A power-packed flagship experience in a compact form factor!!
Ever since OnePlus entered the smartphone market, it has shaken the industry by launching smartphones with flagship-level specifications, and its first product, OnePlus One, had a huge fan following and was a great success. Over the years, the brand has had its ups and downs, but the OnePlus moniker remains close to many hearts in the market.The OnePlus 13 series has two of its offerings with the flagship OnePlus 13 (Review) and the semi-flagship OnePlus 13R (Review), both of which had a good level of success, so now the company is focusing its attention on the compact flagship in the form of the OnePlus 13R. There are multiple brands which are bringing larger smartphone screen devices, but a few brands like Apple, Google, etc. are getting smaller form factors by packing all the required specifications.
The OnePlus 13s packs all the required flagship specifications for the price, which includes the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, the one which is found even on the flagship OnePlus 13. Other than this, the smartphone packs a larger 5800mAh battery, a 50MP dual camera setup, and much more. So can this compact flagship shake this highly competitive market, and will this bring back the glory of "flagship killer", which OnePlus was known for?
Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus 13s Design:
This is the first time that OnePlus has brought a slightly tweaked design with a squarish-shaped camera module at the back instead of the circular camera module that was present in both the OnePlus 13 and 13R. The camera module, made of one piece of aluminium, looks premium and houses two dual cameras along with an LED flashlight and an IR transmitter, which are adjacent to the two cameras. The camera module does not protrude much, which is good when kept on flat surfaces.
The OnePlus 13s is available in three different colour variants - Pink Satin, Black Velvet, and Green Silk. The Black Velvet variant has a metallic sand-like finish, whereas the Pink Satin and Green Silk have a Velvet Glass with a smooth matte finish. The back has a flat panel with rounded corners. Even the display on the front is flat without any curves on both sides.
The smartphone does come with an IP65 rating, which makes it splash resistant, which is a slight disappointment considering smartphones priced lower than the OnePlus 13R come with a proper IP67 rating. Around the sides, there is an aluminium frame that houses the power button and volume buttons on the right side, whereas the left side holds the newer Plus Key instead of the signature alert slider that we are used to in OnePlus smartphones.
We will be talking more about the Plus Key in the software section later. Other than that, on the top, there is an IR Blaster along with a secondary noise-cancelling microphone, whereas the bottom houses the USB Type-C port that supports USB 2.0 speeds, a loudspeaker grille, a dual SIM card slot and a primary microphone. There is neither an additional slot for microSD card storage expansion nor a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Since it is a compact flagship smartphone, it weighs 185grams which makes it lighter while holding in the hands. In terms of thickness, the smartphone is thicker at 8.2mm around the sides, thus providing it a slimmer profile. On the front, there is a single punch hole in the display with slimmer bezels around the display. Overall, the design is eye-catching with a unique look on the back.
OnePlus 13s Display:
The OnePlus 13s sports a compact 6.32-inch 1.5K (1216x2640 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. The display is a 10-bit one, which means colours look punchier and have great viewing angles. Even the bezels around the display look slimmer, which makes it look premium. The display of the OnePlus 13s is an LTPO one, which means the display can refresh between 1Hz and 120Hz.
There are three different settings for choosing the refresh rate: Standard, High, and Auto-Select. Setting the display to either Auto-Select or High results in the display showing a 120Hz refresh rate most of the time, except that if you select the refresh rate to High, the display maintains a 90Hz refresh rate. Still, if you want better battery life, the Standard mode will work better.
The Auto-Select mode ensures that the refresh rate varies between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz or 120Hz, depending on the content in the display. Just like all OnePlus smartphones, you can also set application-specific refresh rates. Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, you get a 360Hz touch sampling rate, which means you get faster touch responses. In terms of display brightness, the OnePlus 13s can reach a peak brightness of 1600nits under High Brightness Mode, which is good.
In normal scenarios, the display provides 800nits of brightness, which is good, and the display covers 100% DCI-P3 gamut. Along with that, you get 2160Hz PWM dimming, which makes it easier to view the display during the night. The display has three different colour modes to choose from - Vivid, Natural, and Pro, where if you switch to Vivid or Pro mode, the colours look vivid, whereas if you consider Natural, the colours have an off-white tone.
The Pro mode further consists of Brilliant and Cinematic. The display of the OnePlus 13s is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, which is the same one as seen on the OnePlus 13R, which is good but not the best. The display houses an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works accurately. The display of the OnePlus 13s has support for Widevine L1, so you can stream HDR content on YouTube, and also, there is support for HDR on OTT platforms.
Overall, the display of the OnePlus 13s is great for multi-media consumption.
OnePlus 13s Performance:
The OnePlus 13s is powered by the 2025 flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which is also seen on the flagship OnePlus 13. In terms of daily activities, which include scrolling through webpages, switching between applications, playing casual games, or any other tasks, etc., the smartphone could handle all of them easily. In terms of gaming, all games like COD Mobile, BGMI, etc., ran smoothly without any lags or stutters as such.
There is an Adaptive Frame Booster, which provides higher frame rates and higher quality graphics for a better gaming experience. In BGMI, the smartphone easily ran at "Smooth" graphics along with Extreme frame rates, and during gaming, there was not much of a drop in frame rates as the smartphone maintained a stable gameplay. After longer hours of gaming continuously, the back of the smartphone did feel slightly warmer, but due to the larger vapour cooling chamber (4400mm2), the heat gets dissipated faster.
In the CPU throttling test, the OnePlus 13s achieved a sustained performance of 70-75 per cent in Balanced Mode, whereas with the High Performance mode, the sustained performance came around 65,% which is not the best considering this is a flagship-grade chipset. Thermal throttling was present, which is a major concern. In terms of benchmarks, the scores were not the best in class, but still good enough for a semi-flagship.
The OnePlus 13s is available in two different variants - 256GB/512GB storage of UFS 4.0 speeds paired with 12GB LPDDR5 RAM.
OnePlus 13s Software:
In terms of software experience, OnePlus smartphones have always stayed at the top in delivering the cleanest software experience with no ads or bloatware, and here it is no different with the OnePlus 13s. The OnePlus 13s runs on the latest OxygenOS 15 with Android 15 out of the box. OxygenOS 15 feels like a proper and refined version of OxygenOS 14 with all the necessary customisations and newer AI features.
There are a lot of customisations present where you can change the icon shape and size, colour, font, Always-On display and the lockscreen effects. You can choose a lot of themes for the Always-On display, and you can customise the lock screen, where you can add a piece of text or an image, change the look, and the transition effect is also present, similar to the Always-On display.
There are a host of new AI features, which include AI VoiceScribe, a built-in translation application, AI Recompose, AI Plus Mind feature, etc. Talking about the AI VoiceScribe feature, this one lets you record, summarise, and translate calls in messages, calls, and online meeting applications. If you use the OnePlus Dillar application, it can do real-time translation and summarise calls on regular calls.
Inside the gallery application, there is the AI Best Face 2.0, which lets you automatically correct facial expressions in photos and videos. The AI Translation works perfectly well on different applications, where it lets you translate the text on the screen or if any audio is playing, which is a good move. There is also Gemini AI, which is well integrated with OnePlus Notes, Clock, etc.
Now the biggest talking feature is the new Plus Key, which is a replacement for the signature alert slider since it is a copy of the Action Key as found on the iPhones. The menu of the Plus Key is found under Settings, and if you press this button, there are a lot of functionalities present like taking a screenshot, Do Not Disturb mode, Camera, Torch, recorder and an interesting one being the Save To Mind Space.
The Save To Mind Space feature is a great addition, where if you take a screenshot, it uses the AI to analyse the contents, which can parse phone numbers, addresses, dates, and take contents from images. You can add the details in calender and contacts, which is a good move. In terms of bloatware, except for Facebook and Netflix, there are no third-party applications pre-installed.
In terms of software updates, the OnePlus 13s will get another four years of AndroidOS updates and six years of security patches, which is similar to that of the Nord lineup, which is a good move from OnePlus.
OnePlus 13s Cameras:
The OnePlus 13s sports a dual camera setup, which includes a 50MP f/1.8 Sony LYT-700 sensor for the primary camera and a 50MP f/2.2 Samsung JN5 sensor for the telephoto camera, which supports 2x optical zoom. However, the smartphone does miss out on an ultrawide camera, which is a slight disappointment. The primary camera does have OIS, whereas the telephoto camera has support for EIS. There is a 32MP f/2.0 camera on the front in terms of selfies.
The images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have great dynamic range. Even the noise is less in the background. The colours look natural without any kind of oversharpening, and you get good contrast also. During the night, the primary camera does a great job in terms of dynamic range, which is wider and also the colours look natural without any kind of oversharpening in the background.
There are adequate details in the shadows, and the colour contrast is also on the higher side. All these results are with the default Night Mode turned on, whereas without the dedicated Night Mode, the images come out with punchier colours and good dynamic range, with slight oversharpening in the background. The primary camera can also reach 4x zoom levels, and the images come out with sharper details, with good dynamic range, but on the other hand, you do end up with noise in the background.
The 50MP telephoto camera does a solid job in terms of images, where they come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range. However, there is slight oversharpening in the background. Beyond 2x zoom levels, the images come out with sharper details, but there is a good amount of noise in the background, and the dynamic range comes out to be average.
At night, the telephoto camera does a good job in terms of details, which look sharper, and the dynamic range is also wider. There is slight oversharpening in the background, and also noise is on the higher side. Beyond 2x optical zoom, the results came out with average dynamic range, more noise in the background, and details looked softer.
The telephoto camera takes some very good macro images with sharper details, wider dynamic range, and there is less noise in the background. However, the telephoto camera lacks autofocus. The front camera takes some very good selfies that come out with sharper details, have good dynamic range, and the noise is also very low in the background. The skin tones look natural without any kind of oversharpening, though.
In terms of videos, both the primary and the telephoto cameras are capable of taking 4K videos at 60fps. The videos from both the primary and the telephoto cameras come out with sharper details and wider dynamic range, but the video on the telephoto camera has slightly higher noise. The primary camera video results are slightly better due to the presence of OIS.
Both the telephoto and the primary cameras have an Ultra Steady Mode, which works well for 1080p videos, but with almost no noise present. The videos from the front camera come out at 4K at 30fps, and these videos come out with slightly softer details, decent dynamic range, and there is very little noise in the background. The Ultra Steady Mode also works well for the front camera.
OnePlus 13s Battery Life:
The OnePlus 13s sports a larger 5850mAh battery, which is a good figure considering that this is a compact flagship which houses a flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. In terms of normal usage with activities like scrolling through pages, playing games for 1-2 hours, using social media, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for two days with some charge left.
With heavy usage that includes playing games like BGMI, Call of Duty Mobile, etc., for 3-4 hours, running benchmarks, taking videos and images using the camera frequently, the smartphone easily lasted for a day with some charge left. In terms of charging speeds, OnePlus has bundled an 80W SuperVOOC charger, which can easily charge the smartphone from 0 to 100 per cent within 1 hour, which is good.
There is support for reverse wired charging, but you do miss out on wireless charging, which is slightly disappointing since it is a semi-flagship smartphone.
OnePlus 13s Audio Quality:
The OnePlus 13s sports a dual stereo speaker setup, which includes the earpiece at the top and loudspeaker grille at the bottom, which together provide a nice stereo sound effect. There is no Dolby Atmos, but you get the OReality feature, which lets you choose different sound effects while watching videos or playing songs.
Verdict:
The OnePlus 13s is a perfect compact flagship smartphone with almost all the flagship specifications, which include an eye-catching premium design, a great display for multi-media consumption, flagship-level performance and gaming capabilities, a good set of cameras, and a solid battery life with support for fast charging. The software experience has been the de facto standard of OnePlus smartphones, and it is no different with the OnePlus 13s.
However, there are fewer areas where OnePlus has made a few compromises, like it has skipped out on an ultrawide camera, which is disappointing considering the price of the smartphone. The telephoto camera performance is not so good, as you get average results in terms of images and videos. There is no dedicated IP68 rating, and the display protection is not so good when compared to the competition out there.
When it comes to handling the smartphone, it may be an issue with larger hands, where it tends to feel compact for some people out there. Though you get a flagship-level performance and gaming experience, there is a considerable amount of thermal throttling present. As an overall package, the OnePlus 13s is a solid compact flagship which you can buy right now, only if you can compromise on the cameras.
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