OnePlus 15R review: this gamer-friendly all rounder phone also delivers epic endurance

Introduction

Meet the Robin to the OnePlus 15’s Batman. While the 15R may be a step down from proper flagship phone territory, some cherry-picked specs mean it can still mix things up with rivals costing considerably more – and the student even beats the master in one or two key areas.

This is the first phone to get Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset, breaking the trend of each new R handset using the same silicon as the previous year’s mainline model. OnePlus has also fitted a gamer-grade display and squeezed in one of the biggest batteries you’ll find in any phone sold in the West.

A keen £649/€699 starting price is almost the icing on the cake, sandwiching the 15R between the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE and Galaxy S25 proper, and undercutting the Google Pixel 10. Does it redefine the concept of a value flagship?

Design & build: family business

It’s not quite a spitting image but the 15R has plenty in common with the OnePlus 15, namely the offset rectangular camera bump at the rear and the customisable Plus Key on the left side of the phone. From the front, the only real giveaway is the slightly thicker screen bezel. Flat glass and squared-off sides are still all the rage the, so have naturally been carried over from last year’s OnePlus 13R.

This is a sizeable phone, being slightly bigger across all three dimensions than the OnePlus 15, but not so huge I couldn’t hold it comfortably in one hand. The way the camera bump only protrudes a little out of the chassis makes it particularly pocket-friendly too.

The firm hasn’t cheaped out on materials, using metal for the mid-frame and frosted glass for the back panel. It all feels properly high-end, and the glass on my Charcoal Black review unit did a great job of hiding fingerprints. Personally I’d pick the Mint Breeze version, which has a little more character – but that’s only because the Electric Violet model is exclusive to India. That phone uses fibreglass to shave off a few grams, like the stunning Sand Storm edition OnePlus 15.

Whichever handset you pick, you’re getting prodigious levels of ingress protection. The 15R has IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings, meaning it’ll shrug off high pressure and hot water as well as survive accidental drownings in sinks, pools, or toilets (hopefully clean ones). I’d still suggest wrapping it in a case or cover of some kind, to keep the screen safe: Gorilla Glass 7i only goes so far against impacts.

I salute OnePlus for re-using the 15’s ultrasonic fingerprint sensor here. Most step-down rivals use optical sensors that aren’t as fast to detect digits, but here you get near-instant unlocking, even if your fingers are wet. You don’t have to lift your finger on and off the sensor during the initial setup, either – just roll it around the area until it’s registered. The sooner this becomes the norm for all phones, the better.

Screen & sound: up to speed

It’s fair to say the OnePlus 15 prioritised refresh rate over resolution, packing fewer pixels than the outgoing phone in order to hit a gamer-grade 165Hz. Here, though, you’re only getting upgrades, as the 15R’s predecessor was never that high-res to begin with. The rapid refresh rate sticks around, the screen has grown to a palm-stretching 6.83in, and the 2800×1271 panel has ever-so-slightly more pixels than both the 13R and OnePlus 15 – though you’d never tell just by eyeballing it.

In supported titles the higher refresh rate is a beaut, delivering brilliantly smooth gameplay. It helps that the chipset is beefy enough to supply enough frames in Call of Duty Mobile, with no obvious dips. LTPS tech only drops back to 60Hz when showing static content, so it won’t be as power efficient as LTPO rivals that can manage 1Hz – though the colossal battery more than makes up the difference.

I can’t fault the picture quality, with the engaging, vibrant colours and fantastic contrast that are AMOLED signatures. Black levels are also tip top, and viewing angles are excellent. The 1800 nits claimed outdoor brightness is level with the pricier OnePlus 15, and was more than enough to see the screen clearly on sunny days. HDR content shines even brighter, which really makes streaming shows pop.

There wasn’t much difference at all between the 15 and 15R’s speaker setups. From what I could hear, the down-firing main speakers and earpiece tweeters get just as loud as each other, with mid-range clarity and just enough low end that tunes and video clips don’t sound hollow.

Cameras: selfie-centred

Photography is the main area where the OnePlus 15 and 15R diverge; you’re only getting two rear lenses here, with no dedicated telephoto snapper, and the ultrawide takes a considerable step down on pixel count. That said, the main shooter uses the same Sony-supplied 50MP IMX906 sensor, with a wide f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilisation helping out in low light. The front camera has also taken a big step up from the OnePlus 13R, doubling pixel count and adding autofocus.

While there’s not been any Hasselblad helping hand with colour science – OnePlus now does its own thing here – the 15R does a great job of balancing reality with engaging hues. Greens and reds in particular have plenty of punch, but not to extreme levels. Exposure is very well judged outdoors and in well-lit environments. While indoor shots could lean a little warm, it wasn’t far off the real world.

The ultrawide shooter isn’t all that impressive, lacking the detail and not always matching the main lens for colour or exposure. It has a generously wide field of view, but I didn’t find myself reaching for it all that often.

OnePlus is far from the only phone firm to include a handful of retro-inspired photo filters in its camera app, but I was happy to see them make a return now that the Hasselblad branding has been ditched. They’re subtle but can liven up otherwise plain scenes.

Sensor cropping and pixel binning only go so far for zoom shots, with 2x being perfectly usable outdoors but anything stronger showing diminishing returns, particularly at night. The ultrawide gets noisy fast here, and needs a steady hand – or a static subject – to get a clear image.

The lead lens performs far better, expertly handling areas of shadow alongside bright highlights. The neon signs in my sample shots appeared blown out on one rival handset, but were perfectly legible here. Colours are largely true-to-life and while noise does creep up a little, I was mostly very happy with low-light performance, even if you can spot the same artificial smoothing as the OnePlus 15 in places.

There’s an impressive amount of detail on display from the front camera, even in darker environments, and the autofocus made sure all my snaps appeared sharp. Selfie fans should be very happy here.

Photographers wanting more flexibility may want to shop around for something with a dedicated telephoto lens, though – or save a bit more cash for the OnePlus 15, which takes very good 3x shots.

Software experience: mind over matter

OnePlus doesn’t play favourites, so the 15R gets the exact same version of OxygenOS as the more expensive 15. Both are based on Android 16, both manage to skip out on pre-installed bloat, and both will be treated to the same four years of new operating system versions, along with six years of security patches. A strong showing, if still a few years behind what Google and Samsung have pledged.

There’s little in the way of visual clutter, and there’s only been a tiny bit of Liquid Glass influence. The lock screen PIN entry buttons do an impression of Apple’s new design language, but the quick settings screen, Settings menus and OnePlus’ own-brand apps stick with the firm’s pared-back primary colours. The live Alert pop-ups that appear around the selfie camera are basic compared to Apple’s Dynamic Island, but I still found them useful for multimedia controls. I like that OnePlus also keeps the Shelf, a separate area from the homescreen you can fill with bespoke widgets, around.

AI of course plays a part, with built-in audio transcription, live foreign language translation, and writing assistance for notes. The generative image editor can also expand tightly-cropped shots, erase background distractions, re-light portraits and upscale to higher resolutions. I found the reflection removal tool very hit-or-miss, though. Samsung and Google still lead the way here.

Mind Space is the headline AI attraction, getting its own dedicated hardware key. It’s essentially a hub for voice recordings, screenshots and web links, with generative summaries and search – something I’ve seen from a bunch of different brands lately, including Motorola and Nothing. I like that this one ties in with Google Gemini, but even after a few weeks of testing it hasn’t become something I’ve used on the regular. Maybe I’m not hip and don’t make enough voice notes.

Performance & battery life: sensible step down

I normally kick this section off with a focus on performance – something the OnePlus 15R isn’t short of – but for once it’s battery that gets top billing. With a simply massive 7400mAh cell, this is the biggest capacity phone OnePlus has ever sold outside of China. It’s even bigger than the pricer OnePlus 15, and puts basically every rival in its price bracket to shame.

Silicon-carbon chemistry means you’re getting over 30% more juice per charge than a Pixel 10, and nearly double what Samsung manages to fit in a Galaxy S25. Unsurprisingly that translates to superb endurance away from the mains. Entering a second day was never an issue, even with gaming and 4K video recording in the mix – though that usually required a top up by mid-afternoon. I wouldn’t be confident about stretching into a third day without relying on the power saver mode and cutting back to the essentials, but that’s also true of the very best phones for battery life right now. Simply put, this is one of the main reasons to buy a 15R.

You don’t get wireless charging here like you do on the full-fat 15, but 80W charging is suitably speedy.

OK, back to that performance. It might not be rocking the top-tier Elite, but the 15R is the first phone I’ve tried with Qualcomm’s more mainstream Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset. Raw speeds aren’t quite as high, but it still has two prime cores and six performance cores, which translate to some chunky benchmark numbers.

Synthetic tests put it only a small step behind the 8 Elite Gen 5, and largely in line with last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite flagships. Naturally that meant I had zero complaints in daily use, with smooth animations and rapid loading times. Multitasking was trouble-free too.

Gaming was a highlight, with most of the titles I tried defaulting to their highest graphics settings and running nigh-on flawlessly. The Adreno GPU might not have as much dedicated memory and can’t boost as high as the one in the 8 Elite Gen 5, but that didn’t seem to impact anything I tried from the Play Store.

Even better, the phone stayed at a tolerable temperature after a prolonged play session, and frame rates didn’t plummet over time either. You’ll get more oomph if you step up to the OnePlus 15 – or any other Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phone – but I never felt I was truly missing out.

OnePlus 15R verdict

Given how much I loved the OnePlus 15 – it’s still the high-end Android handset I’d suggest for most phone shoppers right now – I wasn’t surprised that I also gelled with the 15R. You’re getting a very similar experience, with OnePlus hardly diluting the formula down at all to reach a more appealing price.

Rivals struggle to match it in most areas. You’re getting a bigger screen and higher water resistance ratings than either the Galaxy S25 or Pixel 10, the customisable Plus Key is a convenience you won’t find on a Poco, and the subtle styling is far easier on the eye than Nothing’s divisive Phone 3.

True, I’d look elsewhere if photography was a priority – the basic ultrawide and lack of telephoto are real downers – but for gaming on the go and an impressively long lifespan per charge, the 15R is a safe bet.

OnePlus 15R technical specifications