Review: Oneplus 15 - Magnificent

When Oneplus releases its new top model, it skips a number and goes directly from 13 to 15. The company says it's because the phone represents a leap forward of two generations, that's how good it is.

Perhaps. But Oneplus also skipped Oneplus 4, and in China and several other East Asian countries, 4 is an unlucky number that people prefer to avoid. Still, the Oneplus 15 is indeed an unusually large leap. We are used to new annual models of mobile phones containing a couple of updates but keeping most things the same. In the Oneplus 15, virtually everything is new compared to the Oneplus 13. In some cases, these are noticeable improvements, in others, it's more about switching to a different track than before.

The Oneplus 15 is the first mobile phone to be sold in Sweden with Qualcomm's new top chipset Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. This naturally means a step up in performance, which is evident in our tests, but not so much that it justifies talk of two generations. Oneplus themselves are good at optimising the system so that it feels fast, “Fast and smooth” is a slogan they have used for several years now, and it's more than just talk. The Oneplus 15 feels lightning-fast in the user interface in a subtle way that makes the Galaxy S25 feel a bit sluggish at times in comparison.

In the press material for the Oneplus 15, there is a lot of talk about the advantages that increased performance, the fast-refreshing screen, and the improved gyro can provide in action games. This probably says something about how difficult it is to find features in the mobile where all this performance really makes a difference.

Super fast screen

The screen, for example, has a 165 Hz refresh rate, but only 120 Hz in the user interface. The higher frequency is only used in games. The screen is also a good example of when Oneplus has prioritised differently rather than improved. Besides the high refresh rate, I notice the unusually thin bezels around the screen, 1.15 mm on all sides according to Oneplus, including the bottom. The screen is also bright in direct sunlight, but it has a lower resolution than the screen in the Oneplus 13. This is to achieve the higher refresh rate. According to Oneplus, it is the first screen with 1.5k resolution and 165 Hz. I am not bothered by the reduced resolution and think it is an excellent screen. 

Oneplus has also introduced a new feature in the accessibility settings for those who get motion sickness when looking at the screen on the bus or as a car passenger. A number of dots on the screen are supposed to move with the vehicle's movements, thereby keeping the eye and sense of balance in sync. The iPhone has a similar feature in iOS. I test the feature under almost ideal circumstances, by sitting on a jerky subway one morning when I already felt a bit sick. I do indeed get motion sick, and I don't think the dots do a convincing job of matching the vehicle's movements.

New exterior

The appearance of the phone with the Oneplus 15 is a clear departure from Oneplus's design language in recent years. Previously, we had soft curves and curved sides combined with a large round camera island. Now we have straight sides and a flat screen with a significantly smaller protruding camera island. It reminds me a bit of the iPhone 17 and Samsung Galaxy S25, but I think it's an improvement. The phone is thinner than its predecessor, but at 8.1 mm, it is not exactly in the race for thinner phones.

The back varies depending on which colour option you choose. The sand-coloured variant has reinforced fibreglass, the purple and black more traditional glass backs. I am testing a purple one, where the back is matte except right at the edges where it is shiny and shimmering. Stylish. If you were planning to use a case, you will have to buy it separately, as none is included in the package.

Withstands most things

The Oneplus 15 is unusually durable and is certified according to IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K. The reason is that the different IP ratings do not necessarily overlap even though they indicate increasing durability. In practice, this means that the Oneplus 15 can withstand being showered by heavy rain, it can withstand being at a depth of 2 metres for 30 minutes, and it can withstand being pressure washed with ordinary water or 80-degree hot water. This means that you can actually swim with the phone if you want to, and a special underwater mode has been added to the camera, where you control it entirely with the phone's buttons, and when you come up, the phone runs a program to vibrate water out of the microphones and speakers. If you are going to swim with it, it should be in fresh water, as it is not certified for salt water.

The significantly smaller camera island, by the way, hints at a different direction for the cameras. We still have wide-angle and telephoto cameras, and these have actually received larger sensors for better image quality, but the main camera has received a smaller sensor. Oneplus instead likes to talk about the advantages of “computational photography”, that is, using the phone's computing power and combining multiple exposures into a better image. For example, there is a high-resolution mode where a 50-megapixel exposure is combined with a couple of 12-megapixel images to produce a 26-megapixel image. It's not unlike what Apple does with its 18-megapixel images, and I've been waiting for another manufacturer to follow suit because the image result is exquisitely detailed. It is here too. The image files also become larger, but it's manageable, especially if you save them in the heic file format. For both high resolution and heic, you need to go into the camera settings and change.

Oneplus used to collaborate with Hasselblad on the cameras, but that collaboration has been terminated. It doesn't show much in the image result because the colour calibration still feels really natural.

At other times, I think Oneplus computational photography gives less successful results. The telephoto camera is 50 megapixels with 3.5 times zoom. With cropping, you get excellent and sharp images with 7 times magnification, which is good enough. However, if you continue to zoom in, algorithms and artificial intelligence kick in to sharpen the images further, and the result is just that, artificial. After ten times magnification, the images should be marked with “AI-processed”, so artificial do they feel.

Night photography is an area where the Oneplus 15 performs quite well without particularly standing out. The wide-angle camera, on the other hand, is clearly better than average, especially in, for example, poorer light.

If I were to summarise the cameras, I would describe it as the image results mostly being excellent, but sometimes the use of combined exposures instead of a larger sensor results in directly failed images.

Insanely good battery life

A feature that is undeniably impressive, however, is the battery life. The maximum capacity for mobile batteries has long been around 5000 mAh, but with a new technology where silicon is mixed into the anode of the battery, the capacity has started to tick upwards again. Oneplus has taken this technology further than anyone else so far, and the Oneplus 15 has a 7300 mAh battery. They must also have been good at optimising the system's power consumption, as the battery life impresses even in relation to the battery's size. In our battery test, we get over 18 hours of screen time where we usually think 12 hours is a lot. After a day of relatively heavy use, including apps that I know usually drain the battery, I had 73 percent left in the evening. Other manufacturers will surely follow, but right now the Oneplus 15 is the battery king, and that's without the phone being particularly thick or heavy.

Oneplus 15 has Android 16 as the system, with Oxygen OS 16 as the user interface. Oneplus has removed its app page Shelf and now uses a control panel and notifications separated on either side of the selfie camera when you swipe down, just like Apple and Samsung do. Oneplus's slider button for switching between sound, vibration, and silent has also been replaced with a programmable button. Oneplus prefers to talk about its AI features in Oxygen OS 16, and it is envisioned that you will use the programmable button to either take a screenshot or make voice notes that are saved in what is called Mind Space. There, AI can analyse images and sound and interpret the context. An example is that you should be able to take a picture of a poster for an event, and the AI understands that it is just that and can help you create a calendar entry. The whole thing feels very familiar from Nothing's phones and their Essential Space, which makes me suspect they have hired the same subcontractor. You should also be able to interact with Mind Space via Gemini and, for example, ask about content there. An obvious problem with this for us is that MindSpace does not yet have Swedish language support, so you cannot have your voice notes transcribed or Swedish posters interpreted.

Another feature I haven't touched on with the Oneplus 15 is a dedicated wifi chip that is supposed to provide a more stable connection in poor reception areas, something I've also noticed when testing, and that the phone can run directly on mains power without going through the battery if you're playing power-hungry games. These are details, but looking at the whole, the Oneplus 15 is a phone that impresses me, with its screen with extremely thin bezels, with high performance that is felt in everything I do, and with phenomenally good battery life. The cameras are great except when they're not, but that could very well be teething problems that will be resolved in a software update. This is how a new flagship model should feel in 2026.

Questions and answers

Does it take a long time to charge the large battery? Oneplus has super-fast charging at 120 watts and it goes quickly, but a charger is not included. With standardised fast chargers, it also goes quite quickly. With a 68-watt charger, the phone charged from one to 47 percent in 20 minutes.

How is the fingerprint reader? It uses ultrasound and works even with wet fingers. I think it responds quickly and well.

How is the speaker sound? The phone has stereo speakers with excellent sound for watching video clips, for example.

An alternative

If you want really good battery life, you should look at Motorola, for example, the Edge 60 Pro.

Camera example

When you go beyond seven times zoom, the details look sharp but artificial.