OnePlus 15 Review: The underdog is back

I’ve lost count of how many times OnePlus has tried to crack the three-company stronghold in the US smartphone market.

This year, the company is trying something slightly different — a much earlier launch of its new flagship, the OnePlus 15.

OnePlus has also ended its Hasselblad partnership, but read on and you’d be surprised that image qualtiy has not suffered one bit. In fact, it has improved in several key areas. Best of all, the OnePlus 15 remains refreshingly affordable for a flagship, starting at just $900, compared to $1,300 for Samsung’s Galaxy Ultra. Let’s see if it’s worth it.

The OnePlus 15 official US release date is still in flux due to the recent government shutdown and pending FCC certification, but we expect it to arrive sooner rather than later.

In our PhoneArena Review Rating, the OnePlus excels in areas like performance and battery life, but loses a bit in the software update department and the lack of Qi2 charging is also a concern.

Table of Contents:

OnePlus 15 Specs

I’ve already complained about the looks — the OnePlus 15 looks, quite simply, generic. There is no real personality in this phone, instead it just tries to look like an iPhone.

To be fair, it mostly succeeds in that, with flat sides and now a completely flat screen. I did prefer the slightly tapered sides on previous OnePlus phones, but a flat screen has benefits. Installing a screen protector is finally effortless.

Size-wise, the OnePlus 15 is a big phone, roughly matching the iPhone Pro Max model in both dimensions and weight.

One funny change is how OnePlus has gone from avoiding IP certifications to cut costs, to now adding every IP rating imaginable. The OnePlus 15 is officially IP68, IP69 and IP69K water and dust protected. Compared to most other flagships that stop at IP68, the OnePlus can survive deeper immersion, as deep as two meters, while others can only do 1.5 meters. It is also protected from high-pressure water jets, but the only barely practical application for this is if you forget your phone in your jeans and put them in the washing machine.

You have three colorways to choose from. We have the Infinity Black version, which comes with a matte glass back that doesn’t show fingerprints, and then you also have the Sandstorm model and the Ultra Violet one.

The OnePlus 15 comes in a big box flaunting the signature red color of the brand and apart from the phone and usual user manuals, you can also find both a charger and a charging cable. Most brands these days skip the charger, but not OnePlus. Keep in mind that you need to use this particular OnePlus-branded charger to get the fastest charging speeds on the phone, but more on that in the charging section.

With a 6.8-inch OLED screen, the OnePlus 15 has just a tiny bit less screen real estate than an iPhone 17 Pro Max or a Galaxy S25 Ultra, both of which come with 6.9-inch sizes.

Let’s take a look at our PhoneArena lab test results:

The most impressive number here is the nearly 3,500 nits of peak brightness, beating iPhones and Pixels which top out at around 2,800 nits. The OnePlus 15 gets really bright indeed.

Minimum brightness is another key factor for night time use, and the lower the score, the better. The OnePlus 15 does not quite get dim enough, dropping to around 2 nits, while iPhones and Galaxies dip below 1 nit, making them easier on the eyes at night.

For biometrics, you have the usual: an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner and image-based face recognition via the front camera. Both work find and the fingerprint feels nice and zippy, we’ve had no issues with it.

OnePlus 15 Camera

Same-ish hardware, better looking pictures

On our PhoneArena Camera Score, the OnePlus 15 shows a big leap forward from the previous generation. It is now in the big leagues.

With a total score of 151 points, it outpeforms its predecessor by nearly 6 points. Most of that progress comes from improvements to photography and particularly in detail rendition, while video recording quality sees a much smaller improvement.

The main 50MP sensor remains 1/1.6-inch in size, smaller than 1/1.3-inch sensors you commonly find on Pro Max iPhones and Ultra Galaxies. Both the ultra-wide and telephoto cameras use 50MP sensors too.

A key functional upgrade is the switch to 26MP default resolution for main camera photos, up from 12MP on previous OnePlus phones. That results in a noticeable improvement in detail.

The telephoto camera is now a W-style periscope lens with 3.5X optical zoom and a 7X high-quality zoom preset.

Comparing photos from the older model to the new one, we actually think that’s an improvement. Goen is the excessive oversharpening of the previous model and detail is now softer in a much more pleasing and natural way. Colors also consistently skew warmer and slightly more saturated than real life.

Zoom quality has improved too. You have a good amount of detail at the native 3.5X and 7X zoom levels. You can reach to 120X digital zoom, but even after 20X, AI kicks in aggressively to reduce noise and that often results in AI slop when you have text in the image and a clearly fake look to the detail.

Color consistency between lenses need work, though. Ultra-wide photos are strangely colder and look a bit different than those from the main one.

Regular 4K30/4K60 footage has also improved from the predecessor. On the OnePlus 15, HDR artifacts are gone, and both detail and color rendition are just a bit more pleasing and natural.

OnePlus 15 Performance & Benchmarks

Impressive for gaming

GPU Performance

But the biggest leap is on the GPU/gaming side. The OnePlus 15 achieves exceptional stability. Even after 20 minutes of intense gaming, it just doesn’t throttle at all.

In terms of memory, the phone comes in either 12/256GB or 16/512GB configurations. The RAM is LPDDR5X Ultra, and when you jump to the 16GB model, you get Ultra+ memory, some of the fastest ever on a phone.

Storage is equally top-notch, using the latest UFS 4.1 technology.

OnePlus 15 Software

This UI has very distinct pros and cons. On the pros side is just the sheer polish and speed of animations, which feel very refined. But on the cons side, well… it’s a shameless iOS copy-cat. The camera zoom ring, the control center, the multitasking, the weather app, the list of copied designs just goes on and on.

One area where OnePlus still lags behind is software updates. The OnePlus 15 will get four years of major OS updates, less than Samsung and Google, which both give you seven years of updates.

That is a nearly 45% bigger battery than what you get on your Galaxy Ultras, Pixel Pros and iPhone Pro Maxes.

To see how well it performs in real use, we turn to our…

On our lightest web browsing test where a script cycles through the same set of webpages on different phones, the OnePlus 15 scores an absolutely bonkers 30+ hours of longevity. Compare this to somewhere between 20 hours and 23 hours on other flagships, and you understand the big gap.

Interestingly, in our second test where we stream the same YouTube video playlist on different phones, the OnePlus 15 scores around 12 hours, which is again, an impressive result.

Finally, on our 3D gaming test, it once again shows strongly with a score of nearly 14 hours.

Charging speeds also remain a strong point for the OnePlus 15. The US model supports 80W charging, while the global version can reach 120-watt speeds. Just make sure to use the built-in charger with the proprietary SuperVOOC standard. If you use a third-party charger like the ones from Anker or Ugreen, you will drop to USB-C PD speeds that are noticeably slower.

Finally, I count the lack of Qi2 wireless charging as a miss here. Sure, the OnePlus 15 supports the proprietary AirVOOC wireless charging protocol and you can reach 50W charging speeds, but if you want magnets, you need to put the phone in a case. 

The OnePlus 15 comes with dual stereo speakers and it gets very loud.

On one hand, that’s a good thing, but on the other — yes, it does sound muffled at those higher volumes.

When listening to music tracks, there was a bit of bass, which is typically most smartphones’ weak point, but there was no proper separation between lows, mids and highs. This results in “noisy” sound that we wish was a bit better. 

There is no 3.5mm jack, in case you come here from the distant past.

Another often overlooked part of the experience is haptics, and OnePlus absolutely excels in that. Be it for gaming, notifications or just typing, the haptic feedback on the OnePlus 15 is nice and very tight. Good job!

Should you buy it?

Time to answer the big question: is the OnePlus 15 worth buying in a world dominated by iPhones, Galaxies and Pixels?

If you want a great deal, we think the short answer is “yes”. The OnePlus 15 delivers real two-day battery life, its camera quality has improved a lot despite the lack of new hardware, and it’s performance is absolutely bonkers with excellent thermal management. Plus, you have super fast charging on board too.

Here is what the OnePlus 15 isn’t: the best camera experience, as the photo editing flow is nowhere nearly as advanced as on an iPhone or Galaxy. It’s also not the most original interface, nor the most inspiring phone in terms of outwards appearance.

But it is much more comfortable in its own skin now and improves upon most weak points of its predecessor, while keeping the alluring price tag. And that’s not a bad place to be.