along with the Flip 5, the most powerful foldables around right now, making light work of high-end gaming, split-screen multitasking and just about anything else we could throw at it during testing.

As ever, there are two OLED displays here, a smaller 6.1-inch outer panel and a larger 7.6-inch internal one. While there’s minimal change in terms of hardware, Samsung has done an admirable job at convincing developers to add support for the boxy aspect ratio, with previously-missing entries like Instagram now available in all its full-screen glory. It’s a stark change to the hit-and-miss experience on offer from the Google Pixel Fold.

The 4400mAh battery remains just about enough to comfortably get through a day without scrambling for a charger, though with 25W charge speeds, it could be faster.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter

Full review: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 review

It’s finally here, Google’s first foldable phone. The Google Pixel Fold sees the big tech brand jump on the folding device bandwagon, and there is a lot to like.

Google has come close to nailing the design with its first folding phone, offering a combination of displays that makes it ideal for use in many scenarios. The 5.8-inch screen on the outside is more than large enough to accommodate regular phone use, while it opens up to reveal a 7.8-inch display that offers a more expansive canvas but without feeling awkward to navigate.

The handy choice of displays is matched by the remarkably slim dimensions of this phone, which makes it comfortably pocketable. At just 5.3mm when unfolded, and 12.2mm folded, it’s impressively portable, though not the best by 2024 standards. It’s a tad frustrating that it doesn’t naturally fold completely flat, but that won’t really affect your day-to-day.

Aside from the exciting folding design, you get a typically strong Google Pixel experience across the board. And, that includes the camera. The main 48MP camera offers versatility, when you need a great shot at a pinch, while the 10.8MP 5x telephoto lens is easily one of the most impressive lenses on a foldable. The telephoto deftly enables crisp close-ups and refreshing accurate bokeh effects.

Reviewer: Lewis Painter

Full review: Google Pixel Fold review

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is perhaps the most well-known clamshell available right now. It’s also ideal if you’re concerned about the fragility of these foldable devices thanks to some much-needed upgrades in durability. 

Visually, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 looks very similar to the Z Flip 5 that came before it. However, the hinge is stronger and more impact-resistant this time around, feeling tighter and more stable than most flip phones. The device is also dust-resistant for the first time and about as water-resistant as it gets with its IP48 rating. 

The 3.4-inch cover display remains a major upgrade compared to the smaller screen on the Z Flip 4, though this display has been overshadowed by the larger and more useful screen on the Motorola Razr 50. Unfold the device and you’ll find a tall and narrow 6.7-inch inner display with a 120Hz refresh rate that we found to be clear and crisp. 

Cameras have also been a major point of improvement this time around, with the Z Flip 6 sharing the same 50-megapixel main sensor as the Galaxy S24 Plus, along with a refreshed 12-megapixel ultra-wide lens. There’s no zoom lens here, but the main camera is a strong performer in pretty much any situation from bright daylight to nighttime and an ultra-wide lens is something rivals like the Razr 50 Ultra miss out on. 

The Z Flip 6 is also powered by the same custom version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 found across the rest of Samsung’s line-up, making this one of the most powerful foldables around capable of benchmarking alongside some of the best flagship devices. The foldable is packed with useful Galaxy AI features, including a translation tool that makes the most of its dual-screen folding form factor. 

Finally, the battery offers a full day of regular use, though charging it quite slow compared to many devices on the market. 

However, if you’re looking for a solid all-round foldable experience, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 delivers with a new, more durable design and improved camera experience. 

Reviewer: Cam Bunton

Full Review: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6

The Motorola Razr 50 is a fantastic entry-level foldable that addresses practically every complaint we had with the Razr 40 while also matching the Razr 50 Ultra in many key areas. 

The Razr 50 features a clamshell design, an attractive vegan leather rear and a spacious 3.6-inch 90Hz cover screen, making the outer display more useful than that on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 at a fraction of the cost. The build quality has improved too, with an IPX8 water-resistance rating and a hinge mechanism that feels just as rigid and premium as that on the Razr 50 Ultra. 

The larger cover screen makes it possible to run full-screen apps without unfolding the phone, while the 6.9-inch 120Hz pOLED inner display with an FHD+ resolution and a peak brightness of 3000 nits. The crease is also significantly less noticeable this time around, putting the dip more in line with the Z Flip series. 

The cameras have also been given an upgrade, with the dual layout including a 50-megapixel main sensor and a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera, along with a 32-megapixel selfie camera in the display. This is the same main camera found in the Razr 50 Ultra, producing vibrant and detailed daytime shots with a good amount of natural bokeh. 

Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300X, this foldable offers solid mid-range performance and comes paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage as standard. There are some AI features to get excited about, including the Image Enhancement Engine and Google Gemini access on the cover screen, though its AI features aren’t as expansive as that of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 or even the Razr 50 Ultra. 

Finally, the Razr 50 is equipped with a 4200 mAh battery that offers a full day of use and can charge fully in just under an hour. If you’re on the hunt for an affordable foldable, the Motorola Razr 50 won’t disappoint. 

Reviewer: Lewis Painter

Full Review: Motorola Razr 50