OnePlus 13 Review: A great flagship from OnePlus that will set the standards high being almost perfect out there!!

OnePlus is back with same old glory with small upgrades with 13.

OnePlus has been one of the top brands when it comes to the smartphone market globally ever since they first came out with their first offering in the form of the OnePlus One. From then the company's focus has always been to provide flagship-level specifications on its smartphones, and it continued to do that each and every year with its new offering. 

After its success in the flagship killer space, the brand came with the Nord lineup of smartphones, which aimed at the mid-range and the premium mid-range segment and were a huge success in the market. Of late, OnePlus came with the semi-flagship R series of smartphones, which also borrowed a few specifications of the flagship number series and were priced very aggressively out there.

Last year, we had the OnePlus 12 series, which consisted of the OnePlus 12 (Review) and 12R, which had a strong hold in the market with their specifications. However, with the newer OnePlus 13 series, OnePlus has worked on a few things, and there are a couple of newer additions. This time here we will be having a look at the OnePlus 13, which brings in some upgrades over the OnePlus 12.

Let's find out in the full review!!

OnePlus 13 Design:

In terms of design, OnePlus has stuck to its design philosophy past two years, ever since it came with the OnePlus 11 series, where the brand came with a circular camera module on the back, and this is also seen on the OnePlus 13 here. At the back, the OnePlus 13 has a circular camera module that houses the three cameras along with an LED flashlight. 

Here, the camera module is placed slightly towards the left instead of the centre. Alongside the camera module, there is a small strip where, on top, there is the Hasselblad logo "H", which is placed right next to the camera module, unlike the OnePlus 12, which has the Hasselblad logo inside the camera module. The OnePlus 13 is available in three different colours - Black Eclipse, Arctic Dawn, and Midnight Ocean. 

The Midnight Ocean variant has a slightly dark blue colour and comes with a vegan leather finish, which looks premium and feels gentle to touch. Other than this, there are two other variants - Arctic Dawn and Black Eclipse feature a shimmery glass back, which looks premium and does not catch fingerprints. Around the sides, the smartphone houses an aluminium frame that shines and looks premium. 

To the left side, there is the OnePlus's signature alert slider, which has three different modes, and this comes in handy in daily usage. To the right, there is the power button along with volume buttons that feel tactile to use. On top, there is a secondary speaker which doubles up as a stereo speaker, an IR Blaster, and two microphones. At the bottom, there is a SIM card, a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille and a primary microphone. 

There is no support for a microSD card slot for further storage expansion. In terms of weight distribution, the smartphone weighs around 212 grams, which makes it 10 grams lighter than its predecessor, i.e. OnePlus 12 especially due to the silicon technology in battery. Also, it is thinner at 8.9mm around the sides compared to 9.2mm thickness on the OnePlus 12. 

Another small upgrade that the smartphone gets is the IP69 rating over the IP65 rating on the OnePlus 12, which means the OnePlus 13 can survive underwater 1.5 metres for 30 minutes. Along with this, this time OnePlus 13 comes with the Aqua Touch 2.0, which ensures that you can use the smartphone if there is water present on the display or hands are oily for some reason. 

There is also a glove mode, which comes in handy when you are wearing gloves and using the smartphone. On the front, there is a curved display which is protected by Ceramic Guard glass, which is almost as tough as Gorilla Glass Victus+. The bezels around the display are very thin, making it look premium. The single punch hole camera sits at the top of the centre. 

Overall, the look and feel are premium on the OnePlus 13.

OnePlus 13 Display:

  

The OnePlus 13 sports a larger 6.82-inches display, which is similar to that of the OnePlus 12. This display has a Quad HD+(1440x3168 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. Like the OnePlus 12, this one also has an LTPO display, which means the display can refresh between 1Hz and 120Hz depending on the content on the display.

Regarding the refresh rate, there are three options to choose from: Auto Select, Standard, and High. Selecting the Standard refresh rate mode will provide you with the 60Hz refresh rate on the display, which will provide great battery life. You can achieve the 120Hz refresh rate when the display is set to High and Auto-Select, but Auto-Select allows your display to scale between different refresh rates simultaneously to save battery. 

For example, when you are playing any game like Genshin Impact, the display refreshes at 120Hz, and similarly, when you are not interacting with the display, the refresh rate drops to 1Hz. Along with this, there is support for 2160Hz PWM frequency dimming, which ensures that the display can be easily viewed under low-light conditions, without affecting the eyes.

In terms of display brightness, the OnePlus 13 can reach a peak brightness of around 4500 nits as advertised by OnePlus, but the reality is that only a few pixels of the display can show these brightness numbers. In the High Brightness Mode, the display of the OnePlus 13 can reach a peak brightness of 1600 nits, which is really good. Under direct sunlight, the display has good visibility.

There are different settings to choose from for colour temperature on display - Vivid, Natural, and Pro. If you go with the Natural mode, which is selected by default, then you would get softer colours which look slightly muted, and if you choose Pro and Vivid mode, it results in saturated and punchier colours on the display, thus covering the DCI-P3 gamut scale. 

OnePlus has added a new feature called Radiant View, which analyses the content on the display and increases the nits of brightness for individual pixels, thus also boosting the brightness overall. The display of the OnePlus 13 has support for HDR, so you can stream HDR content on YouTube and also Widevine L1 is present along with Dolby Vision, which enhances media consumption on OTT platforms. 

This time, OnePlus has finally brought the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner to the display, which is better than the in-display one found on the OnePlus 12. It is accurate and is slightly faster than the in-display one seen previously. Overall, the display of the OnePlus 13 continues to impress, just like its predecessor and is great for multimedia consumption.

OnePlus 13 Performance:

The OnePlus 13 features the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset of 2025, one of the most powerful chipsets of the year and expected to be found in many flagships launched this year. It features an octa-core setup, comprising 2x 4.32 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix L cores and 6x 3.53 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix M cores, along with an Adreno 830 GPU. This chipset is built on a 3nm process, which means you will get greater efficiency and battery life.

In terms of daily tasks, the smartphone pulls everything very smoothly, whether it is heavy or lighter tasks in daily usage. All heavy games like Call of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc., run smoothly without any lag or frame drops at the highest graphics settings. After longer hours of gaming, i.e. 3-4 hours, the back of the smartphone does not heat up as there is a dedicated vapour chamber for cooling, thus dissipating heat faster.

In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone could achieve around 40-45 per cent of sustained performance, which is very bad considering the chipset. There is significant throttling noticed with the High Performance Mode turned on, which is disappointing considering it is a flagship chipset. However, with the performance turned off, the smartphone easily achieves a sustained performance of around 70-75 per cent.

In terms of benchmarks, the OnePlus 13 scored well in both Antutu and Geekbench, but the scores were not as high as other smartphones that have the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. The OnePlus 13 is available in two different variants - 12GB RAM with 256GB storage and 16GB RAM with 512GB storage, where RAM speeds are of LPDDR5 and storage speeds are of UFS 4.0, which is quite fast.

OnePlus 13 Software:

The OnePlus 13 runs on the latest OxygenOS 15 out of the box, which is built on Android 15. There are very minor upgrades in OxygenOS 15 over OxygenOS 14, like you get a lot of AI-related features like AI Eraser, AI Speak, AI Writer, etc. There is also the Circle to Search, which we have seen on OneUI in Samsung smartphones. Other than this, the look and feel do not feel much different compared to OxygenOS 14.

You get a lot of customisations in terms of icon shape and size, colour, and also the Always-On display, where you can use different styles, change the fingerprint scanner animation, and much more. The lockscreen can now be customised with a small piece of text that is present by default or a small photo; clock style can be customised, and you get the transition effect in lockscreen as well as on AOD.

Just like there is also the Live Alerts feature, which shows all the live activities if you click near the front camera, which will show a list of ongoing activities, but it is limited to a few applications as of now. Other than this, there are a lot of smooth animations throughout the user interface. The quick settings menu has changed, so swiping from the right shows the quick settings, whereas swiping from the left shows the notifications tray.

Talking about the AI features, a few of them come in handy in terms of daily usage. AI Summary, when enabled in Notes or any third-party application, lets you summarise the things in key or bullet points. AI Eraser works well in the gallery application if you want to remove any object from the background, AI Reflection Eraser removes the shadow from the images, and AI Unblur removes the blur in most of the images.

There is Intelligent Search, along with Circle to Search, which lets you select a piece of text or an image and then retrieve information regarding it. In addition to this, there is Open Canvas, which enables you to use two applications simultaneously and allows for drag-and-drop functionality between different applications. Other than this, there are many Android 15 features which will come in future software updates.

OxygenOS does not come with bloatware, which has been its core strength, but now there seems to be one or two third-party applications present in the user interface. In terms of software updates, OnePlus is providing four years of Android OS updates and another six years of security updates. Overall, the software experience feels smooth to use.

OnePlus 13 Cameras:

The OnePlus 13 features a triple camera setup, comprising a 50MP f/1.6 Sony LYT-808 sensor for the primary camera, a 50MP f/2.0 ISOCELL GN5 sensor for the ultrawide camera, and a 50MP f/2.6 LYT-600 sensor for the telephoto camera, which supports 3x optical zoom. On the front, a 32MP f/2.4 Sony IMX615 sensor is used for the front camera.

The primary camera remains unchanged from the OnePlus 12, but the other two cameras are slightly different, as the 50MP telephoto camera replaces the 48MP telephoto camera on the OnePlus 12. Just like all OnePlus smartphones, the Hasselblad partnership continues to stay here also. The images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have great dynamic range. 

There is very little noise present in the background, and no oversharpening is seen. In terms of human subjects, the skin tones also look natural. The 50MP images come out with sharper details, but there is a small hint of noise present in the background. But rest assured, the dynamic range is good. The contrast is good, and with 2x zoom, the images come out with sharper details and have great dynamic range.

At night, the images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have great dynamic range, with almost less noise present in the background. There is not much oversharpening present in the background, and colours have good contrast. With the dedicated Night Mode turned on, you get a warmer colour tone in the surroundings, and also noise is reduced compared to those shot without using the Night Mode.

Even the 2x zoomed images at night come out with sharper details and have great dynamic range without any kind of oversharpening in the background. The ultrawide camera is a 50MP JN1 sensor this time instead of the IMX581 sensor on the OnePlus 12, so as a result, the details look sharper with good dynamic range. There is a slight oversharpening present in the background, though.

There is some noise present in the background, which is slightly disappointing and also around the edges, there is distortion present. However, the colours look natural and the contrast is good. The ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of images during the night, as you get sharper details with good dynamic range. However, the slight concern remains the noise present in the background.

The telephoto camera does an excellent job in terms of details, which look sharper and have excellent dynamic range with saturated colours in the background. At the 3x zoom level, the images come out with excellent details, but there is some oversharpening present, which is negligible. At 6x zoom, the images come out with sharper details, and almost less noise is present. 

At night, the images from the telephoto camera come out with sharper details and have great dynamic range with saturated colours in the background. The noise is almost non-existent in the images, which include at 3x and 6x zoom levels. However, the telephoto camera is not capable in terms of portraits as the camera cannot focus closer to a subject, which is slightly disappointing, but still, you get good macro shots.

When it comes to portraits, the edge detection is good, and you get a good dynamic range with proper background blur. There is almost no noise present, which is good, and even skin tones look accurate. Both the primary as well as the telephoto cameras are capable of taking portraits, but the ones from the telephoto camera come out with slightly better details and edge detection of the two. 

In terms of selfies, the front camera of the OnePlus 13 does a good job in terms of details, and the dynamic range is also wide enough. The skin tones look natural without any kind of oversharpening, which is good. The noise is very little in the background, and similarly, the selfies taken during the night come out with sharper details and have good dynamic range, but there is some amount of noise present.

When it comes to videos, all four cameras, which include the three rear cameras and the selfie camera, can record 4K videos at 60fps. The primary camera goes one step ahead as it can record 8K videos at 30fps. The videos from the primary camera come out with good details that look sharper and have excellent dynamic range. The noise is very low in the videos as the EIS works really well in both 4K and 8K videos.

The colour saturation is good without any oversharpening taking place in the background. Even the 1080p videos at 60fps come out with excellent details and a wider dynamic range. The videos from the ultraiwde camera come out with good details and a wider dynamic range but there is a slight distortion seen around the edges which is negligible. 

However, the telephoto camera does an excellent job in terms of videos as you get saturated colours, excellent dynamic range and almost no noise present. But once you switch to 6x zoom, there is a lot of noise present which will be soon fixed with a future software update. The videos from the selfie camera come out with excellent details and have good dynamic range. Even the skin tones look natural with almost no noise present.

OnePlus 13 Battery Life:

The OnePlus 13 sports a larger 6000mAh battery which is 1000mAh more in capacity compared to OnePlus 12. This time OnePlus has gone with the silicon carbon technology which allows more lithium ions to stay within the volume of the battery and are lighter also. With the chipset built on an efficient 3nm process and the larger battery, you can achieve solid battery life.

With normal usage that includes streaming social media, scrolling through web pages, playing games casually, etc. you can easily achieve around 8-9 hours of standard screen-on time whereas with heavy usage which includes playing heavy games like Genshin Impact, BGMI, etc for longer hours, rendering videos, taking videos from the cameras, the smartphone easily lasted one day and a half which is amazing.

With heavy usage, the standard screen-on time came around 4.5-5 hours which is really good. In terms of charging, OnePlus has equipped the smartphone with a 100W SuperVOOC fast charger which takes around 40-45 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent. If you use any separate wireless charging pad, it will take slightly longer hours considering the huge 6000mAh battery which is there.

Other than this, there is also support for There is also support for 50W wireless charging and with the dedicated AirVOOC magnetic charger it took 1 hour 20 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent. There is also support for 10W reverse wireless charging where you can keep a smartphone that supports wireless charging on the back of the OnePlus 13 and get it charged. 

Even via cable also there is support for 5W reverse wireless charging. However, there is a slight dissapointment when it comes to the charger as it is a USB Type-A to Type-C which means you cannot charge any other gadgets as the USB Type-C to Type-C is capable of it. Other than thses there are even smart charging options present which helps in providing great battery life.

OnePlus 13 Audio Quality:

The OnePlus 13 sports a dual stereo speaker setup that is adequately loud and clear with almost no distortion even at the highest volume levels. The sound comes out equally good on both the speakers but here now you do miss out the Dolby Atmos support but still the sound quality is good while you are watching videos, listening to songs, etc. As always there is no 3.5mm headphone jack.

Verdict:

The OnePlus 13 seems to a perfect flagship out there as it brings all the right set of specifications which includes a great build and design, an amazing display along with stereo speakers for multi-media consumption, solid performance with gaming capabilities, good set of cameras for both images and videos, exceellent battery life with faster charging capabilities.

However, the biggest strength of OnePlus has been its software experience which is bloatware-free and the newer AI features in the user interface levels up the experience further. There are few areas where there was scope of improvement needed. When it comes to cameras, the ultrawide camera needs some improvement in terms of noise reduction and slightly better videos.

Since there is the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, you get thermal throttling in performance compared to other smartphones that are powered using this chipset. Though OneUI is very polished user interface it is still not up there with the OneUI in Samsung smartphones which provides more features and also has a slightly better track record of software updates over OxygenOS. 

When compared to the OnePlus 12, you get better IP rating, slightly better performance and battery life but there is a slight downgrade in terms of ultrawide and telephoto camera. Overall, the OnePlus 13 is a solid buy in the market with the brand recognition of OnePlus but only scope of improvement needs to be in terms of cameras and along with that, the OnePlus 13 will take away the honours out there in this highly competititve market out there.