Samsung fans won’t like this: OnePlus beats the S25 Ultra in many ways

ZDNET Highlights

• The latest Android flagship starts at $899 for the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant.
• It has a 7,300mAh battery, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and 80W wired charging.
• The camera system is inferior to last year’s model, and you can’t actually buy the phone yet.

November/2025

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When I first learned about it oneplus 15I wonder if the quest to create the best smartphone has gone too far. Can a phone’s specifications ever be too high? Or were those tanky Android 13 handsets – with their catchy names and 10,000mAh batteries – actually showing us the future?

After all, the OnePlus 15 has a stellar feature set even by my estimates of 2026 standards, with a 6.7-inch AMOLED display that refreshes at 165Hz, Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, a 7,300mAh battery with 80W wired charging, and an IP69 rating to prevent splashes from high-pressure water jets (or an accidental drop in the wash). Machine.)

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Luckily, the latest flagship phone looks nothing like the Doogies and Unihertz of the world, as I breathed a sigh of relief when unboxing the handset for the first time. Instead, we’re still dealing with polished slabs of metal and glass, with enough thickness and heft so that you can feel confident that your $900 investment didn’t just go toward “innovation.”

To truly test the OnePlus 15, I brought it with me on a recent trip to South Korea along with several competing Android devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Google Pixel 10 Pro XL. Here’s how it fared throughout the process, including some unexpected discoveries.

For starters, I used every phone I reviewed, regardless of price point, without a case during the testing period. This exercise gives me the best sense of the industrial designer’s intent. (Does it matter what level of Corning Gorilla Glass the manufacturer uses, or why they have the edges rounded to a certain degree if I throw the phone in the OtterBox? No.)

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The OnePlus 15 has been the easiest phone for me to take calculated risks on. With this iteration, the company removed the faux-leather backing present on the OnePlus 13 in favor of a satin-textured fiberglass panel. In particular, the Sand Storm edition, which shines in brown and beige colors, has a playful side railing, which has reassured me when responding to text messages or checking navigation while on the road.

In the process, the OnePlus 15 loses its traditionally slim and contoured look. At this point, it looks and feels like the iPhone Pro Max or Google Pixel XL models, as several friends and family in Korea told me. Fans of originality will be disappointed.

For what it’s worth, OnePlus is making a big deal about its display engineering, though perhaps not in an area users want to pay attention to. With the OnePlus 15, the bezels measure just 1.15mm, allowing you to see less black border and more screen around the four corners. Also, the display resolution has dropped from the previous version’s 2K panel to the new 1.5K panel.

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I’d like to think that the drop in resolution is what enables the phone to operate at a consistently smooth 165Hz refresh rate without consuming much power – just like traditional monitors have the same give-and-take behavior. This was the case when I spent hours poring over blogs about APEC during the week of the trip, and playing graphics-intensive mobile games on flights to and from.

As for the latter, the OnePlus 15 didn’t exhibit signs of throttling until the 30-minute mark. This is a far cry from Samsung and Google flagships, which dropped frames within the first five minutes of gameplay and felt uncomfortable to hold. This is a testament to both Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset (which we’ll likely see on more upcoming Android phones) and OnePlus’ CPU scheduler, which allocates computing bandwidth specifically for gaming.

Now I’m not a gaming enthusiast by any means, but it’s quite clear to me that the OnePlus 15 is tailored to the ever-growing market of consumers. From software optimizations designed to stabilize frame rates and temperatures to a dedicated Wi-Fi chip that supports the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard, it’s the clear choice for gamers, and no other mainstream phone comes close to it right now.

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Other things I didn’t expect to hear: OnePlus is somehow leading the way in mobile AI features. The new phone has replaced the classic three-level alert slider with a programmable action button (my terminology there is intentional). Sure, you can map the side key to turn on the flashlight or quickly launch the camera, but I’ve found it most useful for activating Mind Space.

Like Nothing’s Essential space, Mind Space is a local database where you can save screenshots and voice recordings, which Gemini can use to pull references and answer questions. For example, I’ve made it a habit to file images of important travel emails and notices in Korea. This way, I can ask Gemini to refer to them when searching for flight schedules, weather, required documents, and more.

What about camera performance? As I’ve learned time and again, one phone can’t have it all. After various camera shootouts in Seoul, my verdict is twofold. First of all, it’s hard to ignore the fact that every single camera sensor on the OnePlus 15 is inferior to the OnePlus 13. I’m talking smaller sensor sizes and less capable camera technology.

In lieu of a hardware upgrade, the company is hoping that its improved AI software processing and Qualcomm’s ISP will do your captured subjects justice.

It works, but only up to a certain capacity – and that’s if you’re a fan of oversharpening. For normal wide and ultrawide shots, I found that images taken with the OnePlus 15 appear well saturated and have more contrast than previous models. Fortunately, HDR capturing isn’t as aggressive as what I get from Samsung and Google; There’s a good balance of detail and color between the subjects and the bright backgrounds.

The OnePlus 15 performs better in terms of distance and telephoto capturing. In most cases, the 120x optical zoom can reproduce signage and text from much further away than Samsung’s 200MP camera. There’s a sprinkling of generative AI in OnePlus’s processing (I hate to break it, but almost every phone has a little bit of it these days), but it’s executed in a great way that most people will appreciate.

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Where the cookie breaks is in low-light capturing, as the smaller sensor struggles to capture enough light (and, therefore, detail) to keep faces sharp, objects distinct, and colors natural. To be clear, no flagship phone champions nitography, but on a relative scale, the OnePlus 15 lags behind its premium competitors. You can check out my colleague Adam Dowd’s camera shootout at Six Flags for more photo samples and comparisons.

I will leave you on a high note. The 7,300mAh battery in the OnePlus 15 is the real deal; After spending my day in Korea taking countless photos and videos, running GPS in the background, and searching for places to visit, the OnePlus always had enough battery to last until the next morning. And when I needed to top up, the 80W wired charging took it from 0 to 50% by the time I brushed and washed my face in the morning. Imagine if every phone was like this?

ZDNET’s shopping advice

Despite what the specifications suggest, oneplus 15 It is not much different from the OnePlus 13. That’s a good thing, because the OnePlus was only launched in January this year, and it was already a great Android handset. With the successor, OnePlus is doubling down on its biggest strengths, including battery life, fast charging, and performance.

At a starting price of $899, the OnePlus 15 is a sure-fire end-of-the-year choice for mobile gamers, power users, and tech enthusiasts. When it comes to camera optics you’ll have to settle for silver.

There is one last thing to mention. At the time of writing, OnePlus is unable to sell the 15 in the US pending its FCC approval, which has been temporarily put on hold due to the government shutdown. Here’s what OnePlus’s Spencer Blank, head of marketing and communications, tells ZDNET:

As with every smartphone manufacturer, the United States Federal Communications Commission certifies OnePlus devices before they can be sold in the US. As a result of the government shutdown, device certification has been delayed. Following this, US sales of the OnePlus 15 will be postponed until it is safe. OnePlus 15 has already completed all the required tests from FCC accredited laboratories and the certification application has been formally submitted. We are hopeful that approval can come quickly and as a result, we can bring the OnePlus 15 to our customers in the US faster.

Those interested in purchasing the OnePlus 15 in the US should visit here oneplus.com/usEnter their contact information, and they will be notified when the device is on sale. The OnePlus 15 will be available for purchase in Canada starting November 13 as scheduled oneplus.com/ca_en,