Even though the smartphone market in the US is dominated by Samsung and Apple, with a touch of Google Pixel on the side, OnePlus continues to invest in the space, pushing out new flagships each year that compete and often best all of the others. With the launch of the OnePlus 13, OnePlus is once again saying, “Yo, we’re still here and we’re doing pretty awesome things that you should consider over those other devices.” And to be honest, after testing the OnePlus 13 for what might be more than a month, I would tend to agree with that idea.
The OnePlus 13 first launched in China several months ago and is only now arriving in the US, in case you are thinking this phone might be old or were wondering what happened to it. OnePlus has done this for several years now, where they introduce their new flagship for China (with slightly different software) before letting the rest of the world have it (with OxygenOS).
OnePlus 13 specs, price, software. This phone is no joke. OnePlus tends to push out all of the top specs in its phone anyway, but they really turned it up for 2025 and the OnePlus 13. We have a full recap of the device’s specs at this post, but to quickly recap here, understand that you’ll find a display that might just be the best in the industry both in smoothness and quality. The new Snapdragon 8 Elite powers it, plus you can get up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage inside. The combination of those create a device that absolutely flies during use.
OnePlus also tossed in a massive 6000mAh battery with both super fast wired (80W) and wireless charging (50W), made sure WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 were here, found a way to make the device water resistant up to IP69 (a first), and upgraded the fingerprint sensor to ultrasonic for the first time. This phone stands alone with this level of hardware specifications. Google and Samsung’s devices aren’t matching this, and then you get to the price.
The OnePlus 13 starts at $899, which would get you 256GB storage and 12GB RAM. However, as a launch promo (that I wouldn’t be shocked to see stick around) they are giving you the 512GB-16GB model for that same price. It comes in Arctic Dawn (white), Black Eclipse, and Midnight Ocean (blue), all of which offer slightly different finishes, including vegan leather and a wood-like feel.
On a software front, OnePlus is shipping their latest software skin (OxygenOS 15) with Android 15 underneath. They plan to support the phone with 4 years worth of Android OS updates and 6 years of security patches. While they might not be as quick or as frequent with the updates as Google, they did just ship Android 15 on a device several months before Samsung could.
What’s good about it? There really is a lot to like about this phone. As I already mentioned, I’ve been testing this phone for weeks and weeks and have no major complaints. My time with it has been very positive and it will be a phone that I will consider using heavily throughout the rest of 2025. As much as I love the Pixel 9 Pro, this OnePlus 13 is just so damn good.
For one, the hardware is improved in a couple of ways. Gone is that ridiculous curved display and in its place is a much flatter display that is domed on the edges. The subtle bend at the edges is mostly a design choice, as the interactions with it are very much like you’d have on a fully flat display.
And those interactions look phenomenal, because you have this massive 6.8″ AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate. The colors look so true and proper when using the “Natural” mode out of the box, but you could ramp up the vibrance if that’s your thing. Customization is one of those things that OnePlus is great at, and that includes display settings.
This display gets crazy bright and dim enough, its touch responsiveness is like few other phones, viewing angles hold no matter the angle, and the smoothness that you see as you jump around a home screen or within apps or the settings or with gestures is on another level. OnePlus is the king of “fast and smooth” and the OnePlus 13 shows that they aren’t slipping in this department. There are no other phones to compare to that can really come close to the optimizations OnePlus has included with this phone, its software performance, and the display. Just incredible stuff here.
Excellent hardware, battery life. Those vibes continue into hardware too, where OnePlus has given us flat metal sides this year and a slightly redesigned backside that looks refreshed compared to previous models. I’ve been testing the Arctic Dawn (white) model with its matte, softly textured back that is able to resist fingerprints. It can be slippery, unfortunately, but it certainly looks nice. It’s probably one of the slipperiest phones I’ve held in recent memory, but at least the flatter edges provide something for your fingers to grip. I haven’t dropped the phone or anything, thankfully. Overall, in terms of hardware, this is a much needed improvement that looks new without OnePlus having to ditch their design identity.
Battery life has been another area where this phone impresses. It has that large 6000mAh battery with all of the speedy charging tech, but more importantly the phone will last you a day and then some. I have handfuls of screenshots that I took at the end of my days with this phone where I had 4.5 hours of screen on time and 35% to 40% battery remaining. It was so consistent too, with my combination of Chrome, Instagram, Pokemon Go, Telegram, Reddit, and Pokemon TCG Pocket, that I just stopped paying attention to what my percentage was after a while. Remember, I’ve been testing this phone for some time and life with it became much less stressful when the battery testing was so satisfactory early on that I reached the point where I no longer had to think about it.
Of course, should you find a day where you stare at the display for 7+ hours and need to charge, 80W wired charging will get you the bulk of your battery back in a matter of minutes. Or you could wirelessly charge at faster speeds than you’ll find most phones support when directly wired. The battery and charging on the OnePlus 13 is in a league of its own.
It shocks me too that OnePlus was able to fit a battery capacity this large in a phone that is this slim. While it is a large phone with a wide display, it’s thin as hell. We’re bordering on impossibly thin here, knowing what’s inside beyond the massive battery. It’s thinner than a Pixel 9 Pro, I don’t care what the official measurements say. I’m holding them next to each other as I type this and am blown away by the thought of how OnePlus did this.
Software gets good. If you’ve read any of my previous OnePlus reviews, you probably know that I am not the biggest fan of OxygenOS. While it’s mostly good, there are some choices that OnePlus has made that bother me deeply. One of the issues I have is in notification handling, specifically in batches of notifications from a single app like Gmail, while another is in the double-click on power that launches the camera (it locks the phone, then launches it). Neither of these things have switched to my liking with OxygenOS 15, but there is too much good going on for those to ruin the experience.
OnePlus spent a lot of time selling me in a briefing on how smooth and wonderful to look at OxygenOS 15 is. And look, this is nice software. It is indeed as smooth as ever, the transition from opening to closing an app is as hiccup-free as you’ll find on any phone. Animations are beautiful, the polish is noticeably here, and there might not be an area that hasn’t been improved by OnePlus.
OnePlus is also great at making sure their skin is robust in features. They are still packing this thing full of numerous display options, an extensive list of customizable home screen options, and various other areas that can all be tweaked to your liking, from the always-on display clock to the fingerprint unlock animation. Where OnePlus has further won me over is in the redesigned quick settings area that has added a large brightness slider that I use frequently and appreciate greatly, the option to force a swipe down on the home screen to launch a system-wide search (just like on iOS), plus they copied Apple’s Dynamic Island a bit by allowing the top area to show music playing or hotspot activity. I hope they expand this area to more apps soon.
This version of OyxgenOS just feels like one of the most polished software experiences in Android. I may still prefer Google’s Pixel experience in some areas (mostly notifications), but OnePlus is doing things, big things.
Performance and cameras. Using a OnePlus phone, including this OnePlus 13, is a joy. Thanks to the next-gen specs and all of the fast RAM and storage and the massive display with high refresh rate, nothing can slow this phone down. And when you remember that OnePlus is the king of making things speedy, this phone will only impress with each day that you use it. Whether you are gaming or hammering out an email or watching video, this phone handles it and almost begs you for more. Because there is no stuttering during any tasks, this phone makes you feel like you should throw more at it, almost as if you need to put it to the test. This is a phone so powerful and fast that you’ll probably never truly use it for all that it can do and that’s fine. But when you have it in your hand, know that if you can think of it, it can probably do it.
Now, as for the camera situation, OnePlus is using a triple 50MP camera system, so you get a 50MP sensor in main, telephoto, and ultra-wide lenses that should in theory deliver in any scenario. OnePlus is pretty hyped on this camera setup. For the majority of shots I took with this system, I came away with a positive opinion. I think for the most part, this is a camera that will deliver for you today and only get better and better going forward.
I took a handful of portrait style shots of my kid that are borderline exceptional. Like, photos I might frame type of thing. This camera superbly captures his eyes, was able to find a moment where he was laughing hysterically, yet no motion blur entered the shot, etc. This camera also excels at my favorite shot, the beer portrait and foodie pic. It’s good at capturing moving objects, which you’ll see in the image above where I grabbed a motorcycle zooming in front of the camera. I was able to capture some fun landscape shots too, with a bit of hazy fog around, some wide and telephoto shots that allow the camera to show its flexibility, and some low lights to help bring confidence to your darker, moodier moments.
Are there flaws? Maybe some. I took some Portland Christmas tree pics that have this weird edging on the tree, almost as if the tree were put in by AI and it doesn’t quite fit. I took some other shots inside my favorite sake spot in Portland that were hit or miss, and I constantly saw lens flaring when the sun was anywhere near a side angle shot. There was a mixed bag of results when compared to my Pixel 9 Pro. At times, the OnePlus 13 muted colors when the Pixel 9 Pro pulled out its patented vibrance and contrast ramping. But the OnePlus 13 also processes images to be much cooler than the Pixel 9 Pro and even bested it in some low-light scenarios. I don’t know that I’d pick a winner between the two, except for maybe in consistency. The OnePlus 13 just jumped around a bit with results.
OnePlus 13 vs. Pixel 9 Pro
Overall, though, I really took some great shots and this camera would be one I’d come back to.
Any complaints? I do have a handful of complaints about this phone and they will sound familiar, so I’ll make it quick. There are still software quirks or decisions that OnePlus made that I don’t love, which I talked about earlier. The phone is quite large, so if you don’t love massive phones, this one will be a struggle at times, especially for one-handed users. OnePlus still doesn’t send out updates as frequently as we’d like, although they were pretty quick with Android 15. While pricing at $899 is good, availability is direct-only, as there are no carrier partners working with OnePlus any longer.
And that’s really it. OnePlus made a great phone in the OnePlus 13 that has a big, beautiful display, performs flawlessly, has improved software, should last for more than a day on a single charge, and is equipped with a camera that can truly hang. Put this phone on your short list – you might just love it.
This post was last modified on January 15, 2025 12:02 pm