The OnePlus 13R is a solid flagship killer designed to attract consumers.
The OnePlus R series strikes the perfect balance of specifications at an impressive price. It inherits most of the characteristics of the flagship number series with very few corners cut. Ever since the brand OnePlus focused on the R series instead of the T series, it has garnered huge attention among the masses who cannot afford the flagship number series, thus making a solid purchase in the market.Last year, we had the OnePlus 12R (Review), an excellent offering from OnePlus that brought impressive specifications for the price, including a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, a 120Hz AMOLED display, and a 5500mAh battery, among others. Still, there were a few areas where it was falling short. The OnePlus 13R boasts several upgrades in terms of specifications, including enhanced performance, improved cameras, and additional features.
However, there are a few corners also cut, which we will be talking about in the review. Since we have many smartphones in the budget flagship space from brands like Samsung, iQOO, Motorola, etc. so does the OnePlus 13R have enough to take over the budget flagship segment and continue its journey as the flagship killer? Is it worth the upgrade over the OnePlus 12R?
Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus 13R Design:
The OnePlus 13R sports a similar look to its predecessor, i.e. OnePlus 12, where at the back you get a similar circular design for the camera module, which houses the triple cameras with an LED flashlight, but this time around the camera module is not aligned with the side frame and this just like the OnePlus 13 (Review), this one is also placed to the left side. There is no Hasselblad branding on the camera module.
The back has a smooth matte finish that looks premium and provides a solid grip while holding in the hands. The OnePlus 13R is available in two different colours - Astral Trail and Nebula Noir. The Astral Trail has a silver colour at the back with some patterns which are visible when light falls on it, whereas the Nebula Noir has a black colour at the back.
The back is flat with no curves around the sides, except for the slightly curved edges. Around the sides, there is an aluminium frame that houses the power and volume buttons on the right side, whereas the left side houses the signature alert slider, which has three different modes - Mute, Vibrate, and Sound. The thickness is reduced to 8mm from the 8.8mm thickness on the OnePlus 12R.
So, definitely the OnePlus 13R feels slimmer, and in terms of weight, though having a larger 6000mAh battery, the smartphone feels lighter at 206 grams. On top, there is an IR blaster, a third microphone, and a secondary speaker, which, along with bottom-firing speakers, provide a stereo effect. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a dual SIM card slot, two microphones, and a loudspeaker grille.
In terms of protection, there is an IP65 rating, which means the smartphone can survive splashes of water, which is good, but still, it is not the best, as smartphones priced less than the OnePlus 13R come with a proper IP67 rating. On the front, there is a single punch hole display on the top at the centre. Another big departure from the OnePlus 12R's curved display is that now you get a flat display, which is great and suitable for screen guards.
OnePlus 13R Display:
The OnePlus 13R features a similar-sized 6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED (1264x2780 pixels) display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9, just like its predecessor, the OnePlus 12R. As it is a 10-bit display, the colours look saturated on the display. The bezels are slimmer, and since you get a flat display, it is easy to hold. Additionally, the display supports a 120Hz refresh rate, and since it is an LTPO panel, the refresh rate scales between 1Hz and 120Hz.
Talking about the refresh rate, there are three different settings to choose from - Auto Select, Standard, and High. Selecting either Auto Select or High ensures the 120Hz refresh rate on the display most of the time. However, the only difference between the Auto Select and High is that when you set the display at High, the display usually refreshes at 90Hz most of the time. Still, for a few applications, it maintains the 120Hz refresh rate.
Setting the display to Auto Select lets the refresh rate vary between 1Hz to 120Hz, and it is capped at 30Hz, 60Hz, and 90Hz for most of the applications. If you want the best battery life, then the Standard mode is perfect as it caps the display at 60Hz only. Combined with this display, you get a 360Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses during gaming. You can also set app-specific refresh rates for different applications.
In terms of display brightness, the display of the OnePlus 13R can reach a peak brightness of 4500 nits as claimed by OnePlus, but in reality, only a few pixels of the display can reach that higher number. But with the high brightness mode turned on, the display reaches around 1600 nits, which is good. Even under direct sunlight, the display of the OnePlus 13R can reach around 1000 nits, which is very good.
The display of the OnePlus 13R has three different modes to choose from - Vivid, Natural, and Pro where if you switch to Vivid or Pro mode, the colours look punchier and it covers the DCI-P3 gamut whereas the Natural mode provides slightly white tones and the colours look less saturated which covers the sRGB colour gamut. The Pro mode further consists of Brilliant and Cinematic modes.
You can also set the colour temperature to a warmer or a cooler tone accordingly. In terms of content consumption, the smartphone has support for HDR on YouTube, and also, there is Widevine L1 present, so streaming HDR content on OTT platforms is a breeze. Just like the OnePlus 12R, there is an in-display fingerprint scanner which works faster and is also accurate.
However, this time, the fingerprint scanner placement is present at the bottom, which may cause some inconvenience to smaller hands. In terms of display protection, the OnePlus 13R comes with Gorilla Glass 7i, which is sort of a downgrade compared to Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection on its predecessor, i.e. OnePlus 12R. Overall, the display of the OnePlus 13R is great for multimedia consumption.
OnePlus 13R Performance:
The OnePlus 13R is powered by last year's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which was seen on last year's flagship OnePlus 12. So when it comes to daily performance, the smartphone performs well whether it is heavy multi-tasking like playing highly graphics-intensive games, video editing, etc. and also even in lighter tasks like scrolling through webpages, or other tasks.
When it comes to gaming, the OnePlus 13R handles all the games without any issues. Some high-end games like BGMI, Call of Duty Mobile, Genshin Impact, etc., run at the highest graphics settings without any lag or stutter. In BGMI, the smartphone easily ran at Smooth graphics with Ultra Extreme frame rates, and the gameplay was very smooth.
After longer hours of gaming, the back of the smartphone felt slightly warmer, especially around the camera module, but that is negligible. However, the OnePlus 13R is also equipped with a vapour cooling system, which dissipates heat faster. When it comes to the CPU throttling test, the OnePlus 13R could achieve a sustained performance of around 60-65 per cent, which is not so good as thermal throttling is noticed.
Just like the OnePlus 12, this chipset does throttle at times, but it does not affect the performance or the gaming experience. In benchmarks, the OnePlus 13R had good scores, but still, the numbers were not as high as some other smartphones that have the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. In terms of network connectivity, you get support for good carrier aggregation and have all the bands of 5G.
This year, the base RAM and storage have also been increased, as there are two variants present: 12GB RAM with 256GB storage, and another 16GB RAM with 512GB storage. This time OnePlus 13R comes with UFS 4.0 speeds of storage speeds for both of its variants, which is good and also faster compared to the UFS 3.1 storage speeds of the OnePlus 12R.
OnePlus 13R Software:
The OnePlus 13R is running on the latest OxygenOS 15 based on Android 15 out of the box. The software experience has not changed much from the earlier OxygenOS 14, but there are a whole lot of newer additions, which include many AI-based features like AI Eraser, AI Summary, AI Speak, etc., which come in handy in most scenarios. Other than that, there are a lot of customisations present, as always.
Now talking about the AI features, AI Eraser will remove the object from the image and adjust the image contents automatically, AI Unblur removes the blur in the background, AI Summary summarises the paragraph to key points in the form of a summary, AI Spesk reads a particular loudly, AI Writer lets you write that text, AI Editor works well in gallery application, etc.
The look and feel are slightly different, with slightly different icon packs which look good. There are Live Alerts just like the dynamic island functionality in iPhones. There is a Circle to Search where you can circle an object or a text and get the information regarding it. Google's own Gemini is present, and along with that, you get the usual OnePlus features like Auto Pixelate 2.0, Magic Compose Writing, etc.
The Share with iPhone feature lets you share any files or any other content on your smartphone to iPhones. Just like the OnePlus Open, there is the Canvas feature, which lets you do multitasking. This time around, there are three to four pre-installed applications like LinkedIn, Facebook and Netflix, which can be uninstalled, but there is one OnePlus app store that does throw in a lot of notifications, which is cumbersome.
In terms of software updates, the OnePlus 13R, just like the OnePlus 13, will receive another four years of Android OS updates and six years of security patches, which is a good upgrade over the OnePlus 12R. Rest aside, the OxygenOS still continues to impress when it comes to the software experience on OnePlus smartphones.
OnePlus 13R Cameras:
The OnePlus 13R sports a triple camera setup, which includes a 50MP f/1.8 Sony LYT-700 sensor for the primary camera, which has support for OIS, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 50MP f/2.2 Samsung ISOCELL JN5 sensor for the telephoto camera with support for 2x optical zoom. On the front, there is a 16MP f/2.4 camera for selfies.
Compared to the OnePlus 12R, the primary camera is a newer one, and also, instead of a 2MP macro camera, there is a dedicated 50MP telephoto camera. However, the ultrawide and the front cameras remain unchanged. In terms of images during daylight, the primary camera does a very good job in terms of dynamic range, which is wide, and colours look natural without any kind of oversharpening in the background.
The noise is almost not present, which is great and also, even in terms of contrast, it is good. During the night, the primary camera delivers great images with excellent dynamic range, and details look sharper with slight noise in the background. The colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening, which is good. The dedicated Night Mode is turned on automatically as soon as the camera is exposed to low-light conditions.
Without the night mode, the images look sharp and the dynamic range is wider, with the shadows becoming darker and the colour temperature is on the slightly warmer side. The 8MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details, which look good but are not the sharpest and have a large amount of noise in the background. Even the distortion is present around the edges.
The colours have a warmer tone with slight oversharpening present in the background. At night, the ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of images that look good, but there is some kind of softness in the images, and the dynamic range is not so wide. The noise is slightly on the higher side, and the contrast in the background is very low.
The newer addition is the telephoto camera, which OnePlus have finally brought after user feedback, and this camera is an exceptional performer. The 2x zoom camera does an excellent job in terms of images, which look sharper and have a wider dynamic range with almost no noise in the background. The colours look saturated with no oversharpening in the background, which is good.
Beyond 2x, if you zoom like 5x and the highest you can go is 10x, at that zoom level, there is some softness in the details, and the dynamic range looks decent but not so wide. Up to 5x, definitely the images are pleasing with wider dynamic range and sharper details with less noise. Similarly, during the night, the telephoto camera does a great job in terms of dynamic range, and even colours look saturated.
At 5x zoom, there is some noise present, but that is negligible, and rest assured, the contrast is good, and even details in shadows are good. The exposure is well handled in very low-light conditions. In terms of portraits, the telephoto camera is capable of taking 1x and 2x portraits, which come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range. The edge detection and background blur are well handled.
The skin tones look natural without any kind of oversharpening. The primary camera can also take some good portraits with proper edge detection and a good level of background blur. Compared to the telephoto camera portraits, there is some oversharpening present on the portraits taken from the primary camera and some amount of noise in the background.
The front camera does a good job in terms of selfies, as skin tones look natural without any oversharpening in the background, and the dynamic range is wide. However, the selfies have slightly softer details, but the contrast looks good. Even the portrait selfies have slightly softer details, but the edge detection is good, and you get a proper background blur also.
In terms of videos, both the primary and the telephoto camera are capable of recording 4K videos at 60fps, whereas the ultrawide and the front camera are restricted to 1080p video recording at 30fps. The videos from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have excellent dynamic range with less noise in the background since OIS works perfectly.
The colours look saturated in the videos, and similarly, the telephoto camera videos come out with sharper details and have wider dynamic range. There is some amount of noise in the videos, which is negligible. At night, the telephoto camera struggles in terms of details, which look softer, and there is a considerable amount of noise in the background. However, colours look saturated, which is good.
The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with softer details and have a large amount of noise in the background. The colours look muted slightly, and there is a considerable amount of oversharpening in the background. The front camera does a good job in terms of videos in terms of details that look sharper and have good dynamic range, with some amount of noise in the background.
OnePlus 13R Battery Life:
The OnePlus 13R sports a larger 6000mAh battery, which is 500mAh more in capacity compared to its predecessor, i.e. OnePlus 12R and combined with OxygenOS 15, battery life has been slightly better. With normal usage that includes scrolling through webpages, playing games for 1-2 hours, and other multitasking like using Instagram, Facebook, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for two days with some charge left.
With heavy usage that includes playing games like Genshin Impact, BGMI Mobile, etc., for longer hours, i.e. 3-4 hours, rendering videos, taking images and videos using the cameras, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for one and a half days. The standard screen-on time with heavy usage came around 4-5 hours, and with normal usage, the standard screen-on time came around 8.5-9 hours, which is excellent and a good improvement over last year's OnePlus 12R.
In terms of charging, the OnePlus 13R comes with an 80W SuperVOOC charger, which is a slight downgrade from its predecessor, i.e. OnePlus 12R comes with a 100W SuperVOOC charger inside the box. The charging is also slower now, as the OnePlus 13R takes around 1 hour 10 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 per cent completely, compared to 40 minutes of full charge from 0 to 100 per cent on the OnePlus 12R.
OnePlus 13R Audio Quality:
The OnePlus 13R comes with a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds louder and clearer. There is no distortion in sound even at the highest volume settings. This time around, there is no support for Dolby Atmos, but you still get a richer sound experience.
Verdict:
The OnePlus 13R is a well-balanced budget flagship that ticks all the right boxes, as it proves to be an excellent offering which includes a solid build and design, a great display along with stereo speakers for multi-media consumption, solid performance and gaming capabilities, a good set of cameras and excellent battery life. The icing on the cake has to be the clean software experience along with a good cycle of software updates.
However, there are a few areas where downgrades are seen. The charging speeds are slower compared to the OnePlus 12R, the ultrawide and front cameras struggle in terms of videos, especially during low-light, details look softer, and though you are getting a solid performance and gaming experience, there is a considerable amount of thermal throttling present.
The USB port at the bottom has USB Type 2.0 speeds instead of the USB 3.1 speeds. When compared to the OnePlus 12R, there is a good set of upgrades in most aspects like cameras, performance, display and battery life, but there are downgrades like charging speeds and display protection. So, definitely the OnePlus 13R seems to be a solid flagship killer out there and is worth the upgrade over the OnePlus 12R.
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