OnePlus is back again with a new phone—this time, the third device launch in 2025. With a massive 7,300mAh battery, a triple 50MP camera array (with 4K 120FPS and Dolby Vision recording), and gaming capabilities never before seen on a phone, here’s why I think theOnePlus 15 is one of the best Android phones of the year.

Credit: OnePlus

OnePlus 15

9/10

Brand

OnePlus

SoC

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

Display

6.78-inch 2772*1272 (FHD+)

RAM

12GB/16GB

The OnePlus 15 features the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC that enables gaming features never before seen on a smartphone. The 165Hz display is perfect for mobile gaming, and when not gaming, it runs at 120Hz, making it ideal for everyday usage. The triple camera array is pretty great, and the 7,300mAh battery lasts multiple days on a single charge.

Pros & Cons

• Lives up to the multi-day battery life hype
• Incredible gaming performance and features
• Feels great in the hand

• Still stuck with proprietary charging standards for fast charging
• No Qi2 support

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By Justin Duino

Jun 5, 2024

Price and availability

The OnePlus 15 isdelayed for launch in the US, but it will cost $899.99 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and $999.99 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Both models come in Infinite Black, Ultra Violet, and Sand Storm colorways.

I had no idea phones could last this long on one charge

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

I’ve been reviewing phones for a long time. While I’ve definitely seen battery life improvement, the OnePlus 15 takes things to the next level. To say I was impressed with the battery life is an understatement.

Now, I would hope that the battery life of a 7,300mAh behemoth would impress me. For comparison, Apple’s iPad 11th Gen (the A16 2025 model) has a battery of ~7,600mAh in size—just 300mAh more than the OnePlus 15.

The craziest thing is how compact this phone is. It's between theiPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max in size, yet it has a substantially larger battery than either device.

OnePlus employed a new technology called Silicon NanoStacking for the battery of the OnePlus 15. This is a unique manufacturing process that “boasts the market's highest silicon percentage (15% silicon inside the silicon carbon)” according to OnePlus.

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

The battery should last for four years before dipping below 80% capacity, which is pretty substantial since most phones start to drop below 80% at around the two-year mark.

I’ll say, the battery lives up to the hype. I was able to play Minecraft at 165Hz (pushing around 125FPS) with all the graphics settings maxed (more on that in a bit) for about five to six hours before I dropped to 20% charge.

I’ve had the OnePlus 15 on me as a secondary driver, but my primary social media and video recording phone for about a week and a half now, and I have been able to go two or more days between charges.

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

This past weekend, I spent the day recording video footage in my workshop using the OnePlus 15. I recorded probably about 90 minutes of 4K 30 FPS video on Saturday and dropped less than 15% on battery. That was actual recording time, not just the time I spent in the shop. The screen would have been on for much longer than that between shots, setting up the next shot, and reviewing footage.

All that to say, the battery on the OnePlus 15 excels in every way I could imagine it would. Every smartphone needs a battery that lasts this long.

The OnePlus 15 is great for gamers, but perfect for everyone

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC in the OnePlus 15 ispowerful. My unit has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but I’d say the gaming performance should be pretty similar across the board.

As I mentioned in the battery portion, I spent a good bit of time playing some mobile games with the OnePlus 15. It exceeded my expectations in every area. I’ve not used a better phone for mobile gaming, bar none.

One of the most surprising parts of gaming on the OnePlus 15 is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s in-game rendering features. Swiping in from the upper left-hand corner of the screen reveals the game features settings page. Here, you can change the screen’s refresh rate (up to 165Hz), what power mode you want to be in, the touch responsiveness of the device, and more.

The most surprising part of the game settings page is the GPU settings that are available under theMy gaming performance tab. In here, you can change the MSAA, anisotropic filtering, mipmap LOD bias, and texture filtering quality. These are settings I’d expect to see on a gaming PC—not a phone.

I also didn’t experience the OnePlus 15 overheating much at all, even when gaming or recording videos for long periods of time. Sure, it got a little warm occasionally, but nothing like my iPhone 13 Pro or 15 Pro that I used to have—those would get so hot you couldn’t hold them at times. The cooling capabilities come from OnePlus’ 360° Cryo Velocity Cooling System, which does work as advertised for sure.

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

The AI features of the OnePlus 15 are definitely there, but you can take it or leave it. I really didn’t use them too much, as I just don’t find mobile AI features all that useful outside a bit of on-device processing for spoken tasks—which OnePlus doesn’t use all that much. OnePlus touts Plus Mind 12 as “your powerful personal intelligence,” and it’s decent, but it definitely relies on Google Gemini now, and I think that’s for the better.

OnePlus ditched the physical slider switch on the side for the Plus Key—a direct clone of Apple’s Action button. While you can make the Plus Key do just about anything, from triggering Plus Mind to triggering the translation function of your phone for text, camera, a conversation, or more—I just use it to turn the flashlight on and off. That’s how I use the Action Button on my iPhone 17 Pro, and that’s how I plan to use the Plus Key on the OnePlus 15.

Overall, I like the way that the OnePlus 15 feels in-hand as well. The unique texture on the back makes it easy to grip, even with its larger size. The buttons are fairly conveniently placed and easy to hit. The only gripe I have about the way the phone feels is the pre-installed screen protector. I feel that the screen protector catches my fingers relatively frequently when swiping in from the edge of the display. This is a mostly minor annoyance, but it's something that doesn't happen on myOnePlus 13R.

Why are we still using proprietary charging methods?

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

In the age of USB-C Power Delivery, OnePlus is still stuck to using its proprietary charging method. The OnePlus 15 supports up to 80W SUPERVOOC USB-C charging and 50W AIRVOOC wireless charging. If you want to use traditional USB-C Power Delivery—which supports up to 240W of charging—you’re out of luck.

In my testing, the OnePlus 15 would only draw around 8-15W of power from my USB-C PD chargers, while it would routinely draw twice that or more from the included SUPERVOOC charger. I also tested the OnePlus 15 on my Qi2-enabled wireless charger with little success.

For starters, the OnePlus 15 is distinctly lacking magnets for any type of magnetic accessories, chargers or otherwise. However, the real letdown was that it only ever drew about 5W from the Qi2 charger—a meager 10% of what it’s capable of from the proprietary AIRVOOC charger.

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

I understand that Qi2 is a newer tech, but Apple has full support, and thePixel 10 supports it too. OnePlus could have adopted Qi2 and enabled at least 25W wireless charging, even if keeping the 50W AIRVOOC charger was in their plans.

Either way, OnePlus didnot embrace industry-standard charging methods here, and it’s a pretty big negative in my book. That’s not to say that the OnePlus 15 charges slow all the time. It still can top off at decent rates even without the SUPERVOOC charger—I just wouldn’t try to game at 165Hz on high settings while charging with a non-first-party charger. You do have a 7,300mAh battery to fill, after all.

A solid camera even without Hasselblad

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

OnePlus and Hasselblad didn’t renew their partnership for this phone launch, which is a bit surprising. The OnePlus 15 still takes pretty stellar photos and video, though. I’ve been very satisfied with the quality of the pictures that come from the standard 1x, 2x, and 3.5x lenses. Of those three, only 1x and 3.5x are optical zooms.

2x zoom doesn’t look that bad on the Sony IMX906 sensor, but the 7x “optical-quality” zoom is anything but. I’m not a fan of marketing gimmicks, but Apple at least lived up to the hype of their optical quality zoom claim. OnePlus falls very short.

I use 7x zoom sparingly on the OnePlus 15, while I use 8x zoom quite often on my iPhone 17 Pro. Photos from the 7x “lens” come out blurry and soft, and they’re just not that great to look at. So I just try to avoid that lens as much as possible.

As far as the actual sensors are concerned, each camera sensor is 50MP, though all three sensors are from different manufacturers. The primary Sony IMX906 isfantastic, and I find it to be the main lens that I take pictures with—either at 1x or 2x zoom.

Every other aspect about the cameras on the OnePlus 15 I love, however. The video recording is great and there are tons of options—including 4K 120FPS recording and Dolby Vision HDR. The OnePlus 15 also records 8K 30FPS, though I see no real need for that on a smartphone these days. Maybe one day 8K recording will be worth it, but I’ll just stick to the better-looking 4K video myself.

The Master mode enables pro-level audio settings in the native camera, something I wish Apple would adopt. You can capture RAW photos and control everything you need on the camera, from shutter speed to ISO, exposure value, focus, and white balance.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the camera performance of the OnePlus 15. It takes solid pictures and pretty great video, with all the features I want in a smartphone camera baked right into the stock app.

Should you buy the OnePlus 15?

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

I think theOnePlus 15 is areally good phone, charging issues aside. The OnePlus 15 is the phone I would recommend to people who don’t want to buy a Pixel. It’s a great all-around device, has incredible battery life, and a solid set of cameras. What’s not to like?

The problem comes down to how you can get the phone. At the time of publication, the OnePlus 15 simply isn’t available for purchase in the USA yet. When it does become available, you’ll likely only be able to buy it direct from OnePlus and not many other places.

Overall, I think that the OnePlus 15 is absolutely worth your hard-earned dollars if you’re in the market for a premium Android smartphone. What it does well, it doeswell. What it struggles a bit with can either be lived with or fixed by OnePlus in future updates.

So, yes, I think you should buy the OnePlus 15. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Credit: OnePlus

OnePlus 15

9/10

Brand

OnePlus

SoC

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

Display

6.78-inch 2772*1272 (FHD+)

RAM

12GB/16GB

The OnePlus 15 features the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC that enables gaming features never before seen on a smartphone. The 165Hz display is perfect for mobile gaming, and when not gaming, it runs at 120Hz, making it ideal for everyday usage. The triple camera array is pretty great, and the 7,300mAh battery lasts multiple days on a single charge.

See at OnePlus

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