With premium build materials and the largest battery OnePlus has ever crammed into a phone, the OnePlus 15R has an easy sales pitch.However, the exceptional battery life comes from bleeding-edge new battery tech, and how well that battery holds up long term remains to be seen.OnePlus 15R 7 Brand OnePlus SoC Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 RAM 12GB Battery 7,400mAh The OnePlus 15R is a OnePlus 15 with a few minor compromises to lower the price.
Yet despite its slightly slower processor, fewer cameras, slower charging, and USB 2.0 port, this phone feels more premium than the term "mid-range" or "budget" would suggest.And with a massive 7,400mAh battery surpassing even that of the OnePlus 15, you'd be hard-pressed to buy a phone with a larger battery in the US.Pros & Cons Massive 7,400mAh silicon-carbon battery Durable, premium metal and glass build quality Rock solid performance Only two rear cameras USB 2.0 port Proprietary chargers needed for max charging speeds $700 at OnePlus $700 at Amazon Expand Collapse See Our Process How We Test and Review Products at How-To Geek We go hands-on with every product to ensure it's worth your time and money.
Posts By Justin Duino Price and availability The OnePlus 15R costs $700 for the 256GB model, which is $200 less than the regular OnePlus 15.A 512GB model is available for $800.Both sizes come in Charcoal Black and Mint Breeze.
Specifications Brand OnePlus SoC Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 RAM 12GB Battery 7,400mAh Ports USB 2.0 Operating System OxygenOS Front camera 32MP Dimensions 163.41 mm x 77.04 mm x 8.30 mm Colors Charcoal Black, Mint Breeze Charge speed 55W SUPERVOOC, up to 80W with OnePlus SUPERVOOC 100W Dual Ports GaN Power IP Rating IP69K Main Camera 50MP Wide-Angle Camera 8MP Expand Collapse Did OnePlus make a Pixel? OnePlus phones used to look like OnePlus phones When I took the OnePlus 15R out of its box, I felt like I'd seen and held this phone before.Swap out the OnePlus logo for a G, rotate the camera hump into a visor, and you have yourself a Pixel.I don't mean that as a bad thing.
The phone feels solid and durable in the way that the Pixel 9 and 10 do.That said, if you prefer the feel of the older Pixels, you may similarly prefer to hold an older OnePlus, but there's something to be said for phones that look and feel as cohesive as these do.Nothing about the look of the 15R screams OnePlus.
While the OnePlus 13 series had a distinct style, the OnePlus 15 and 15R, with the logo swapped out, could be mistaken for virtually any other phone.There's no massive camera bump here like on the OnePlus Open.There's no Hasselblad branding.
There's no distinct rear texture.To be honest, I don't fault OnePlus for its design decisions.I like the aesthetics of this device, as non-distinct as it is.
I just wish it were thinner and more narrow.I find most slab phones a bit awkward to hold, and this one is a chunker.I can't imagine using it in a case, as many people will.
The screen is flat, as is the back and all the sides.Only the corners are rounded, serving as the sole reminders that yes, this is intended to go in a human hand.But as much as I actively don't want to hold this phone, there are no objective weak points I can call out.
If you like big slab phones, this is a big slab phone.As a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 owner, I just prefer for my big phones to fold into smaller ones.Dancing with the stars Not quite a flagship, but close From the beginning, part of OnePlus's appeal is getting more phone for less money.
That has grown increasingly less true over the years, with some models feeling like outright misses.The OnePlus 15R is not considered a flagship phone, but true to the company's original "flagship killer" moniker, it does undercut the base iPhone 17, Google Pixel 10, and Galaxy S25 in price by $100.The thing is, in various areas, you’re also getting fewer phone calls in the process.
In the end, this doesn't feel like a substantial bargain.Rather, you're getting exactly as much phone as you paid for.The phone's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip may outperform a Pixel 10 on benchmarks and isn't far behind the older but higher-end Snapdragon 8 Elite in Samsung's Galaxy S25.
Most people, quite frankly, won’t notice any difference either way.I have yet to experience a single stutter in my time with the OnePlus 15R.This is helped by the fact that the OnePlus 15R matches its higher-priced peers in RAM, with 12GB, though this is down from the 16GB available in the regular OnePlus 15.
The base storage also starts at 256 GB and goes up to 512 GB.This is more than Google and Samsung offered in their 2025 phones and on par with the iPhone.The display is a clear win for the 15R.
Here, the adaptive refresh rate goes all the way up to 165Hz, a feature reserved primarily for supported games.The screen resolution of 2800×1272 means it manages an impressive and gorgeous 450 pixels per inch.It gets plenty bright, as well.
If I crank the brightness all the way up, it may not hurt my eyes to quite the same extent as my Z Fold 6, but it remains easily visible in outdoor light.All of that is fine, but one major sacrifice, at least to me, has to do with the USB-C port.The 15R is still limited to USB 2.0.
Personally, that's a deal-breaker, for that means this is not a phone that you can connect to an external display and expect anything to happen.Not only is there no desktop mode, but you can't mirror your display onto a larger screen either.Those are nice features to have if you're purchasing a phone explicitly for gaming, since an Android phone docked to a TV with a Bluetooth controller can effectively serve as a video game console.
If you look at Android's upcoming merger with Chromebooks with interest and think that might be a feature you want to try when the time comes, this is not the phone to get.Now, for the primary advantages that have come to mark what it means to buy a OnePlus phone in the US, we need to look at battery life and charging speeds—areas where the 15R is in a different league.A bigger battery, even than the OnePlus 15 A portable battery bank with a screen The 15R has a staggering 7400mAh battery, which is actually 100mAh larger than that of the OnePlus 15.
This is a larger battery than you'll find not only in comparable phones, but in phones that cost nearly twice as much, like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and iPhone Pro Max.And while the OnePlus 15R is a big phone, it isn't quite that big.How is this possible? That stems from the use of newer silicon-carbon battery chemistry over the traditional lithium-ion packs still found in most smartphones today.
Silicon-carbon is increasingly common in Chinese phones from other brands like Oppo and Honor, but the big brands in the US have yet to get on board.Why? This battery chemistry undergoes more stress over time, expanding more as it heats, which is an action that happens every time the phone is charged or when placed under demanding circumstances.Apple and Samsung, who currently lead the market, have more to lose than they would gain by embracing this technology right away.
As Samsung learned with the Galaxy Note 7, a few phones catching fire can cause huge damage to your reputation and are a very expensive mistake to fix.It's happy to let other companies perform the real-world test of shipping these phones to consumers.As an individual, that's the question you all yourself when you choose to buy this phone.
How comfortable are you with the risk of adopting a newer battery chemistry? So far, the risks seem on par with what we already expect from existing phones.Silicon-carbon may be rare in the U.S., but phones with these batteries have been around in China for a few years, and we haven’t been inundated with news of exploding phones.More likely, you’ll experience a phone whose battery life decreases more quickly but whose starting capacity is high enough that you still ultimately end up with more battery life than if you had gone with a different phone.
If you purchase a OnePlus 15R, you get a phone that not only lasts one day, but two.If you're someone who uses your phone very lightly, you can shoot for more.After all, 7400mAh is not that far from the 10,000mAh found in many external battery banks.
With reverse wireless charging, this phone can easily function as one for other devices.You could share power with someone running low on a night out and likely still make it home with energy to spare.Faster charging, sorta Only the right charger needs apply While the OnePlus 15R also comes with faster charging than its nearest competitors, there are some notable asterisks here.
For starters, while the phone supports 80W fast charging, you need to purchase a proprietary SuperVooc charger from OnePlus in order to reach those speeds.I have an Anker USB charging hub capable of 100W charging, but it doesn't make a difference with this phone.The 15R comes with a 55W charger in the box, so that is what I tested.
55W fast-charging, on paper, is a larger number than the 25W, 30W, or 45W charging you get on competing phones.This gives the impression that the phone charges faster than others.That's technically true, but that's not the whole story.
Again, the OnePlus 15R has a massive 7400mAh battery that absolutely dwarfs the battery you see in similar phones.It also means those watts have to fill a larger container, and so charging speeds end up feeling the same.The OnePlus 15R, with its included charging brick, doesn't feel noticeably faster to charge than my Galaxy Z Fold 6, which has 25W charging paired with a much smaller 4400mAh battery.
My phone may not last nearly as long, but it feels like it charges in roughly the same amount of time.With either one, it still takes over an hour to fill up an empty phone.There are other things to keep in mind that aren't necessarily problems, but it's something you can encounter when your battery is this large.
In my house, we have 10000mAh battery banks that are capable of charging my current phone roughly twice.These same batteries can only really charge the OnePlus 15R one time.Psychologically, I need to recalibrate how many charges I can get out of my external batteries.
On the flip side, with an internal battery this big, you're less likely to need those external batteries in the first place, and you definitely won't need them as often.The OnePlus 15R lacks wireless charging entirely.With a battery of this size, that's somewhat understandable.
Wireless charging this thing at 5W or 10W would take a very long time—though the OnePlus 15, whose gargantuan battery is only 100mAh less, does give you the option.And do I want to subject a silicon-carbon battery to all of that unnecessary additional heat generated by wireless charging? Probably not.Still, this is the loss of a feature that many of us have come to take for granted.
My car has a wireless charging pad built in, and when I toss my phone onto it, I'd prefer for the phone to actually charge.Though The camera is where the R comes in This is the most noticeable downgrade from the OnePlus 15 Here is an area where the OnePlus 15R takes a bit hit.The standard OnePlus 15 comes with three 50MP cameras.
The OnePlus 15R only has two.The main shooter is the same 50MP Sony IMX906 camera found on the OnePlus flagship, and as was the case in my colleague's review of the OnePlus 15, you can expect to get excellent shots out of this lens.I was very happy with the results, even during a visit to a nighttime light show at our local botanical gardens.
The secondary camera is a different story.It's an ultra-wide, and it's only 8MP.There is no telephoto to speak of.
This means when you pan out to 0.6 zoom, you will be hit by a noticeable drop in quality.And if you try to zoom in, the absence of a dedicated telephoto camera means you're entirely reliant on digital zoom.To me, that means zooming in more than 1x or 2x might as well be disabled.
Even in great lighting, photos can come out as a distorted mess.Video goes up to 4K at 120fps, and there is optical image stabilization.This camera lacks the 8K video recording available on the OnePlus 15, though that's not a feature whose absence I can say I notice.
With only one camera to depend on, don't attempt to zoom in while recording, and you'll be fine.This camera would not be among the top choices for shooting professional b-roll, but it's adequate for recording family get-togethers and capturing a kid's first steps.As for the front camera, that's 32MP.
It can record video in 4K up to a much lower 30fps.No matter whether you drop the resolution to 1080p or 720p, the fps stays the same.Software that puts me off Neither distinct nor cohesive I wish I could say that the software on the OnePlus 15R did nothing for me, but it's worse than that—I find it actively off-putting.
OxygenOS increasingly looks like Oppo’s ColorOS, which looks like a weird smashing together of an iPhone with a Pixel.Subscribe for newsletter reviews and battery deep dives Get the newsletter for clear hands-on phone coverage — subscribe for in-depth reviews, battery-chemistry explainers, camera and charging tradeoff analysis, and practical buying guidance to inform your next purchase.Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
You can unsubscribe anytime.There isn’t enough consistency between OnePlus apps like Photos, Notes, and Settings with Google apps like the dialer and Google Messages.The colors are different.
Icon spacing and find are off.It feels like no one took the time to gauge whether the entire package works.Design inconsistencies aside, I like some of the various OnePlus apps.
I’m happy to embrace a local photo gallery like the Photos app over Google Photos, OnePlus Notes over Keep, and even the provided file manager over Files by Google.I find ZenSpace the most compelling.It’s an app that can lock you out of your phone for set periods of time, allowing you only to answer calls until the timer ends.
As for AI features, those are here too.You can use AI to assist with writing and translate text or transcribe voice, as we've come to expect from large language models.There's also a MindSpace feature that promises to organize information and surface useful data based on what it sees on screen.
You can also tap the side button to manually add screenshots and webpages.Close My favorite feature is the ability to assign a special feature to an extra button on the left side of the phone.This isn't a OnePlus creation, mind you—the button and even its software mirror the Action button on the iPhone.
It's a shameless copy, but it's useful nonetheless.Ultimately, there's no special software here that would make me want to choose the 15R over another phone, but there are just enough quirks that make me wish I were using something else.Should you buy the OnePlus 15R? The OnePlus 15R is not a phone for photographers, nor is it a device for anyone looking to connect their phone to external displays.
If you value wireless charging, that also makes this device a hard pass.And if you long for the days when OnePlus devices had personality, well, this device will continue to disappoint.On the flip side, you're getting a phone that performs phenomenally well, has battery life for days, charges quickly enough, has a beautiful display, and takes better photos than most Android phones out there.
It's a good buy, and if you're less cautious about silicon-carbon batteries than I am and like large slab phones, it's an easy recommendation.OnePlus 15R 7 Brand OnePlus SoC Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 RAM 12GB Battery 7,400mAh The OnePlus 15R is a OnePlus 15 with a few minor compromises to lower the price.Yet despite its slightly slower processor, fewer cameras, slower charging, and USB 2.0 port, this phone feels more premium than the term "mid-range" or "budget" would suggest.
And with a massive 7,400mAh battery surpassing even that of the OnePlus 15, you'd be hard-pressed to buy a phone with a larger battery in the US.$700 at OnePlus $700 at Amazon Expand Collapse
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