OnePlus 15R

While the OnePlus 15 was surprisingly cheap, OnePlus has made a slightly different and even more budget friendly version. They call it a "value flagship" and for once the marketing of a tech product has managed to find a word that is both accurate and meaningful.

But lets take a second to dwell on the battery, its massive 7400 mAh as it needs to feed both the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 - the first phone to use this chipset - a touch response chip for gaming and a G2 Wifi chip. The new Snapdragon chip is vastly faster than its predecessor, 36% in raw CPU performance according to their own numbers, and OnePlus has added some firmware of its own to enhance gaming performance by granting all gaming related activities first priority.

There is no charger included, so how fast it actually charges with the 80W SUPERVOOC is unknown to me currently, but it's fast nonetheless, less than a minute per percent. And yes, the battery does last two full days.

The phone comes with custom vapor chamber cooling, even aerogel to insulate the display from the rest and a reworked camera module and OnePlus Oxygen OS 16 with actual useful AI integration. Generally, the use of AI has become less about features and more about actual use the last year or so, much needed. It even has Bluetooth 6 as one of very few devices on the market. And for the sound enthusiast, yes, it does have LDAC, AptX HD and LHDC 5.0.

The design is very much like its bigger sibling, two colours are available, and the display is a 6.832" 1.5K LTPS AMOLED 165 Hz display, or rather, its 120Hz, with 144Hz and 165Hz being supported by a select few games, in this case the gaming overlay on the phone will tell you which ones. Touch response has its own dedicated hardware inside the phone, which explains the 3200Hz refresh rate for the touch controls, claimed to be the fastest in the world - and I do believe that. Its 1800 nits and 100% DCI-P3 colours, but so are most high end displays.

This is paired with some of fastest memory and storage money can buy, UFS 4.1 storage and LPDDR5X Ultra memory. The review sample had 12GB of memory, and 256GB of storage - very nice numbers for a phone that is rumoured to cost between around 740 Euro (~£650), and with a more expensive alternative with with 512GB of storage at 840 Euro (~£740) - we are slightly guessing I must add.

The phone has four different IP ratings, which honestly makes me a bit confused, bigger is better, and if something can high pressure streams of hot water, I don't need a separate rating to tell me that it will be alright in rain.

As expected, gaming is fluid and responsive, the screen has vivid colours, even the speakers are very decent, although some fake surround sound is turned on by default, and you really don't think about that this isn't the top-of-the-line model, with one exception, the camera.

The AI integration is Google Gemini based, and has been fully integrated with the Existing Plus Mind system that allows you, in very big worlds, to make a mini-LLM with your own data and notes. Its a great idea, but it does take a power-user to remember to use these functions, but more and more should consider this long term. One feature I didn't use, but which looks fantastic, is the AI recorder that is claimed to make meeting notes, being real time, and being able to both summarize and tell each person apart.

The user interface is typical OnePlus, clean, smooth, and with a distinct visual profile. More importantly, OnePlus promises the battery will last for at least four years with 80% capacity left - and so will the Android updates, while the security updates is at minimum six years. Given the focus on resource retention, that is a great move.

OnePlus uses their own DetailMax engine, and their dual exposure for night time photography happens simultaneously instead of one-by-one as with most others. The main 50MP camera uses a Sony IMX906 sensor, and is paired with an 8MP Ultra wide - add in that a telephoto is really needed, and honestly, just some more optical zoom. The 13R had it, and the camera module just feels too downgraded from the 15 that had excellent optical zoom options, and what OnePlus calls "Optical Quality zoom" - which is easily good enough for most people. This camera performance isn't bad as such, especially given enough light, the images are crisp and very detailed, even when zooming - but movement and lack of light are the enemies of all images, and while night time photography is way better than just a few years ago, we are still far from optimal image quality. That being said, the quality of the digital zoom will be adequate for most mainstream consumers, and those who want more may be going for the normal OnePlus 15 anyway. But on the bright side, you do get 4K 120 FPS video - not in any way normal for this price tier.

The specs you get are extremely impressive. Despite trying to drown it in heavy loading games and apps, there have been no hiccups during our testing, something that doesn't come up when benchmarking, but something that really sets high end phones apart from the rest. Lots of memory and storage, very powerful CPU and the biggest battery I have ever seen - the only blemish is the lack of optical zoom. That would have done the trick - especially as the price increase from between its bigger brother isn't that much if you have the bigger expensive version, but honestly, who needs 512GB?

Having tried both phones, the camera is the only aspect that makes a real impact on a daily basis, and I would personally buy the cheapest 15R, and still get the biggest battery, and the most efficient CPU, but still having enough juice to power thru any game or app needed. The price difference is, most likely intentionally, big enough that I can live with it.