OnePlus 15 Ultimate Review: Cooler, Faster, Unstoppable

This year, with the OnePlus 15, the company is changing its focus a bit. Instead of being the best all-around flagship possible, OnePlus is focusing more on gaming. Having removed Hasselblad from its camera, and focusing more on the large vapor chamber, 165Hz display, and its massive 7,300mAh capacity battery.

On paper, there are some aspects of the OnePlus 15 that appear to be downgrades, but are they actually downgrades? Can OnePlus win our smartphone of the year award for the second year in a row? Let’s find out in our full review.

OnePlus 15

Rating

$899

OnePlus 15 delivers Ultra-tier performance for hundreds less.

Thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, OnePlus’ own 360 Cryo-Velocity cooling system and its triple-chip setup, the OnePlus 15 can outperform the best smartphones on the market.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Incredible battery life & charging speed
• Superb build quality & design
• Excellent price, stayed the same versus OnePlus 13
• Stunning 165Hz display
• OnePlus AI just works
• Best Gaming Experience that’s not on a dedicated Gaming Phone
• OxygenOS 16 is somehow even smoother than before!

Cons

• Cameras took a small step back, losing Hasselblad in favor of DetailMax Engine
• No more Alert Slider
• Ony 4 years of Android OS Updates (6 years for security updates)
• Stunning Ultra Violet color is super limited

Disclaimer

OnePlus did provide AndroidHeadlines with a review unit of the OnePlus 15 in Sand Storm (16GB/512GB). We’ve been using this phone for nearly a month before writing this review. This is not a sponsored review and OnePlus did not see this review before it was published.

OnePlus 15 Specs

OnePlus 15 Review: Build Quality and Design

This year, the OnePlus 15 went through a pretty big design change. Which was needed. OnePlus had basically had the same design for the last 3-4 years, and that’s about when most phones get a new design. So this year, OnePlus decided to get rid of the round camera bump in the corner, and make it a squircle. It also flatted every side of the phone. Compared to the OnePlus 13 which had a quad-curved display. While that display looked great, it also meant it was hard to find screen protectors that you could use on that phone.

The other big change that we’re seeing this year is Alert Slider. It’s gone. As OnePlus (and OPPO) announced earlier this year, it was eliminating it in favor of the Plus Key. This is essentially OnePlus’ own version of Apple’s Action Button. By default, it opens Mind Space, but it can be used to open a number of other things as well.

OnePlus sent out the Sand Storm version of the 15 here, which looks great, actually. It’s a light beige color with a bit of texture. Having just reviewed the OPPO Find X9 Pro, which has almost the exact same design, I can tell a difference in the texture. It’s almost like a mixture between matte and OnePlus’ Sandstone. It’s actually one of my favorite colors on a smartphone right now. It really makes it stand out.

OnePlus did stick with the SIM card slot this year, unlike some other brands (cough, Apple and Google, cough). It’s on the bottom still, with the USB-C port and the speaker. While the right side has the volume rocker and the power button. There are also a number of antenna lines around the device to ensure you get ga ood signal. Of course, OnePlus’ own WiFi chip also really helps with that.

Overall, I really like the design of the OnePlus 15. It also feels nice and solid, like most other smartphones on the market. Unlike the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, where you can press the back of it and hear it click.

OnePlus 15 Review: Display

One of the new features of the OnePlus 15 is going to be that new 165Hz display. It features up to 1,800nits of brightness in high brightness mode, which in our testing we found it just shy of that number at around 1689nits. But that’s not a big deal, because what we care about is how well this display looks outdoors in direct sunlight.

While it’s pretty overcast here in Michigan at this time of the year, we have had a few sunny days, and no matter the lighting conditions, the OnePlus 15 was very easy to see outdoors. It can also get as dim as 1nit, which is great for using your phone in bed at night.

But that’s not the only thing that matters about this display. OnePlus also achieved TÜV Rheinland Intelligent Eye Care 5.0 certification. Which means that it not only reduced blue light, but it also uses an intelligent Eye Comfort Reminder that is able to proactively alert you to take breaks from viewing your phone for so long. To help keep your eyes in tip-top shape.

The colors on this display are simply incredible. Side-by-side with other phones, it does seem to be a bit on the red side, but that is easy to fix, as OnePlus (as well as Realme and OPPO) allow you to have individual controls for adjust the colors of the display. So you can tune it to your liking.

Honestly, this is one of the best looking displays I’ve seen so far. But that’s ahead of the new Samsung displays that are being used on the iQOO 15 and likely on the Galaxy S26 series next year.

OnePlus 15 Review: Performance

Internally, the OnePlus 15 runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is the newest flagship chip from Qualcomm. It was announced back in September, and OnePlus is one of the first to bring it to the US – behind the nubia Z80 Ultra.

Now, I did have the chance to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in other devices, like that nubia Z80 Ultra, but I have to say that OnePlus did a really good job with this chip, optimizing the software and keeping it nice and cool. I put it through some tests side-by-side with the OPPO Find X9 Pro which uses the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 (also announced in September), and found that the temperatures were very, very similar. Efficiency was also very similar here.

In day-to-day usage, the OnePlus 15 performs very well. I haven’t had any instances of it slowing down at all, or even getting warm. In fact, I played Mobile Legends: Bang Bang for a couple of hours on max settings and max brightness, and it did not even get warm to the touch. While it did on the OPPO Find X9 Pro and the nubia Z80 Ultra. So that just shows that the massive vapor chamber inside is doing its job.

Let’s talk a bit more about that cooling. OnePlus is using its 360 Cryo-Velocity Cooling System, which uses a screen cooler on the front, a 3D VC in the middle and a white graphite back cover. This is compared with the 5,731 millimeter-squared 3D VC vapor chamber to dissipate heat. Now it’s not as cool as the liquid cooling that REDMAGIC is using, but it does the job quite well. And you’ll notice that more in the thermal testing section a bit further down.

Overall, performance is exactly what you’d expect from OnePlus. It’s a performance king, and probably the best on the market today, as far as performance goes. A big part of that is how smooth and optimized OxygenOS 16 is, as well.

Benchmarks

Now, let’s talk benchmarks. This is the first Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 device we’ve actually published a review for, so it’s exciting to see the scores here. First off, we test it on Geekbench 6. As you likely know, this test will score the overall raw performance of the CPU and GPU. Here, we are comparing it to the OnePlus 13, to see the year-over-year change, as well as the OPPO Find X9 Pro to see how it compares to the most competitive chipset.

What this shows us is, we’re seeing a pretty consistent change year-over-year in all three tests. In the single-core, we’re looking at a 20% improvement, about 17% in multi-core, but GPU is a pretty massive improvement of 34%. These do line up with Qualcomm’s numbers they touted at Snapdragon Summit, so that’s not a huge surprise.

Now, when we compare this to the competitor from MediaTek in the Find X9 Pro, the numbers are pretty similar, but MediaTek is running away with the GPU score, almost surpassing 30k.

Next up, we test AnTuTu. This is a test that is going to test every single aspect of the device, from RAM, to battery, to the processor and everything in between.

Here, we are also seeing some pretty big changes. Where the OnePlus 15 scored about 37% better. Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 can surpass 4 million on this test, though we’ve yet to see that, even on its own reference device at Snapdragon Summit. It’s about 8% better than the Find X9 Pro too, which is a smaller gap than we normally see between Qualcomm and MediaTek.

The last benchmark we run is with CapCut. Essentially what we are doign here is importing a 60-second video and exporting it at 4K60, timing how long it takes to export. I believe that the app has not been updated for this next generation of chips, because we are seeing much slower times versus even last gen. We’re talking more than twice as long. But here’s the times.

As you can see, it’s almost 3x slower versus the OnePlus 13. So we’ll have to re-run this test a bit later, after CapCut gets updated.

From these benchmarks, we can see that there are some pretty decent improvements year-over-year, which is pretty impressive for Qualcomm and OnePlus. Of course, that massive cooling chamber really helps OnePlus here.

Thermals

Next up, let’s go over the thermals for the OnePlus 15. For thermal testing, we run three different tests. The first one is 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test. This pushes the device to its absolute limit, with twenty 60-second long loops, seeing how the device performs and when it starts to throttle. Some devices throttle pretty quickly, while some can get very hot – we’ve seen temps hit 140 Fahrenheit, which is insanely hot.

Next up, we play Genshin Impact for an hour on max graphics settings and max brightness, then measure the temperature. And finally, we record video at 4K60 for 10 minutes, taking temperature readings at 5-minutes and again at 10-minutes.

OnePlus 15 Review: Battery Life and Charging

Lately, I’ve been spoiled with battery life. Having used multiple 7,000mAh capacity and larger battery smartphones, like the OPPO Find X9 Pro, and the realme GT 8 Pro. So, the battery life isn’t as impressive to me on the OnePlus 15, but even so, I was still shocked.

For the most part, I barely use 50% of the battery in a single 24-hour time frame. And this includes playing Mobile Legends: Bang Bang for a couple of hours at high brightness and 120fps. That’s pretty impressive, to say the least. If I were to use this phone all day long, I’d likely get 13+ hours of screen on time. Something I have not seen on any other phone – not even the Find X9 Pro with the larger 7,500mAh capacity battery.

In fact, last weekend, I used it as my main phone. Only using my iPhone for replying to iMessages. It lasted from Friday evening, all the way until Sunday night until bedtime, before I needed to put it on the charger. That was with about 6-7 hours of screen on time on Saturday and about the same usage on Sunday. So for most people, this is going to be a two-day phone.

And even when its time to charge up, you’re looking at 80W SuperVOOC charging here. The charger is also still included in the box, making this really impressive. We’ll talk about how long it takes to charge in the benchmarks section below, but it’s still very impressive. We also have 50W AirVOOC charging.

Benchmarks

Let’s talk about benchmarks now. So for the battery rundown test, we set the display to about 200nits. Then we load up a YouTube video and cycle through it, playing it nonstop until the phone reaches around 1%. Sometimes it turns off before we finish it, but there’s not a huge difference between 1% and shutting off. We do this for every phone, so there’s a good apples-to-apples comparison here.

In the table above, we compared it to the OnePlus 13 to see the year-over-year improvement. Which is pretty subtle actually, given how much larger the battery is. We also compared it to the OPPO Find X9 Pro, which has a slightly larger battery but has the Dimensity 9500 chipset. As well as the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, and our reigning champ for battery life, the RedMagic 10 Pro.

Quite interesting to see how close it was to the Pixel 10 Pro XL and the Find X9 Pro. But pretty solid results here. It does show us that there could be more optimization needed for video playback on both the OnePlus 15 and OPPO Find X9 Pro.

Now, when it comes to charging, we’re looking at about 2 minutes longer versus the OnePlus 13. Which is quite surprising since it is the same charging speed, but with a 21% larger battery. However, keep in mind that with a much larger battery, the OnePlus 15 is able to stick to 80W charging speeds much longer than it can on the OnePlus 13. Which is the difference here. Still, at 40 minutes for a full charge is not bad at all given how large this battery is.

We did also test this with a USB-C PD PPS charger that can output at 45W to see how fast it can charge. It’s quite a bit slower, but the USB-C PD speed has been improved once again, to around 25W.

OnePlus 15 Review: Software

I’ve been using OxygenOS 16 for a few weeks, but before that, I was using ColorOS 16 since late September on the OPPO Find X9 Pro, which is essentially the same software. And I have to say, this is an incredible update. There’s not a ton of new features this year; a lot of the changes are under-the-hood. So you’re going to notice that OxygenOS 16 is way more optimized than ever before. It’s also much smoother than any other Android skin.

One of the big features on OxygenOS 16 is Plus Mind, which works with the Plus Key and it reminds me a lot of the Pixel Screenshots app on Google Pixel devices. Basically, press the Plus Key and you can save screenshots of articles, receipts, travel plans and much more. Then Plus Mind is able to pull out info and give it to you.

A good example of how this works is with a photo the University of Michigan Football team posted regarding its Purdue game. It was able to pull out the teams, the type of event it is, the time, channel, and even the sponsor. The sponsor portion was a bit surprising, as it’s not denoted as a sponsor on the photo. And you can easily add it to your calendar afterwards.

It’s almost better than Pixel Screenshots, since it’s not saving every single screenshot, only those you save with the Plus Key. So it does take some time to get used to, but once you do, it’s really impressive. Of course, this and all of the OnePlus AI features are powered by Gemini, as well as OnePlus’ own features.

When it comes to the UI, some are going to say it looks more and more like iOS every year, which I disagree with. Sure it looks a bit similar, but it is not an exact copy of iOS like some might want to say. By default, the quick settings are a separate pull down from the notifications shade, which is not new in OxygenOS 16, but you can merge them if you want. In fact, the phone will ask you in the initial setup if you want to merge them or keep them separate.

Now let’s talk updates. OnePlus has gotten really good with pushing out updates to its devices. We’re already starting to see OxygenOS 16 get rolled out to older devices, only a few months after Android 16 was finalized. But for the OnePlus 15, the company did expand its support a bit. So now you’re getting 4 years of OS updates and 6 years of security updates. Meaning you should get Android 20, in 2029. This is up from 3 years of Android updates and 6 years of Security updates on OnePlus 13.

OnePlus 15 Review: Camera

When OnePlus announced a few months ago that it was ditching Hasselblad and using its own DetailMax Engine for the cameras starting with the OnePlus 15, I will admit, I was a bit worried. And that’s because I remember how OnePlus cameras were before the Hasselblad collaboration. And well, it is a solid downgrade, but it’s not as big of a downgrade as I had expected.

Let’s start off with the hardware. We have triple 50-megapixel sensors here. OnePlus is using the Sony IMX906 for the primary sensor with a f/1.8 aperture, the Samsung JN5 3.5x sensor for the telephoto at a f/2.8 aperture, and then the OV50D sensor for the Ultrawide, which has a f/2.0 aperture. The sensor sizes are also smaller than the OnePlus 13, which is what had me worried, as it means we’re going to be seeing less light coming into these photos.

But let’s jump into some photo samples. For the most part, the camera does a pretty good job. Now I’ve been comparing it to the OPPO Find X9 Pro, since that is about the closest thing as we’d get to a OnePlus 15 with Hasselblad. Just to see how much of a difference it’d make without Hasselblad. And well, I’ll let you be the judge of the photos. The watermark on them shows what sensor was being used. For the macro shots, those were all either the ultrawide or main sensor, since this does not have telemacro capabilities.

Now, let’s do some comparisons. I took the OnePlus 15 to downtown Detroit and compared it against the OPPO Find X9 Pro. There is definitely some obvious differences here, but not every instance do I prefer the Find X9 Pro. Which shocked me a bit, to be quite honest. One thing I noticed is that OnePlus tends to make the sky much more blue than it was in real life, but I almost prefer that because it looks better.

I also compared it side-by-side with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I found that the iPhone was typically on the warmer side of things and also had more details versus the OnePlus 15. See for yourself.

Should you buy the OnePlus 15?

Despite the camera downgrades, I do think the OnePlus 15 is worth buying. At the time of writing this, it starts at $899 which is a solid $400 lower than the Galaxy S25 Ultra. This is probably the best $899 smartphone you can buy right now.

But even if you don’t use the camera a ton, I’d say if you’re a gamer that wants to do more gaming on your Android smartphone, but don’t want a “gaming phone”, then the OnePlus 15 is a great option.

Then there’s the battery life. I honestly can’t wait to take this to CES in January and see how well it stands up to that extreme battery usage. But in daily usage, it’ll last me a couple of days on a single charge.

You should buy the OnePlus 15 if:

• You want incredible battery life and fast charging.
• You want a great gaming experience from a “regular” smartphone.
• You want a cheap-ish smartphone with a flagship experience.

You should not buy the OnePlus 15 if:

• You want the best camera experience you can get in 2025/2026.
• You want a 2K or higher resolution display.

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