A terrific cellphone, if pictures is not a precedence

When you’re studying this overview, there’s an opportunity you’ve come to it with some confusion. Didn’t OnePlus already launch a brand new flagship cellphone this yr, and wasn’t it known as the OnePlus 13? The reply is sure to each these questions. So, what offers? Nicely, over the previous couple of years, OnePlus has been working to shorten the hole between when its telephones debut in China and once they’re accessible in the remainder of the world. This yr, the OnePlus 15 arrives in North America only a few quick weeks after its preliminary October 27 launch. And prefer it did with the bounce between the OP3 and OP5, OnePlus is skipping the OP14 due to the quantity 4 and its unfortunate affiliation in Chinese language tradition.

With that cleared up, you would possibly suppose the OnePlus 15 suffers from following too quickly after its predecessor. I’m glad to report it provides some clear upgrades over the OP13, together with a quicker processor and an absurdly massive battery. What it doesn’t do, nonetheless, is change the OnePlus system — for higher and worse.

Pricing and availability

As a result of federal authorities shutdown, the OnePlus 15 doesn’t have a US launch date but. The corporate had hoped to start promoting the cellphone beginning at present, November 13, however the cellphone has but to acquire the required clearance.

“As is the case with each smartphone producer, the US’ Federal Communications Fee certifies OnePlus units earlier than they’re bought within the US. Because of the federal government shutdown, machine certifications have been delayed,” Spenser Clean, OnePlus North America’s head of selling and communications, informed Engadget.

“Subsequently, US gross sales for the OnePlus 15 might be postponed till they’ve been secured. The OnePlus 15 has already completed all of the required checks from the FCC’s acknowledged labs and the certification software has been formally submitted. We’re hopeful that approvals might be generated shortly and in consequence, we will convey the OnePlus 15 to our clients within the U.S. expeditiously.”

There’s additionally some uncertainty round pricing. On launch, OnePlus plans to supply two variations of the OnePlus 15. The bottom mannequin, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, will price $900. The corporate may also promote a 16GB/512GB variant that can price $1,000. Nonetheless, OnePlus warns the worth of each fashions is “topic to alter as a result of present market circumstances.”

{Hardware} and show

The OnePlus 15 is a good cellphone with a boring, by-product design. It borrows its visible identification from the OnePlus 13s and 13T, a pair of smaller, 6.32-inch telephones OnePlus launched in India and China this previous spring. There’s no two methods about it, in making its new flagship look extra like these units, OnePlus has on the identical time made it look extra like final yr’s iPhone 16 Professional.

It’s a disgrace. The design of the OnePlus 13 was one of many issues my co-worker Sam Rutherford praised that phone for, and it’s one thing I favored about it too. The 15 simply appears to be like generic, even when there are a number of good touches. For instance, the sand storm shade has a pleasant, ceramic-like really feel to it. One different spectacular side of the design is how skinny OnePlus has managed to maintain the 15 whereas including an enormous 7,300mAh battery. At 0.31 inches thick, the sand storm variant is barely barely fatter than the 0.29-inch thick Galaxy S25 FE I lately reviewed, which has a extra modest 4,900mAh battery (the 2 different OP15 colorways, infinite black and extremely violet, are listed as barely thicker at 0.32 inches).

Now, if you happen to’re a longtime OnePlus fan, I would like to say the 15 doesn’t have the signature Alert Slider discovered on the corporate’s earlier telephones. I do know what you’re considering, did OnePlus get rid of a fan favourite function so as to add an AI button? The reply is each sure and no. The primary time you faucet the Plus Key, OxygenOS will immediate you to make it a shortcut for certainly one of eight features. Naturally, the default choice is to make use of the button along side the corporate’s newish Thoughts House AI hub, however you can also bind different features to the Plus Key, together with the outdated Alert Slider performance. Even when it’s one other factor that’s by-product of the iPhone, I like the pliability the Plus Key offers.

Individually, OnePlus has gone with a special display this time round. The OP15 provides a 6.78-inch AMOLED show with a 1,272 x 2,772 decision. The brand new display is each smaller and fewer dense than the one discovered on the OnePlus 13, which was 6.82 inches massive and had a 1,440 x 3,168 decision. It’s additionally quicker, providing a 165Hz refresh price in choose video games, up from 120Hz on the sooner mannequin. OnePlus informed me it went with the decrease decision show as a result of there’s no OLED producer making QHD panels that quick but. I’ll have extra to say in regards to the show within the efficiency part, however for now I’ll say the OP15’s display is likely one of the finest components of utilizing the cellphone. It’s dense sufficient to make textual content and pictures look sharp, and with as much as 1,800 nits of brightness accessible, it’s straightforward to see and use even in harsh daylight.

Cameras

OnePlus and Hasselblad ended their partnership in September, and the OP15 marks the debut of the corporate’s new DetailMax imaging engine. I’ll get to the software program in a second. First, OnePlus has as soon as once more gone with a most important digicam system constructed round three 50-megapixel sensors. What’s totally different this time round are the lenses. Two of them are barely slower than their counterparts on the OnePlus 13. The principle digicam now has an f/1.8 aperture lens, down from the f/1.6 glass discovered on final yr’s mannequin. On the identical time, OnePlus has gone with an f/2.8 lens for the telephoto digicam. For comparability, the OP13 had an f/2.6 lens for distant pictures. The excellent news is each cameras nonetheless include optical picture stabilization (OIS).

Broadly, the OP15 suffers from the identical downside its predecessor did. Most photographs look good — typically nice even — however they don’t come out as good as what you would possibly snap with the newest telephones from Apple, Google or Samsung. The distinction is most noticeable in nighttime and low-light photographs the place the OP15 can typically wrestle to eke out shadow element. It’s going to additionally utterly miss a shot as a result of it used too sluggish of a shutter velocity. I typically noticed comparable ends in daytime photographs in conditions the place the corporate’s excessive dynamic vary algorithm would get tripped up by harsh lighting. Particularly, the pictures had overly lifted shadows and unnatural highlights, leading to photographs that look flat with poor distinction.

I additionally want the OP15 had a greater telephoto digicam. It’s not unhealthy by any means, however after seeing what the Pixel 10 Pro can do with its 5x zoom, any cellphone with a 3x telephoto doesn’t really feel particular. The restrictions of the OP15’s {hardware} is particularly noticeable once you attempt to push the digicam past its most optical zoom. OnePlus says the digicam provides 7x lossless zoom, however in my testing, I discovered there was a delicate drop in image high quality above 6x. At 10x and past, there’s very noticeable pixel smearing.

There are two areas the place the OP15’s cameras impress. Throughout each stills and video, it does a terrific job of measuring shade temperature and guaranteeing pictures come out true to life. Much more spectacular is the cellphone’s potential to seize a burst of photographs at 10 fps, up from 6 fps on the OP13. When you’ve learn certainly one of my opinions earlier than, you’ve in all probability seen I take pleasure in photographing the cats in my neighborhood, and no cellphone has made that activity as straightforward because the OP15.

Because it’s already wintery in Toronto, I wasn’t in a position to take a look at the OP15 new underwater digicam mode. However if you happen to stay in a hotter local weather, the function is designed to make it simpler to snap photographs within the water by quickly turning the OP15’s bodily buttons into digicam controls. That is additionally nearly as good as any time to say that OnePlus has shored up the OP15’s waterproofing. The cellphone is now rated IP68 in opposition to water and dirt, and carries IP69 and IP69K safety in opposition to pressurized water at as much as 176 levels Fahrenheit.

Efficiency and battery life

The OP15 is the primary cellphone in North America to ship with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and as you may in all probability guess, it’s a efficiency powerhouse. In Geekbench’s processor suite, the OP15 put up a single-core rating of three,696 and a multi-core mark of 11,187. That places it in choose firm with the iPhone Air and its A19 Professional chipset, which in our testing had a slight edge in single-core efficiency however didn’t carry out almost as effectively within the multi-core suite (probably as a result of thermal limitations). In real-world use, I attempted my finest to discover a sport or software that might journey up the OP15, however between its new Snapdragon chipset and the 16GB of RAM that got here in my unit, the cellphone dealt with every part with ease.

It’s arduous to explain how easy the OnePlus 15 feels relative to different telephones I’ve used lately. Each swipe and scroll feels almost instantaneous. I believe that’s a byproduct of the OP15’s devoted contact response chip, which samples the display at 3,200Hz. Talking of the show, that 165Hz refresh price I discussed on the high is extra of a forward-looking function proper now. As issues stand, there are solely seven video games that may render at 165 fps. A kind of, PUBG, does so via body interpolation. So except you’re an avid Name of Responsibility Cellular or Conflict of Clans participant, you gained’t discover that good thing about the OP15’s display, but. Issues may change in time, particularly as extra OEMs convey 165Hz shows to their telephones. For now, the OP15 remains to be a terrific gaming cellphone, however it has but to stay as much as its true potential.

As a lot efficiency because the OnePlus 15 provides, what’s extra spectacular is its 7,300mAh battery. It’s the results of a brand new expertise the corporate calls Silicon NanoStack. It allowed OnePlus to make a denser battery and one it claims will age extra gracefully over time, because of a design that retains greater than 80 % of its well being after 4 years. Clearly, I haven’t had the OP15 lengthy sufficient to check that declare, however what I can say is that it provides super battery life out of the field. On our native video rundown take a look at, it posted a time of 38 hours and half-hour, which is eight hours longer than the OnePlus 13, the earlier document holder.

Simply as spectacular is how shortly the OP15 can cost. With the included 80W SUPERVOOC adapter, the battery can go from useless to full in about 40 minutes. The one draw back of how OnePlus has approached charging is that the cellphone does not help the Qi2 normal. It may well wirelessly cost at 50W, however you will want to purchase the corporate’s proprietary AIRVOOC magnetic puck.

Software program

When he reviewed the OnePlus 13 in February, Engadget’s Sam Rutherford praised OnePlus for its restrained AI strategy. Sadly, no firm seems resistant to the expertise’s pull at this level, and within the months since, OnePlus has begun integrating extra AI options into OxygenOS. Fortunately, a lot of these are both straightforward to disregard or situationally helpful.

First, there’s Thoughts House, which is functionally just like Nothing’s Essential Space. You’ll be able to both faucet the Plus Key (if it’s configured to be used with Thoughts House) or swipe up on the touchscreen with three fingers to save lots of a screenshot to the hub. From there, the OP15’s built-in LLM will summarize the picture, and you’ll ask the mannequin questions on it. It’s additionally doable to save lots of voice memos to the hub, and OnePlus provides a number of different AI instruments there, together with one for scanning paperwork. All of those work effectively, and like I stated, in the event that they’re not your factor, they’re straightforward to disregard.

It’s been a number of years since I’ve used OxygenOS, so it was a pleasing shock to be taught it stays one of many extra enticing and tasteful Android skins in the marketplace. A standout is a few of the customized animations OnePlus has baked into the OS to intensify the velocity of the cellphone. I additionally discover OnePlus has probably the greatest organized fast settings menus. There are simply sufficient customization choices there to make it really feel highly effective, however not sufficient to overwhelm.

One space the place OnePlus may do higher is software program help. The corporate has pledged to offer the OP15 with 4 years of software program updates and 6 years of safety patches. That’s worse than each Google and Samsung, which have dedicated to supporting their newest telephones for seven years.

Wrap-up

In utilizing the OnePlus 15, I used to be regularly reminded of the final OnePlus cellphone I reviewed, the OnePlus 7 Pro. On the time, it was the corporate’s most costly machine ever, coming in on the identical $750 value because the iPhone XR and Galaxy S10e. The attraction of that cellphone was its speedy Snapdragon 855 processor and the actual fact it was one of many first smartphones with a 90Hz AMOLED display. It was additionally the primary OnePlus cellphone with a digicam that was extra than simply serviceable.

All these years later, the attraction of the OP15 feels comparable. It’s a cellphone for many who worth velocity over every part else. The tough factor about this cellphone is judging its worth when its value may change tomorrow. As I discussed earlier, within the US the OP15 will begin at $900, with OnePlus warning pricing for each fashions may “change as a result of present market circumstances.” At $1,000, the 16GB mannequin is a compelling various to the Pixel 10 Professional XL, providing a more moderen processor, extra storage and a considerably greater battery.

Right here’s the factor: Google has already aggressively discounted the complete Pixel 10 lineup, and until Black Friday, you may get the Professional XL for $899 — $100 lower than the 16GB OnePlus 15. For most individuals, I believe that’s the play, given each the Professional and Professional XL have the higher telephoto digicam and Google has promised to help all of its newest telephones for seven years. That stated, if you happen to’re okay with a worse digicam total, the OP15 has rather a lot going for it, and supplied OnePlus can efficiently navigate an unsure tariff regime, it’s going to find yourself not simply probably the greatest telephones of 2025 however a lot of 2026 too.