OnePlus 15 Review: Forgetting Its Heritage

The OnePlus 13 was my favourite phone of 2025, just because it offered the most refined OnePlus experience. But now, there's a OnePlus 15, which should further improve upon last year's flagship. I got the opportunity to test out the phone for a week, and after using it, I believe OnePlus has made some difficult decisions that may not appeal to everyone. Why do I think that? Read this OnePlus 15 review to find out. 

OnePlus 15: Unboxing 

The retail packaging of the OnePlus 15 has everything you'd expect from the brand, and here's everything included:

OnePlus 15: Design and Build

The OnePlus 15's design is a complete departure from the past generation. It no longer has the large off-center circular camera bump, there's no alert slider or Hasselblad branding either. It feels far removed from what the OnePlus 13 offered with its metallic railing, leather back, and elegant curves. Instead, it looks like an inflated OnePlus 13s. The edges are more rounded, the sides are flatter, and the back is fiberglass, on the Sand Storm variant that I used in this review. 

Honestly, it looks a lot like the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Even the sides match the iPhone 1:1. I can see what OnePlus is trying to do, but it looks like any other Android phones, lacking any brand identity that the company had built over the last few models. In fact, to me it feels more like a POCO F7, which is ironic since that phone has a glass back. 

But design is subjective. Many people may actually like this design over the previous model. But one thing I can't deny is that it is surprisingly reassuring to hold in hand. Despite the flat sides and wider proportions, the soft sandstone texture makes the phone comfortable to grip. The back also has a matte finish, making the phone less slippery. And it feels excellent in terms of build. 

Overall, the OnePlus 15's design is a mixed bag. On one hand, I still wish it carried a premium charm, while I love the in-hand feel. The build looks less flagship and more like a flagship killer this time around. 

OnePlus 15: Display Quality and Speakers

Design is not the only big change on the OnePlus 15, as it sheds the curved screen for a flat display. This adds to the phone's width, but it has been something that fans have wanted for some time. It also does away with the high-res 2K display on the OnePlus 13 for a 1.5K panel. The downgrade is intentional as it allows OnePlus to offer a super smooth 165 Hz refresh rate.

The lower resolution sounds bad on paper, but it isn't that big of a deal to the naked eye. The colour reproduction is incredible, and it has a good level of contrast in darker scenes. I binge-watched Stranger Things during the review period, and was extremely satisfied with the display quality. I must say that the bezels on this phone are the slimmest I have ever seen, even beating out the Galaxy S25 Ultra. 

The stereo speakers get plenty loud, and the volume sounds full, not hollow. Netflix also supports HDR and Dolby Vision. Meanwhile, the display can get plenty bright outdoors, as I found out when I took the phone with me to Humayun's Tomb on a Saturday afternoon. All this makes the OnePlus 15's display one of the best display mobile phones for watching content on Netflix or YouTube. 

OnePlus 15: Performance Tested

The OnePlus 15 is the first smartphone with the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (3nm) processor. This new chipset should offer up to 20% better CPU and GPU performance than the Snapdragon 8 Elite. However, the phone gets really hot, reaching 50 degrees during certain benchmarks, and ends up crashing. So I could only run some benchmarks, and here are the results. 

The benchmark scores speak volumes about the OnePlus 15's performance. Even in gaming, it has no trouble running titles like BGMI, Call of Duty: Mobile at 165 FPS natively. It only works at the lowest graphics, and it needs to be enabled manually from the new OP Gaming hub. Demanding games like Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail ran at locked 60 FPS at the highest settings.

But the phone tends to get hot after 20 minutes of gameplay, I still did not encounter any lag, jitters, or frame drops, even once. With this kind of performance, it wouldn't be wrong to consider the OnePlus 15 as one of the best gaming mobile phones out there. I wish there were more games to further push its performance to the limit. 

OnePlus 15: Software Experience and Updates 

When I was not gaming, I was going ga-ga over the new features in OxygenOS 16. This is the latest version of OnePlus' UI based on Android 16, and it takes the already buttery smooth UI to the next level.

The animations are more fluid, there are new Flux 2.0 themes for the lockscreen to play around with, and they finally added a proper media player on the lock screen as well. However, OnePlus has taken a lot of inspiration from one of the new iOS 26 features – Liquid Glass. 

Generally, I don't care much about AI features. But, during my review of the OnePlus 15, I started to enjoy using Mind Space to take voice notes. The implementation is similar to the Essential key on the Nothing Phone (3), but on OxygenOS, Mind Space syncs with Google's Gemini. This allowed me to directly ask Gemini about the things I saved in the Mind Space vault.

The AI Writing Assist also conveniently shows up when I bring up the keyboard. This further encourages me to use the feature. However, it does make some mistakes in understanding the context and offering a suitable response. 

OnePlus 15: Cameras Tested

The OnePlus 15's triple camera setup looks like a downgrade on paper. The main and periscope lenses feature a smaller sensor size. Even the Hasselblad tuning has been replaced with OnePlus's new DetailMax engine. So, does it offer any substantial improvements? Let's find out. 

The main camera takes detailed images in daylight situations for the most part. The dynamic range is good, which helps to capture more real-life photos, but sometimes it tends to blow out the exposure. Like the photos of Humayun's tomb, where it has completely whitewashed the sky. This is not a frequent issue, but it does tend to happen from time to time. 

The portrait photos also come off really good, with a soft bokeh effect around the subjects. Human subject looks detailed, and there is no over-softening happening over here. But in some night portraits, I have observed that the results look quite over-processed. 

Nighttime shots are well-lit and have ample details. It doesn't crush the shadows, which is something the Oppo Find X9 Pro likes to do. But some photos, especially those with limited light, come out softer. This could be because of the smaller sensor, so you might not get as good photos as you might with phones like the Vivo X200 Pro, but it's not bad for the price either. 

The ultrawide lens also takes crisp wide shots. Just see how gracefully it has captured this castle on the hill steps of Jaipur. My only issue is that the lens is not as wide as other phones at this price, like the Galaxy S25 or iPhone 17.

The new 3.5x periscope lens, though smaller in size, can still capture sharp long-range shots, better macros, and cleaner portraits. Image quality remains impressive up to 30x zoom, after which AI kicks in to enhance details. While it can sometimes turn grainy photos into surprisingly crisp ones, it’s inconsistent, occasionally overcorrecting or removing fine details entirely. 

The selfie camera takes pleasing, natural-looking photos. The portraits come off well, but they still suffer from the long-running OnePlus issue of adding a red hue to skin tones. As for videos, the OnePlus 15 can record up to 8K at 30 FPS or 4K at 120 FPS with the main lens only. But you can record 4K 60 from all cameras and switch between lenses, too.

OnePlus 15: Battery Life and Charging 

OnePlus was applauded last year for going with a large silicon-carbon battery, and they have doubled down on it this year with a massive 7,300 mAh capacity on the OnePlus 15. This is the largest battery I have seen in a flagship so far, and it delivers in real-world usage. Throughout the review period, I averaged 8 hours of screen-on-time with gaming, streaming movies, and multitasking. 

It takes up 12-13% battery while in deep sleep, which is excessive, but can be fixed with an update. It comes with a 120W SuperVOOC charger, which takes the OnePlus 15 from 0-100% in around 38-40 minutes. It also supports 50W wireless charging and reverse wireless charging. 

Bottom Line: Should You Buy the OnePlus 15? 

The OnePlus 15 brings some upgrades over its pedecessor. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 sets a new benchmark for performance while the larger battery and smaller bezels are welcome additions. The cameras are not bad but they're a slight downgrade over the OnePlus 13. And the same reiterates on the design front as the build quality doesn't feel as premium.

What could have helped OnePlus stand out is a more refined experience, which is lacking on the OnePlus 15. Not to forget, the starting price of Rs 72,999 is a high ask when you want to appeal to a price-sensitive audience. So if you are thinking about buying this phone, then I would ask you to wait a week or two until the launch of the iQOO 15  or Realme GT 8 Pro before you make up your mind.