OnePlus 15 Review: A Rollercoaster Of Emotion On Price, Power, And Availability

OnePlus is taking a rather odd route this year with its flagship this year. Instead of taking the usual route with a big design refresh, major camera upgrades, or going bonkers with any outlandish hardware-level addition, OnePlus is taking a more refined approach. But that doesn't mean it's a bland year-over-year refresh. Far from it, actually.

You get a faster silicon, a bigger battery than any mainstream phone in the US market, charging tech that leaves the competition far behind, and an extremely fast display. The big — and the unexpected — recipient of most attention is the OxygenOS 16 software. OnePlus has kept the price at the same level as its predecessor, setting the entry at $899. 

I've spent a few weeks with the OnePlus 15, pushing it at the comfort of my home and in a tribal festival roughly a thousand miles away in a remote village. And so far, it has served me fairly. But you're here for a technical dissection of its strengths and weaknesses, it's high time you found out whether it's fit to be your next daily driver.

I'll spell it out in the clearest terms here. If you have seen a certain compact phone called the OnePlus 13s or 13T, the OnePlus 15 is just like a supersized version of it. But if you haven't, this phone will take you by surprise. The design is a radical shift away from the OnePlus 13. We get flat sides, sharp lines, rounded corners, and a non-curved panel. I've spent a few hours with each color option of the phone, but it's the sand-inspired shade that every buyer should pick.

This one has a ceramic-grade coating on the metallic frame, which is electrochemically deposited on top. The result is a composite material that is claimed to be over three times as strong as aluminum, and even sturdier than a titanium mid-frame. I was sent the "Sand Storm" version of this phone for this review — and I am in love with how the hardware feels to handle. It doesn't attract grime, offers just the right amount of surface friction to provide a secure grip, and looks unlike any other phone out there.

OnePlus says it's the first time that the micro-arc oxidation (MAO) process has been used on a phone, a courtesy which also extends to the camera module on the OnePlus 15. I am in love with this colorway. This phone is also plenty resilient, thanks to an IP69K-rated build that also allows it to withstand high-pressure water jets and deeper immersion (2 meters vs 1.5 meters) for 30 minutes. Overall, this kit is pretty stylish and as resilient as a mainstream smartphone can get.

The display on the OnePlus 15 is special. It's the first mainstream flagship phone out there that breaches the 120Hz norm, and comes with a faster panel with a 165Hz refresh rate. Oddly, the resolution has been slightly downgraded, but it still offers plenty of clarity with a resolution of 2772×1272 pixels against a 6.78-inch diagonal; it's still pretty sharp, and you won't find yourself squinting your eyes for details.

Color reproduction is beautiful, and viewing angles are also nice. At 1,800 nits of peak brightness, I didn't face any troubles with content legibility, either. I just wish it had an anti-reflective coating, the kind you would find on the iPhone 17 Pro or the Galaxy S25 Ultra, because the glare artifacts visibly ruin an otherwise gorgeous display. The super slim bezels, paired with an extremely fluid UI interaction experience, offered the smoothest experience I've had on a phone lately.

In a handful of games, that 165Hz panel opens the doors for 165FPS output. What I liked more was the thoughtful AI-powered, health-focused conveniences on the phone. For example, there's an eye comfort reminder system that shows an alert at the top of the screen if you've been staring at the screen for a long time at close proximity, without taking a break. There are also dedicated warning systems that tell you to blink and take a break if the system detects long sessions of staring at the screen.

OnePlus has equipped its latest flagship with Qualcomm's top-tier Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 silicon. You're going to see the same chip powering the upcoming slate of Android heavy-hitters in 2026. But OnePlus is delivering a secret sauce on its latest phone that sets it apart from the rest. Before we dig into the nitty-gritty, here's the broad outlook. This phone is buttery smooth. Whether it's something as mundane as switching apps, capturing hi-res videos, or playing games, this phone works flawlessly. I haven't run into UI freezing or app-crashing instances so far.

The real gem is the upgrade vapor chamber cooling system and the OP Gaming Core architecture that fits three additional chips inside the phone. In simplest terms, OnePlus has adjusted the resource allocation. But instead of taking a brute approach where peak performance is the only goal post, the OnePlus 15 focuses on the stability aspect. When I compared it to another phone with the same Qualcomm chip while running a 20-loop benchmark test, I noticed that the OnePlus 15 delivered a lower performance peak, but at the same time, the dip in peak performance was much lower.

More importantly, it maintained a stability that was roughly 65% higher than another Android flagship. Additionally, the temperatures I recorded after 30-46 minute gaming sessions in "Call of Duty Mobile" (played at 165FPS), "Genshin Impact," and "Zenless Zone Zero" were roughly 20-25% lower than rivals, and never breached the 107 degrees Fahrenheit mark. Overall, if smooth — and sustained performance — performance without heating woes is what you seek, the OnePlus 15 should be your top pick.

By a mile, this is the most refined — and adventurous — software OnePlus has served on a phone to date. Running atop Android 16, the Oxygen OS 16 experience is significantly snappy and smooth. But it's the features that really set it apart. OnePlus took some inspiration from iOS 26, but went a few steps ahead by offering deep lock screen and Home Screen customization facility. You can even set a video on the lock screen, and extract depth information to hide a dynamic clock behind it.

The app drawer now offers a separate categorized approach for apps, and it even lets you expand an app's icon — like a pill — to add quick action shortcuts. Take a look at the Gmail icon in the image above to get an idea. The AI Plus Mind and Mind Space systems, which serve as a digital memory bank, are even better than ever. With a single click on the dedicated Plus Key on the left edge, a snapshot of the screen is captured. The AI then analyzes the content, creates a memory card with a title, descriptions, and hashtags for contextual search. And it now even integrates with Gemini.

"Hey Gemini, tell me something about the Ward's Lake, whose picture I saved in the Mind Space."

With a command like that, Gemini will dig into the memory vault and do the needful. This is the most thoughtful implementation of AI on a phone that I actually use on a regular basis. There are also plenty of AI-powered tricks for voice note-taking, image editing, and even aligning scanned documents. Oxygen OS 16 also adds an O+ Connect system that enables tap-to-share function with iPhones and even remote Mac access. It's a pretty rewarding software experience, overall.

On the OnePlus 15, you get a trio of 50-megapixel camera sensors at the back, and a 32-megapixel camera sensor for selfies. The Hasselblad partnership is no longer here, and its place has now been taken by the new DetailMax engine. There is a discernible difference in the color chemistry. Compared to the OnePlus 13, the 15 goes for a higher ISO, brighter exposure, and more contrast. That's both good and bad news. It's bad because in its bid to brighten shots, it occasionally softens the details on hair and suppresses the textures. 

Nadeem Sarwar/SlashGear

I also noticed a bit of over-processing in night mode shots, which gives an oil-painted effect to background artifacts due to aggressive sharpening. The Macro mode could also use some work with focus locking. Now, on to the brighter side of things. The cameras deliver consistently good shots. 

Nadeem Sarwar/SlashGear

There is little color disparity between the shots captured by the main and ultrawide lenses. The saturation profile is more natural this time around, with sufficient sharpness visible in the frame and a healthy amount of surface detail. The telephoto camera also manages to surprise with AI-processed shots at up to 30x level. At the native 3.5x optical zoom level, it even managed to surpass the iPhone 17 Pro in a few low-light shots. 

Nadeem Sarwar/SlashGear

But I highly recommend that you play around with the filters. The Neon filter, in particular, clicks beautifully cold pictures with deep shadows and punchy colors, just like film cameras. Video capture goes all the way up to 8K 30fps and 4K 120fps. The videos turn out fairly sharp and well-stabilized, but focus hunting remains an issue as you climb the resolution ladder. This isn't quite an iPhone 17 Pro-tier camera kit, but it has its own charm.

OnePlus 15 comes with a massive 7,300 mAh battery, one of the biggest you will find on US soil. And it delivers on the exercise. I am a power user, and rely on-device AI processing tasks as part of my daily workflow a lot. Additionally, my daily usage includes at least 3-4 hours of music listening, at least 30-40 minutes of GPS navigation, about an hour of gaming, and loads of texting across WhatsApp, Slack, and Teams. The phone managed a full day, and then some more, without any trouble. This is truly one of those phones that can rid you of the proverbial battery anxiety. I often used it to reverse charge my earbuds and still ended the day with at least 20-25% battery still left in the tank.

OnePlus has also upgraded the charging suite. The OnePlus 15 now supports 120W wired charging, and thankfully, the charging brick came bundled in the box. In my most recent test run, the brick charged an empty battery all the way up to 100% in 43 minutes. With 15 minutes of charging, you can get enough electrochemical to last a day of normal usage. If you prefer wireless charging and are not averse to the idea of spending extra on OnePlus' in-house charging pad, you can take advantage of a 50W top-up. That's faster than the wired charging pace of the Google Pixel 10 Pro and the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The phone doesn't support the Qi2 standard, which means there are no magnets fitted underneath the rear shell to allow magnetically-locked power transfer like Apple's MagSafe or the PixelSnap system on the Pixel 10 series.

The OnePlus 15 didn't set out to redraw the lines of flagship smartphone perks. It would've had a hard time doing so, considering just how good the OnePlus 13 was. And continues to stay so. Instead, it focused its attention elsewhere. Expectedly, performance is top-notch, and so is the camera, at least at the hardware level. Where this device stands out is with small wins. The display is faster and serves some welcome wellness-focused features.

Then there's the battery, which is absolutely massive and performs fitting on a day-to-day basis. The 120W charging tech is impressive, and so is the wireless charging stack. The camera is not without its flaws, but it manages to serve its purpose with enough flexibility and panache that you won't find any make-or-break imaging sins. The software, on the other hand, is loaded with useful features and delivers a silky smooth experience.

Overall, if an Android flagship with standout gains is what you seek, the OnePlus 15 will deliver on that front generously. And in a few areas, it's a little too future-proof against the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Google. This time around, it doesn't need luck to prove itself. It has all the substance; it just needs the leap of faith from smartphone enthusiasts to go beyond the comfort zone of established brands. All that comes at an unchanged price of $899, so there's that understated benefit.

OnePlus has postponed the launch of the OnePlus 15 in the U.S. due to delay in regulatory clearance because of the country's nationwide government shutdown. The company hasn't given a specific timeline regarding a market launch, but says it will happen "expeditiously."