Pros
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Stylish design with unique finishes -
Top-end processing power without getting warm -
Huge battery and rapid charging -
Gorgeously detailed, smooth screen
Cons
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No more Alert Slider -
Only four OS upgrades promised
Key Features
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Review Price: £849 -
Bleeding-edge performance
The OnePlus 15 packs Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, offering some of the best performance around. -
Super-fast display
Despite its 1.5K resolution, the OnePlus 15 offers a rapid 165Hz refresh rate with 165fps support in games like Call of Duty Mobile. -
All-day battery life
With a 7200mAh batttery hidden within its chassis, the OnePlus 15 will last all day regardless of what you throw at it.
Introduction
The OnePlus 15 has had its limelight stolen by the Oppo Find X9 Pro.
The latest OnePlus flagship launches hot on the heels of parent company Oppo’s competing Find X9 Pro, and it’s safe to say that the two phones are similar – near-identical, even.
But look a little closer and you’ll find key differences between the two, and plenty of reasons to opt for OnePlus’ flagship over Oppo’s alternative. It’s not only much cheaper, but it offers better screen tech, more impressive performance and the same incredible battery life – all with that signature OnePlus DNA.
As such, you shouldn’t disregard the OnePlus 15 just because it looks like the Oppo Find X9 Pro. After all, there’s a lot here to love, despite the fact I’ve gone straight from the X9 Pro to OnePlus’ new top-end phone.
Design
- New design language upstaged by Oppo
- Unique MAO process – for a certain finish
- IP68, 69 and 69K dust and water protection
The OnePlus 15 marks a significant departure from the OnePlus 13 in terms of overall design, representing the first substantial change to the design since the OnePlus 10 Pro.
The curvy design of past OnePlus phones has gone the way of the Dodo, replaced by the same combination of flat edges and rounded corners as recent models of iPhone and, if I’m being honest, most other flagship phones in 2025.
That means it struggles to stand out visually in a crowded market of flat-edged alternatives – but it’s more than that. In fact, if you think the phone looks familiar, you’d be correct; it’s a near-identical copy of OnePlus parent company Oppo’s recently released Find X9 Pro.
Oppo Find X9 Pro
Both sport the same rounded corner design with a centralised logo on the rear, and both even sport near-identical camera housings on the rear.
It’s definitely a OnePlus innovation rather than an Oppo one, as we actually saw this design first on the OnePlus 13T earlier this year, though that phone didn’t get a wide release. However, with Oppo’s flagship arriving just before OnePlus’ widely available alternative, it appears that OnePlus has done the copying.
That all said, this remains a well-built, nice phone to look at and hold. The flat edges provide better purchase than the rounded alternatives of older OnePlus phones, and it just looks more modern and premium as a result – even if it does little to stand out visually from the crowd.
To be fair to OnePlus, it has gone above what Oppo is offering in terms of colour options and finishes, offering a more fun, vibrant approach than Oppo’s serious-looking alternative.
The star of the show is the new Sandstorm finish, which is the first in the industry to use the MAO (Micro Arc Oxidation) process for the mid-frame and camera housing, along with a tough fibreglass finish on the rear. It not only means the surface remains cool to the touch, but it’s actually 3.4x tougher than aluminium and 1.3x tougher than titanium, according to OnePlus.
Plus, the sandstone colour just looks lovely in real-world use, with a slightly rough, textured finish that provides additional grip.
The catch? That high-end material is only available on the Sandstone finish. There’s also a new Infinite Black finish that the company claims offers the ‘darkest black you’ve ever seen’ as it reduces reflectivity and allows light in but not out, resulting in a much deeper, darker black, especially when paired with the matte finish.
Then there’s the Ultra Violet finish I was provided for review; it sports a pale lavender colourway with flashes of blue around the rim of the rear that catches the light. It’s a nice colour option, but I’d also argue that it’s the most boring of the three options, both in terms of material and overall look.
That said, regardless of the model you go for, you’ll get impressive durability with the combination of IP68, IP69 and even IP69K, protecting the phone from hot-water jets (hello phone in the shower!) as well as submersion in up to 2m of water for 30 minutes.
The other big change is one we knew was coming: the death of the alert slider. A staple of OnePlus phones since its inception, the alert slider provided a physical way to switch between ringer, vibration, and silent modes, and I used it often.
That has been replaced by the Plus Key, essentially OnePlus’ answer to Apple’s Action Button, and it functions in a similar way. By default, it’ll capture screenshots or voice notes for use in its AI Mind Space (more on that later), but it can be reprogrammed to activate the torch and, yes, even switch between ringer modes.
I switched to the latter after using Mind Space for a few days, but even then, I found myself rarely using it. Why? Because you still need to look at your phone screen to confirm which mode the ringer is set to when pushing the button. The simplicity of the switch was that each mode had its own position, and you could switch between them without even getting the phone out of your pocket.
I’m aware that I’m in a minority, however, by ever having my phone on ringer mode. Most people put their phones on vibrate in 2012 and never looked back – and for those people, the Plus Key will be much more useful. I just miss my alert slider.
Screen
- 6.76-inch AMOLED screen with ultra-thin bezels
- 165Hz with support for 165fps in popular gaming titles
- Pixel-packed 1.5K resolution
The OnePlus 15’s screen is a real treat for the eyes, and one that I find hard to fault in most regards.
The 6.76-inch AMOLED panel looks gorgeous at a glance, with the vibrant colours and inky blacks that the screen tech is known for, further improved by the impossibly thin 1.15mm-thick bezels that make flagships like the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL look comparatively dated.
It’s also pretty pixel-packed with a 1.5K resolution, though, like most manufacturers, you’ll need to enable this yourself manually. Considering the size of the battery, I’d have liked it to be on by default, but it only takes a few seconds to change in the Settings app. With it selected, app icons, text and games look crisp, sharp and detailed.
What you don’t often see paired with a 1.5K resolution is the OnePlus 15’s slick LTPO-enabled 165Hz refresh rate. Due to performance constraints, most phones that offer a refresh rate above 120Hz tend to limit themselves to the 1080p level; however, OnePlus has included a dedicated display chipset specifically designed to handle this.
The inclusion of a rapid 3200Hz touch response rate, among the fastest in any smartphone, also helps it feel responsive, particularly in online games.
This combination of screen tech means that you can game in high resolution at high frame rates, and unlike some competitors, it’s not just a theory – but more on the excellent gaming experience a little later.
OnePlus has also been more transparent in terms of screen brightness, which I appreciate. Rather than focusing on the peak brightness, which focuses on a tiny area of the screen in HDR content playback, it has instead focused on the fact that it can get up to 1800nits in its regular high brightness mode – aka the mode most of us will use in day-to-day life, especially when it’s sunny outside.
And, as you might expect from a screen with a higher HBM than the likes of the iPhone 17’s 1000nits, it’s easy to use outdoors on the sunniest of days. An anti-reflective coating, like that of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, would’ve been appreciated here – but that is still a relatively niche feature among phones, and it’s still perfectly usable without it.
Throw in a bunch of eyecare-focused features, motion sickness prevention tech, the ability to drop the brightness to just 0.5nits and the hugely customisable colour temperature settings, and there really isn’t much to dislike about the OnePlus 15’s screen.
Cameras
- Triple 50MP rear camera system
- No Hasselblad tuning, but you won’t notice
- Solid performance from all lenses, and some video-focused goodies too
It’s a big year for OnePlus, as it has finally gone its separate ways from camera brand Hasselblad, instead relying on its own DetailMax camera algorithm for image processing. While there might’ve been concerns about the quality of images captured post-partnership, I can safely say that’s not the case.
Hardware-wise, we see a familiar combination of a 50MP main camera, a 3.5x 50MP periscope lens and a matching 50MP ultrawide – but there have been plenty of underlying changes. The main camera, for example, has a larger 1/1.56-inch sensor – the same as the iPhone 17 Pro Max – while the periscope telephoto offers a larger 1/2.75-inch sensor and enhanced 7x in-sensor zoom.
And, with OnePlus’ new imaging algorithm at play, the results in most conditions are pretty spectacular.
Of course, the main sensor is the most capable, with the 50MP snapper making light work of most scenarios, regardless of shooting conditions. Images shot in bright sunlight are just as detailed as those taken in low light, with OnePlus striking a natural balance in low-light shooting, brightening the scene but not unnaturally so, like some alternatives.
And, importantly, that quality doesn’t seem to drop as you begin to zoom. You’ve got a digital 2x zoom, which is essentially a crop of the main sensor, along with the 50MP 3.5x periscope lens.
The periscope nature of the zoom lens means it does a much better job of punching past the 3.5x mark than the likes of the Google Pixel 10, offering 7x optical quality and pretty crisp images up until the 20-30x mark. Beyond that, you’ll start to notice some softening and the occasional odd AI processing artefact, but even then, it’s not egregious in its offering.
Of course, it’s not as capable as the main in low-light scenarios, but the fairly sized sensor means it’s not just pushing out dark, muddy rubbish either.
Even the ultrawide, which is often an afterthought, even on high-end phone cameras, impressed me. The 120-degree wide-angle is wide enough without being too extreme, and you don’t get the warping at the edges sometimes present on ultrawide snappers. Even the colours are consistent with the main and zoom lenses, and again, that’s not a given with ultrawide lenses.
Of course, it’s not quite as impressive as what you can get from the Oppo Find X9 Pro and its combination of rear lenses, which includes a 200MP periscope, but that phone is a camera-focused flagship – and quite a bit more expensive. The OnePlus 15 is more of an all-rounder, and for most people, I think you’ll be more than happy with the results here.
And, despite all the drama surrounding the end of the Hasselblad partnership, most of the branded features are still present in the OnePlus 15 – although now renamed to avoid conflict with licensing. That means that the Hasselblad styles and even the X-PAN shooting mode are still here, they’re just a little harder to find now.
Creators and videographers might also be more tempted by an Android than usual, with the OnePlus 15 offering elements like 4K@120fps with Dolby Vision – a first for the Android market – along with real-time tone mapping, LOG video recording and even real-time LUT monitoring. It’s not quite up to the Apple-level experience, but it gets you closer than most Androids will out of the box.
Performance
- Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and 16GB of RAM
- Incredible day-to-day and gaming performance
- Doesn’t get hot to the touch, even when gaming
The OnePlus 15 might falter in the camera department compared to the camera-focused Oppo Find X9 Pro, but it certainly has the upper hand in the performance department.
It’s one of the first phones to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 alongside a healthy 16GB of RAM and either 256- or 512GB of storage, and it’s safe to say that brings the fight to the competing Dimensity 9500 in Oppo’s alternative – though not by as much as you might expect.
Benchmarks paint a confident picture with solid scores across CPU and GPU performance, especially compared to most other 2025 flagships with the year-old Snapdragon 8 Elite, but the gap is smaller when compared to the latest Dimensity chipset. In fact, in the ray-tracing benchmark Solar Bay, the Oppo actually scored higher than OnePlus’ performance-focused alternative.
It’s also, notably, less performant than the 8 Elite Gen 5-equipped RedMagic 11 Pro, though that phone does have gaming-focused features and liquid cooling to really squeeze the most out of the chipset.
That said, you’re very unlikely to notice any of that in day-to-day use; the phone, unsurprisingly, absolutely flies. Coupled with OnePlus’ updated parallel processing that speeds up animations throughout the OS and the super-fast refresh rate, everything feels instantaneous. Apps open and close in a flash, scrolling is super-smooth and, as you’d expect, it handles even demanding games in its stride.
To further hammer that fact home, OnePlus has worked with mobile game developers to enable the full 165Hz experience offered from the high-end 1.5K panel. At launch, that includes the popular PUBG, Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars, Real Racing 3, Standoff 2 and Call of Duty Mobile. The latter is actually an industry first, allowing you to play at up to 165fps (if you drop the graphics to Medium) in all multiplayer modes – and it’s noticeable in use.
It’s not necessarily a visible difference – it looks just as smooth as a 120Hz panel – but it allows for faster split-second reactions, as with more frames displayed, you’ll actually see your enemies faster than those using a 60Hz or even 120Hz panel.
Case in point: every CoD game I played on the OnePlus 15, I was on the winning team and usually received the MVP award, but when I switched to the Find X9 Pro’s 120Hz alternative, my performance wasn’t quite as impressive.
What impressed me more was that the phone could deliver the 165fps experience without getting hot to the touch – even during 20-30 minute gameplay stints. It got a little warm on the rear, but there were no obvious hotspots anywhere on the phone that’d make it uncomfortable to hold. It’s really impressive, especially given that there’s no active cooling like RedMagic’s recent alternative.
It’s worth noting that bypass charging is also available, allowing the phone to divert power from the battery to the chip directly, also helping keep temperatures stable without prematurely degrading your battery.
Software
- OxygenOS 16 based on Android 16
- Highly customisable OS skin with handy AI features
- Only four OS upgrades promised
Even with the so-called Oppo-fication of OnePlus’ OxygenOS, OxygenOS 16 remains one of my favourite custom Android skins around. Based on Android 16, the software is pretty far from the stock Android experience – but in all the best ways. It takes what Google has built and, for the most part, improves it for the better.
It comes in many forms; the Flux 2.0 themes allow for a high level of lock screen customisation, including animated wallpapers, depth effects and even widgets, while the resizable icons and folders make for a streamlined home screen experience.
Even the Settings app, which can typically be a little daunting once you venture beyond stock Android, makes a lot of sense. Of course, it also helps that the phone’s built-in search understands natural language and can point you in the right direction, even if you don’t know the name of the specific function you’re looking for.
It’s a visually impressive skin too, with a high level of polish and a lot of customisation on offer. You can change most elements of the OnePlus 15’s home screen experience, be it the shape, size and style of app icons, the layout format and even animation speeds, allowing you to truly fine-tune the experience.
That’s bolstered by new additions in OxygenOS 16 including an updated Plus Mind, which essentially stores screenshots and voice notes, uses AI to analyse them and organise all your saved content – and with new Gemini integration, you can get Google’s assistant to answer queries based on your saved Mind Space content. That allows you to, say, save a bunch of screenshots about upcoming trip activities and get Gemini to add them all to your calendar.
There are also updates to existing AI features, with AI Writer now able to write social media posts based on the photo you’re sharing as well as generate full mind maps based on your notes, while AI Scan can capture presentation slides, even from tilted angles, and automatically removes shadows and lines.
For me, though, it’s AI PlayLab that’s the most fun. It’s an app where you can play with experimental OnePlus AI features, including YumSee, which translates menus and generates images of all the dishes so you can better visualise what you’re ordering on holiday, while Party Up animates static images into short video clips with surprisingly decent results.
I tend to use PhotoSpell the most. It’s essentially a text-based AI image editor, allowing you to explain what you want in natural language and get the AI to do it for you. It ranges from tweaking elements like brightness and saturation to changing the style of clothing you’re wearing or even your hair.
None of these AI features are game-changing, but they’re fun and, while niche, do have their uses from time to time.
Regardless, the OxygenOS 16 experience is solid – though with only four OS upgrades and six years of security updates, it doesn’t quite see the same level of long-term support as flagships from Honor, Samsung and Google.
Battery life
- 7300mAh silicon carbon battery
- All-day battery life, no matter what you throw at it
- 120W wired charging is rapid
OnePlus was already ahead of the curve with the 6000mAh cell in the 13, but the company has increased things again with the 15, taking it up to a whopping 7300mAh. It’s 200mAh off its near-identical sibling, the Find X9 Pro, but that’s not enough to notice a difference in day-to-day life in my experience.
That said, as with the Find X9 Pro, the OnePlus 15 has absolutely fantastic battery life. This is a phone that can handle anything you throw at it, from scrolling on social media to graphics-intensive gaming, and you’ll still get to the end of the day with charge left to spare.
On days when I worked from home and didn’t use the phone too much, it wasn’t abnormal to finish the day with 60% left in the tank. Even on busy days with 5+ hours of screen time, including the aforementioned mix of scrolling, gaming and taking photos, I still managed to get to bed with around 30-40% remaining.
That said, despite its massive capacity, it’s still not quite a two-day phone in my experience. It’ll get you through the first 24 hours no problem, but I found it’d usually need a top-up in the afternoon of the second day. You may fare much better than I though; it all comes down to what you’re doing and how you use the phone.
That said, with 120W SuperVOOC wired charging support, among the fastest around, the phone doesn’t exactly take long to fully recharge.
Though a charger doesn’t ship in the box, I used a 150W SuperVOOC charger I had to hand and saw an impressive 47% in 15 minutes, 79% in 30 minutes and a full charge in just 45 minutes. That’s impressive for any smartphone in 2025, let alone one that has around 40% higher capacity than most others.
The good news is that the phone finally also supports regular USB-C PD charging, though at 36W, it’s not exactly the speediest experience around. I’d recommend investing in a suitable SuperVOOC charger to get the most out of the experience.
There’s also 50W wireless charging support – but as with wired charging, you’ll need an AirVOOC-branded wireless charger to hit those speeds, and there isn’t one in the box. Even then, it’s a slower charging experience, with OnePlus claiming 1-50% in 39 minutes.
Should you buy it?
You want the best performance
It might not be a gaming phone, but the OnePlus 15’s combination of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and a 1.5K 165Hz screen is a real treat for gamers, with 165fps supported on popular mobile games.
You want the very best camera tech
The OnePlus 15’s triple 50MP camera setup is more than enough for most users, but if you want the very latest in high-end imaging tech, you’d better look elsewhere. Maybe at Oppo’s Find X9 Pro.
Final Thoughts
The OnePlus 15, though overshadowed by the near-identical Oppo Find X9 Pro, still has its place in the high-end smartphone market.
For one, while Oppo’s flagship has more capable camera hardware, it’s also hundreds more expensive than OnePlus’ alternative, while still besting the Oppo competition in key areas like finish, screen tech, charging speed and even processing power, offering a great all-round experience that many will appreciate – especially with such a large battery at play.
I’m also appreciative of OnePlus’ approach to performance; it puts its money where its mouth is by not only including a 165Hz refresh rate and a top-end chipset for gaming, but working with big-name developers to bring 165fps support on day one – and you can’t even say that about many gaming phones.
Is it the most visually unique phone? No, but I don’t think it needs to be. The OnePlus 15 gets a lot right, and at a much lower price tag than your iPhones, Galaxy Ultras and Pixel Pro XLs of the world, it’s certainly one of the best phones around right now.
Trusted Score
How We Test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
- Used as a main phone for over a week
- Thorough camera testing in a variety of conditions
- Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests and real-world data
FAQs
OnePlus has committed to four OS upgrades and six years of security patches for the OnePlus 15.
Despite offering 120W wired charging, you won’t get a SuperVOOC charger in the box. You’ll need to source that yourself.
Yes. In fact, with IP68, IP69 and IP69K ratings, it’s one of the best phones around for dust and water resistance.
Test Data
| OnePlus 15 | |
|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 single core | 3553 |
| Geekbench 6 multi core | 10642 |
| Time from 0-100% charge | 45 min |
| Time from 0-50% charge | 19 Min |
| 30-min recharge (included charger) | 70 % |
| 15-min recharge (included charger) | 42 % |
| 3D Mark – Wild Life | 6166 |
| GFXBench – Aztec Ruins | 90 fps |
| GFXBench – Car Chase | 90 fps |
Full Specs
| OnePlus 15 Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £849 |
| USA RRP | $899 |
| Manufacturer | OnePlus |
| Screen Size | 6.78 inches |
| Storage Capacity | 256GB, 512GB |
| Rear Camera | 50MP + 50MP + 50MP |
| Front Camera | 50MP |
| Video Recording | Yes |
| IP rating | IP69K |
| Battery | 7200 mAh |
| Wireless charging | Yes |
| Fast Charging | Yes |
| Size (Dimensions) | 76.7 x 8.1 x 161.4 MM |
| Weight | 211 G |
| Operating System | OxygenOS 16 (Android 16) |
| Release Date | 2025 |
| First Reviewed Date | 13/11/2025 |
| Resolution | 1272 x 2772 |
| HDR | Yes |
| Refresh Rate | 165 Hz |
| Ports | USB-C |
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 |
| RAM | 16GB |
| Colours | Infinite Black, Ultra Violet, Sand Storm |
| Stated Power | 120 W |
Trusted Score
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