OnePlus 15 Review: Skipping 14 Was the Easy Part

OnePlus has never been shy about breaking with convention, and this year it broke with counting. The OnePlus 15 succeeds the OnePlus 13 directly — no 14 was ever made, and none is coming. Beneath the naming quirk sits a genuinely significant generation: a new flagship chip, a display refresh rate few phones can match, and the end of a five-year camera partnership that defined the brand's marketing for half a decade.

About That Name

The number four is considered unlucky across much of East Asia — its pronunciation in Mandarin and Cantonese closely echoes the word for "death." OnePlus skipped 4 outright in its early numbering, and now applies the same logic one digit later, jumping from 13 straight to 15. It's a cosmetic decision with zero bearing on the hardware, but it's worth knowing before you go looking for a OnePlus 14 that was never released.

Design and Build

The 15 borrows its rounded, symmetrical camera housing from last year's OnePlus 13T — a shift away from the perfectly circular module that had become a OnePlus signature. It's a small but noticeable design pivot, and OnePlus has also quietly dropped the alert slider in favour of a "Plus Key" shortcut button, ending a feature that had survived every OnePlus phone since the very first model — Android Central confirmed the new key can be mapped to one of eight functions, though it isn't fully customisable to any arbitrary action the way the alert slider effectively was. GSMArena's comparison against the OnePlus 13 found the two phones diverge more than the spec sheet suggests: the 13 reads as more rounded and oval with an eco-leather back option, while the 15 is blockier and flatter at precise dimensions of 161.4 x 76.7 x 8.1mm, finished in Gorilla Glass Victus 2 up front and either Gorilla Glass 7i, Crystal Shield Glass, or a glass-fibre back depending on colourway. Android Central's review found the boxier shape genuinely less comfortable to hold day to day, even while conceding the flatter profile suits tempered-glass screen protectors better than a curved panel would. At 211g (215g in some markets) it's marginally slimmer than the OnePlus 13. Durability is comprehensive rather than a single basic checkbox: officially rated IP66/IP68/IP69/IP69K, immersible to 2 metres for 30 minutes under GSMArena's own listed rating, a fuller certification than most rivals bother with, backed by an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader TechAdvisor's testing found fast, reliable, and unaffected by water on either the screen or the user's thumb, plus a reworked stereo speaker system with symmetrical grilles top and bottom. Unlike some rivals that have quietly dropped in-box chargers, GSMArena confirmed the OnePlus 15 still ships with both a charger and cable included, with a case thrown in for free in some regions too.

Display

The 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED panel supports up to 165Hz — a genuine outlier at this price, and higher than anything Samsung or Apple currently ships — with full HDR10+, HDR Vivid, and Dolby Vision support plus Ultra HDR image handling in the native gallery app, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection up front. In practice, the jump from 120Hz to 165Hz is subtle outside of competitive gaming, but it's there when you look for it, particularly in fast scrolling. The 1272 × 2772 resolution is a genuine, disclosed step down from the OnePlus 13's sharper QHD+ panel to FHD+ this generation — GSMArena's own framing calls it a sidestep rather than a real-world loss, since the difference is essentially invisible at normal viewing distances on a screen this size, and OnePlus effectively traded resolution for the higher refresh rate instead. The brightness spec sheet undersells what GSMArena's lab actually measured: 787 nits in manual mode, boosting to 1,364 nits in auto mode at 75% fill, and 1,940 nits at a 10% fill — and brighter still specifically within the native Gallery app, where the same patterns hit 2,187 and roughly 3,390 nits respectively. TechAdvisor's review adds a useful comparative data point too: this panel's 1,800-nit HBM ceiling beats both the outgoing OnePlus 13 and the current iPhone 17 Pro Max, which share a lower 1,600-nit HBM figure between them.

Performance

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the fastest chip OnePlus has ever shipped, and it shows — this is comfortably one of the quickest Android phones available at launch. Sustained gaming performance is excellent thanks to a larger vapour chamber, and everyday tasks are effectively instant. OnePlus's custom scheduler work continues to pay off in efficiency as much as raw speed, and one outlet went as far as calling this design goal explicit — built in the lab specifically to deliver the fastest performance of any OnePlus phone yet, and arguably the fastest of any phone on the market at launch. Software is a genuine, disclosed strength too: OxygenOS 16 on Android 16, backed by 4 major OS upgrades — GSMArena's pros list specifically credits the software as polished rather than merely adequate. One real, timing-dependent caveat worth knowing before buying at launch: GSMArena's own value assessment expects the phone to look considerably more competitive once its price settles down, implying it was a tougher sell against established rivals at the original asking price. OxygenOS 16 itself draws heavily on iOS for visual inspiration, a direction OnePlus has leaned into for several generations now, but TechAdvisor's review found the execution genuinely considered rather than tacked-on, specifically praising how the newer AI-backed tools are implemented as actually useful rather than gimmicky additions bolted onto the interface for a keynote slide.

Camera, Without Hasselblad

This is the first numbered OnePlus flagship without Hasselblad branding since the partnership began, and it's the detail most likely to generate headlines — but it isn't the real camera story this generation. The OnePlus 15 keeps all three rear cameras from the 13: a 50MP main sensor (Sony IMX906, 1/1.56-inch, f/1.8, OIS), a 50MP telephoto (Samsung ISOCELL JN5, 1/2.76-inch, f/2.8, now upgraded to 3.5x optical zoom with 7x optical-quality output), and a 50MP ultrawide (OmniVision OV50D, 1/2.88-inch, f/2.0, 116° field of view, autofocus). What actually changed, and what GSMArena's testing flagged directly, is that all three rear sensors shrank generation-on-generation — smaller physical sensor sizes across main, telephoto, and ultrawide, plus a narrower field of view on the ultrawide specifically. GSMArena's side-by-side comparison against the OnePlus 13 found the 13's wider ultrawide captured more detail with less noise, especially at night, even as the 15's ultrawide produced slightly sharper, better-contrast video in the same head-to-head test — a genuine trade rather than a straightforward downgrade in every respect. OnePlus is leaning on software to offset the hardware step down — a new in-house DetailMax Engine, Clear Night Engine for low light, real-time Tone Mapping, and True-to-Live video colour processing replace the outgoing Hasselblad tuning, and GSMArena's early verdict is that daylight shots read as more natural rather than worse, even if it remains genuinely open, in GSMArena's own words, whether software can fully offset the smaller sensors once conditions get tougher than daylight. The telephoto carries one specific, disclosed limitation of its own: GSMArena's testing found it can't focus close, a real gap for anyone wanting macro-style shots from that lens specifically. The 32MP front camera gains autofocus this generation via a new Sony IMX709 RGBW sensor, a genuine upgrade over a fixed-focus predecessor. Video capability tracks the hardware hierarchy: the main camera shoots up to 8K at 30fps, the telephoto steps up to a genuinely strong 4K at 120fps, and both the ultrawide and front camera cap out at 4K60. GSMArena's testing also flagged one specific quirk in the camera app itself: a 26MP high-resolution main-camera mode sits alongside the default 12MP mode, but the review found the higher-resolution files actually look softer and less refined than the standard 12MP output's better contrast and dynamic range from its improved HDR processing — GSMArena's specific conclusion was that the 26MP mode "feels like a gimmick," and most buyers are better off leaving the camera on its default setting rather than assuming more megapixels means a better photo.

Battery and Charging

The 7,300mAh dual-cell battery is the largest OnePlus has fitted to a numbered flagship, and it shows in real-world stamina — this comfortably outlasts every rival at this price, and most above it. Charging is genuinely comprehensive rather than fast in one direction only: 120W SUPERVOOC wired, plus UFCS, PPS, PD, and QC protocol support for compatibility with third-party chargers, alongside 50W wireless, 10W reverse wireless, and 5W reverse wired charging. GSMArena's own lab testing recorded 50% charge in 15 minutes and a full charge in 40 minutes from the bundled adapter — both best-in-class figures, even if the full-charge time runs a little longer than some marketing claims imply.

Availability and Price

The OnePlus 15 launched at £799/€899/$899, comfortably under the symbolic €1,000 flagship line even as several 2026 rivals crossed it. GSMArena's framing is candid about what that price actually buys against the field: the OnePlus 15 competes on hardware and features rather than being meaningfully cheaper than the flagships it's up against, so the value case rests on the spec sheet holding up rather than a genuine bargain-bin price. It's sold through OnePlus's own store, Amazon, and Best Buy in the US, and TechAdvisor's coverage of the launch highlighted OnePlus leaning harder into preorder incentives than usual — cashback bonuses and trade-in offers for essentially any phone in any condition, alongside a bundled charger, cable, and in some regions a free case, none of which every rival still includes by default.

Verdict

Frequently Asked Questions

How it compares: OnePlus 15 vs Galaxy S26 Ultra

OnePlus

OnePlus 15

From £799

87

Samsung

Galaxy S26 Ultra

From £1,299

92

vs

6.78" LTPO AMOLED 165Hz

Display

6.9" QHD+ 120Hz AMOLED

50MP f/1.8 OIS

Main cam

200MP f/1.7 OIS

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

Chip

Snapdragon 8 Elite 2

7,300mAh · 120W

Battery

5,500mAh · 65W

From £799

Price

From £1,299

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