The OnePlus 15 has arrived in the US as an $899 flagship phone with a new design, new camera system, the latest in Qualcomm chipsets, and a massive battery. Looking at this phone from a distance, it sells itself as a device that might be perfect for just about everyone. However, once you take a closer look, the OnePlus 15 is like any other phone – it has some big strengths and also some areas that might make you pause.
We’ve been testing the OnePlus 15 for several weeks now, putting it through our daily routine and doing everything in our power to try and run down this insane battery. We failed there, but we did have some fun and also have plenty to share.
OnePlus sent us the Infinite Black color with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. This is the top tier model that jumps the price to $999. This is our OnePlus 15 review.
What do you need to know about the OnePlus 15?
Battery life is pure insanity in a good way. If you need nothing else from a phone other than one that will last you for a true 2 days on a single charge, then you can stop reading this review now and do whatever it takes to buy the OnePlus 15. There is no phone in the US that will last as long as this one will. I promise you that I am not at all exaggerating to make a headline, but am actually astonished at how long this phone can last on a charge.
OnePlus is using a stacked battery technology that takes two 3650mAh cells to give a combined capacity of 7300mAh. For comparison, the Galaxy S25 Ultra has a large 5000mAh battery and the Pixel 10 Pro XL tops it at 5200mAh. The OnePlus 15 sits at 7300mAh!
During my testing, I just stopped thinking about battery life, stopped taking screenshots of battery percentages, and generally just never thought about what the status of this phone’s battery was after about 3 days of use. It just didn’t matter. There was no way I was going to kill this phone in a single day no matter how hard I tried. The battery is too big and I can’t find more than 5 hours in a day to have the screen on.
And when I did hit that 5-hour screen on time mark, I was still going to bed with 40+%. I even went to bed several days with lighter use and had 60% or more remaining. The dream of a 2-day phone has been realized with the OnePlus 15.
Should you need to charge this phone, like other OnePlus phones, this one charges incredibly quickly over wired or wireless connections. It comes with an included fast charger in the box that hits 80W wired speeds. If you have a OnePlus wireless charger, you could hit 50W on it. Again, you won’t need to charge this phone often, but once you do, you’ll be back to 100% in well under an hour.
Battery life warriors, your phone is here.
This display is just great. OnePlus is using a 6.78″ OLED display on the OnePlus 15 that drops the resolution slightly to 2772×1272, but increases the peak refresh rate to 165Hz. The OnePlus 13 had a true 1440p resolution. There’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 covering it, a typical 1-120Hz refresh rate when doing almost everything outside of gaming, peak brightness levels that will blind you, low brightness levels that’ll meet the darkest moment, and viewing angles that are as good as any display.
This is a really good display, which isn’t surprising when you look back at so many OnePlus displays before it. OnePlus knows how important the screen experience is on its phones and they’ve delivered another impressive panel here. I just have no complaints. This display is smooth, a pleasure to swipe on, and really has no flaws. Colors can be punchy, plus you can also dial them back with a “Natural” mode. Really, what more could you ask for in a flagship display?
Performance cooks, as expected. With the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16GB of LPDDR5X Ultra+ RAM, 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage, and this fast display, there isn’t anything you’ll do to this phone that will slow it down. OnePlus has optimized the software to be fast, the hardware is all top tier, and there’s a vapor chamber in case you start gaming and the phone needs to cool itself. Basically, OnePlus built this phone to be a gamer’s dream phone and they probably delivered that.
For me, I’m a typical smartphone user that dabbles in Chrome, Instagram, some Pokemon games, Gmail, and reddit, so I’m not exactly pushing it to its limits. For my use, the phone never heated up, never slowed down, and never dropped a frame. I didn’t expect it to, just saying that it handled my workload without breaking a sweat.
Design is a really nice change. Earlier in the year, OnePlus launched a phone called the OnePlus 13s that never arrived here, but caught our eye for its updated design language. OnePlus has needed to switch things up in design for several years now, so as we watched that phone come and go without being able to touch it, we quietly held out hope for a design refresh in the OnePlus 15. We got one!
The OnePlus 15 has a new squared-off design, a camera box that looks a lot like the one on Google’s Pixel Fold line, and some new colors that are subtle yet fresh. OnePlus sent us the Infinite Black (matte black) version, but let’s be honest, the Sand Storm colorway is the one most should get. This Infinite Black is nice, that Sand color is just so unique.
But overall, you get a similar boxy feel like you’ll find on the Pixel 10 Pro XL, with gentle curves at each edge to make the phone comfortable to hold. OnePlus also moved the camera box to the center enough, allowing for almost no wobble when sitting on a desk. Button placement is ideal, there’s great balance to the phone in hand, and the weight hasn’t bothered me at 215g. This is not a light phone (and shouldn’t be with that massive battery inside), but it also hasn’t brought any fatigue.
OnePlus is without a doubt following current phone design trends and that’s OK with me. I love the look of this phone. It meets the moment, is the refresh this brand needed, and it feels incredible in the hand.
Camera is quite the mixed bag. OnePlus’ partnership with Hasselblad has come to an end, so this OnePlus 15 has given them a fresh start in cameras. This phone runs their in-house DetailMax camera tech that comes from OPPO. In this phone for hardware, OnePlus is using three 50MP sensors to cover wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto. On paper, they all sound like perfectly acceptable sensors for a flagship-level phone. In software, you get a robust camera app that’s easy to use, with Pro and night and portrait modes, HDR controls, and almost any other camera setting you can think of. You have high efficiency image formats, QR code scanning, portrait distortion correction, bitrate controls for video, grid lines, etc. It’s all here. The camera app is excellent.
As for camera results, they have been very mixed and the current image processing from OnePlus is not in a way that I prefer. The camera system is certainly capable. I think it has a really solid portrait mode, it’s very good indoors and impressive in low light, and can take a solid landscape image. However, the processing is heavy-handed in both contrast and sharpening, to the point that it’s all so excessively dramatic.
Look at these first three camera samples, all of which are indoors in a close-up style food shot. These might look fun on Instagram in 2010 when everyone was over-using filters, but these shots don’t have filters! These are point-and-shoot, straight out of the pocket, captures. When testing, I run everything as it was delivered to me out of the box and these are the results. Every color is exaggerated. Every edge is highlighted to the point that the bread on a sandwich looks like it’s floating. There’s depth, but so much so that the images almost look 3D, which I don’t want. Again, it all looks like a filter was applied, yet there wasn’t.
So in those types of shots, this camera is weird and I don’t like it. But then the next set of samples I have, I think you might agree that this camera can do some cool stuff. Look at this Halloween night shot – so good. The zoom at the Timbers match of the goalie is so clear and perfectly vibrant for that type of shot. The indoor portrait of my cat is as good as any I’ve taken, even if it did soften some of his cheek hair. The landscape basketball hoop image is quite good as well, although the shadows in the rafters were a little too reduced. But I only know that because the comparison shot I took with the iPhone 17 Pro is very much more natural with proper shadows.
This camera is so capable at times! And then it’s not. These are probably things OnePlus will work on as they get all of this early feedback from testers. The promise of camera processing improvements is a tough one, though, as you never know if it’ll happen or if it’ll truly improve.
No Qi2 or magnets built-in. I did not expect OnePlus to build Qi2 magnets or the standard into this phone, let’s not get that twisted. However, I really wish they would try, although I get that their charging technology is superior in terms of speed to Qi2. Still, can’t we at least get some built-in magnets?
I have the Pixel 10 series spread across my desk, an iPhone, and all of the magnetic accessories I can get my hands on. The charger next to my bed is Qi or MagSafe, my wallet is, and I plan to add more as life goes on. But when I started this review of the OnePlus 15, I had to decide some things. Do I unplug all of my magnetic chargers and swap to a wired setup or do I slap a magnetic case on the phone and continue that way? I went with the case, but I don’t like cases – I like to hold phone hardware, especially when reviewing it and I just couldn’t with this phone.
Now, I get that this complaint is kind of silly and won’t be the experience for many. You’ll buy it, put a case on it, and then do magnets through the case. I just wish OnePlus would catch-up and include them for those of us who like to live life caseless.
Haptics feel like a downgrade. Again, here I am nitpicking, but going from the OnePlus 13 to the OnePlus 15, I can’t help but point out that the haptics are just not as good. While not bad, the haptics in the OnePlus 13 are the best in any phone in history. There’s this bump or thock that is so satisfying as you type or confirm an action by gesturing. It was easily one of my favorite parts of last year’s OnePlus phone. For the 15, OnePlus has changed something or the feel just doesn’t come through like it did. I’ve messed with all of the vibration settings on this phone too and can’t get it to feel like the 13. The only reason I bring this up is because the 13 was that good and I was so looking forward to that touch experience again on this phone, yet they just didn’t quite deliver. I’d probably put the haptics in the class right below the Pixel 10 Pro, which is still good, just no longer at the top.
Notification system is beyond frustrating. OnePlus has made some truly baffling decisions around notifications on its phones. These are bad enough that someone like me, an Android nerd, can’t live with them for long. I’ll do my best to explain this situation, because this might not affect you at all, I just think you should know how OnePlus is doing things. And I need to bring it up, because Android (again, to me) is best as a notification hub that leads you into apps. OnePlus’ current software is failing at that.
For one, lock screen notifications are borderline broken. On any other Android phone, you start your session from the lock screen, look at notifications, and then decide if you need to interact with them before unlocking. But you can almost always start the next move by swiping down on notifications to see quick actions, to reply to someone, etc. In OxygenOS, swiping down on the lock screen now just hides notifications. Like, it just removes them all to the bottom to….I don’t even know. It is a bonkers UX decision. If you want to interact with a notification on the lock screen, you have to tap the tiniest little arrow to expand. *Deep sigh and exhale* – Ugh. Ugh, again.
Making matters worse, if you do unlock your phone because dealing with lock screen notifications is impossible, that unlock action may clear them from your lock screen. In other words, if you are in the habit of leaving notifications in place in order to deal with them later, but still want them to be there, OnePlus has decided to clear them for you, at least from the lock screen. Like, whhhhhaaat?
Another issue I have is when you are actively using your phone and a notification pops-up on screen as a banner. On almost any other phone, you can swipe down on that to expand the notification with a quick respond box or to read the rest of the notification before swiping it back away. Not on OnePlus phones. OnePlus has decided that swiping down on those banners will open the full app experience in a pop-up floating app. It’s so awful and unnecessary. And there’s no way to turn it off! So rather than you getting a text message, doing a quick pull down to reply, and then back to what you are doing, OnePlus is forcing the app to fully open as a pop-up that you then have to swipe away somehow or tap a button to close it.
I’m still going! In the notification pulldown, OnePlus will let you separate notifications into a separate panel from Quick Settings, just like Apple does and that Samsung will now let you do as well. But if you want to keep the old combined experience that is still the best, OnePlus has made the experience awkward. So if you have multiple notifications and you swipe into the notifications area, OnePlus auto-expands the top notification. You can swipe up on it to expand the notifications to the full screen, but if you have enough notifications that they take up the entire screen space, the bottom “Clear” or “X” button gets in the way and stays in the way! Working around that button, in order to either not clear all notifications or to swipe the right way to be able to deal with it is not an easy task.
OnePlus has essentially broken all of the familiar swiping moves you make with Android notifications and changed them to be worse than you can imagine. Samsung has done some weird shit with notifications in recent One UI updates, but they are still far better than whatever OnePlus is doing. Google still gets it right. Even Apple, whose notification system has always been the worst in the world, is better than this in some ways.
Did I just write 600+ words on OnePlus’ broken notification system? Yes. Android phones are hubs for notifications and if a company breaks the basics there, a phone can instantly become a nuisance in your life. OnePlus needs to revisit these decisions and go back to the basics.
Software is mostly pretty good. All of that aside, the rest of the software experience is mostly good. You have OxygenOS 16 on top of Android 16 and is a skin that is a pleasure to look at. Settings are familiar and robust, there’s a quick search shortcut from the home screen that I use constantly, Quick Settings have the new style of expanded controls for things like brightness and volume, and there is a ton to customize.
As we watch Google slowly trickle out more customization tools to the Pixel line, OnePlus has had them all already. You can change icon sizes and shapes, transition animations, different swipe gestures on home screens, and the animation for the fingerprint unlock. You can tweak colors and clocks and numerous vibration settings. You can schedule phone reboots, adjust the dark theme, and create clones of apps.
Overall, I still think OxygenOS is a good Android skin, I just need OnePlus to fix its notification issues.
Software update promise is borderline low. On a related note, OnePlus is committing to 4 years of OS updates for the OnePlus 15, as well as 6 years of security updates. Google and Samsung are both doing 7 years of each, so this level of support is a step below. I’m still not sure how many people are ever going to keep their phones for 7 years to see the updates that Google and Samsung are promising, but should they decide to, OnePlus is not an option.
I guess there is AI here. OnePlus has baked in AI features, but I couldn’t tell you about much of it. I use the AI Search on some level, because I constantly search this phone. The other stuff includes an AI Writer, translate, and then some recording tools. Oh, there’s a Mind Space thing that is a lot like Nothing’s Essential Space, only less helpful and with less features. This is not an AI-forward phone like Google’s Pixel line and that’s fine. I’m not criticizing OnePlus for having a lackluster AI presence, because I actually think most AI is shit, I’m just pointing out that you buy a OnePlus 15 for so many other things.
Who should buy the OnePlus 15?
That really is the question to be answered because this is not the phone for everyone, at least I don’t think it is. It’s for heavy mobile gamers. It’s for those who need (or want) true 2-day battery life. It’s for those who appreciate modern smartphone design and who want software packed with so many features that you’ll regularly discover new capabilities. It’s not going to be for photographers or those who take as many pictures as they possibly can. The camera system just doesn’t deliver at this point. It’s definitely not for those who start their smartphone sessions from the lock screen. It’s also not for those who plan to keep their phone for more than 4 years.
The OnePlus 15 should go up for sale soon in the US and you can buy it for as little as $899.
Via: www.droid-life.com
