The OnePlus 15R is the most disappointing Android phone I’ve used in 2025

For the past couple of years, OnePlus’s “R” series has offered some of the best mid-range Android phones money can buy. The 2024 OnePlus 12R stood out as the best $500 smartphone of last year, while the OnePlus 13R delivered an improved experience across the board, justifying its higher $600 price tag.

The new OnePlus 15R tries to keep that streak going, playing to OnePlus’s strengths of performance and battery life while costing less than its flagship sibling, the OnePlus 15. But with a fan-favorite feature gone, OnePlus’ software heading in the wrong direction, and areas like camera quality and wireless charging being left on the back burner, it makes this year’s OnePlus R phone a much less attractive option — especially with another price increase that pushes it all the way up to $700.

I wanted to love the OnePlus 15R, but after spending a couple of weeks with it, I can’t.

The OnePlus 15R makes a really good first impression as soon as you take it out of the box. The aluminum frame feels great, the frosted glass back completely hides fingerprints, and all the buttons have a really nice click. But therein lies a design change that eliminates a long-time staple of OnePlus phones: the alert slider.

Instead of the iconic alert slider, the OnePlus 15R features the new “Plus Key,” the same slider replacement that debuted on the OnePlus 15. By default, the Plus Key is assigned to OnePlus’s Mind Space AI feature, which lets you store screenshots and voice recordings for later reference in one place. You can reassign the Plus Key to another function, though the options are extremely limited, including:

• Switch between Ring, Vibrate, and Silent modes.
• Turn Do Not Disturb on/off.
• Open the Camera.
• Turn the flashlight on/off.
• Record a voice memo.
• Open OnePlus Translate.
• Take a screenshot.

Not only are you unable to assign the Plus Key to anything beyond this list (such as opening a specific app of your choice), but the button is also limited to a press-and-hold action — no support for double- or triple-tapping here. I would have been OK with OnePlus ditching the alert slider for a programmable button if it had been executed well, but it wasn’t. At best, the Plus Key feels like a half-hearted rip-off of Apple’s action button.

On a more positive note, the OnePlus 15R has vastly improved durability. While the OnePlus 13R was limited to IP65 dust/water resistance, the OnePlus 15R features IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings. That means the phone can be submerged in five feet of water for half an hour and can withstand water jets up to 176°F. That’s impressive durability for any smartphone, let alone one that’s not a true flagship.

Another hardware upgrade is the display’s 165Hz refresh rate. This is an increase over the 120Hz panel on the OnePlus 13R, and as impressive as it sounds on paper, I haven’t noticed any impact in daily use. For starters, you won’t see the 165Hz refresh rate all the time; it only kicks in when playing one of the handful of games that support it. And even when playing a supported game (Call of Duty: Mobile), I couldn’t tell any difference between the standard 120Hz refresh rate.

What’s annoying, though, is that the OnePlus 15R now has an LTPS panel, compared to the LTPO panel on the OnePlus 13R. As such, the 15R can only lower its refresh rate to 60Hz, whereas the 13R can drop to 1Hz — meaning the 15R draws more power when the screen isn’t moving, such as when reading or using the always-on display. I understand the big-number-spec-appeal of a 165Hz display, but I don’t think this trade-off was worth it.

Although OnePlus made some questionable hardware choices with the OnePlus 15R, the phone’s performance and battery life are unquestionably excellent.

Starting with performance, I’ve had zero complaints with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip powering the 15R. This is a pared-down version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 inside the OnePlus 15, and while that means it’s not Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line smartphone chip, I don’t think anyone will be upset by its performance.

Looking at our CPU benchmark tests, the OnePlus 15R has a sizable performance boost over the OnePlus 13R and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, while it’s ever-so-slightly behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite powering the Samsung Galaxy S25. As expected, the OnePlus 15 has a commanding lead with its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. This puts the OnePlus 15R’s CPU performance right about in line with 2025 flagship phones as it releases on the cusp of 2026, which is pretty darn good.

It’s a broadly similar story with the GPU benchmarks; the OnePlus 15R’s performance score is almost identical to the OnePlus 13R, with the OnePlus 15 again taking the lead. However, the 15R runs the coolest, especially compared to the 15, which has proven to be a hot customer, even after some crucial fixes. The OnePlus 15 averaged 102.38°F during the Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, peaking at 114.62°F, while the OnePlus 15R averaged 94.82°F and peaked at just 106.34°F.

Most importantly, those benchmarks translate to real-world use. The OnePlus 15R has performed exceptionally well throughout my time with the phone. The interface is smooth, apps run without a problem, and games perform great, too. Playing CoD: Mobile with Very High graphics and Max frame rate felt like a dream on the OnePlus 15R, and even after four back-to-back matches, the phone barely felt warm to the touch.

The only thing more impressive than the OnePlus 15R’s performance and thermals is its battery life, which is just ridiculous.

The OnePlus 15R is equipped with a 7,400mAh silicon-carbon battery. That’s right, 7,400mAh. It’s the largest battery ever in a OnePlus phone, and the largest you’ll find in any mainstream Android phone in the US.

With around three hours of screen-on time per day, mainly on Wi-Fi, the OnePlus 15R easily lasts two and a half days on a single charge. This is with about 30 minutes spent watching YouTube and playing CoD: Mobile each day, plus a healthy mix of Reddit, X, Telegram, and TikTok.

I started one Monday at about 6:00 AM, and with this kind of usage, it wasn’t until Wednesday at 2:00 PM that the phone’s battery finally dipped to 5%. With lighter usage, the 15R can absolutely be a three-day smartphone. If there’s one reason to buy the OnePlus 15R, it’s the battery life.

Unfortunately, that legendary battery is let down by the 15R’s charging setup. Although the OnePlus 15R technically supports 80W wired charging, you need OnePlus’s 100W GaN power adapter to achieve those speeds — and OnePlus isn’t bringing that charger to North America. Instead, you get a 55W adapter included in the box, which is effectively the maximum speed for folks in the US and Canada.

To be clear, 55W wired charging is still good. While slower than the OnePlus 15, the 15R recharges faster than the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 10. It takes 26 minutes for the 15R to recharge from about 2% to 50%, and 63 minutes to return to 100%. Considering how big the battery is, that’s not too shabby.

What’s less forgivable is the complete lack of wireless charging. This was understandable in early 2024 on the $500 OnePlus 12R, an annoyance on the $600 OnePlus 13R, and is now an inexcusable absence on the $700 OnePlus 15R.

Wireless charging is not a premium smartphone feature at this point, and the OnePlus 15R is not a budget smartphone. OnePlus’s refusal to add wireless charging to the R series is beyond ridiculous at this point, especially when the price keeps creeping up with each new model.

OnePlus did a surprisingly solid job with the OnePlus 13R’s camera system earlier this year. While not the best cameras I’ve ever used, the 13R had a decent array of sensors and generally produced good-looking photos. So, how did OnePlus build upon that with the OnePlus 15R? By downgrading it, of course.

The primary camera on the 15R is still 50 megapixels, but it now uses an older Sony IMX906 sensor instead of the Sony LYT-700 used on the 13R. What does that mean for you? Photos captured with ample lighting look good, with decent colors and good sharpness. However, the second the lights go down even a little, the OnePlus 15R runs into a wall.

The primary camera struggles to focus on subjects, resulting in blurry photos with a lot of noise. And it doesn’t take much for this to happen. In the photo above of the hot cocoa, the 15R kept switching to night mode because even a moderately lit bar was too dark for the camera sensor.

The 8MP ultrawide camera is the same as the 13R, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. The extra field of view is nice, but there’s a steep quality drop-off that’s almost always noticeable. It’s also horrible in low-light settings, with its only hope being the automatic flash that makes the lighting look as cold and harsh as you’d expect.

What about the telephoto camera? There isn’t one this time around. There is a 2x zoom preset in the camera app, but it’s just a cropped version of the primary camera — making it a notable step down from the 13R’s dedicated telephoto sensor.

There is a new 32MP selfie camera on the OnePlus 15R (upgraded from a 16MP one on the 13R), but it’s nothing to write home about. It can take fine pictures, but even the slightest amount of movement can cause it to lose focus and capture a blurry mess.

On the video front, the 15R supports 4K recording at up to 120fps, plus slow-motion recording. It’s fine, but you’re again limited by the same constraints that hold back still photos; video captured with ample lighting looks fine, but it’s a bit of a train wreck when the lights go down.

You can check out my full-res OnePlus 15R camera samples here.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how much I was enjoying OnePlus’s OxygenOS 15 update — going so far as to call OxygenOS my new favorite Android interface. With fluid responsiveness, excellent customization, and top-notch multitasking, there was a lot to like.

The OnePlus 15R ships with OnePlus’s latest OxygenOS 16 update, and in one fell swoop, OnePlus has taken what used to be a fantastic Android skin and buried it under a series of bad decisions.

One of those bad decisions is the iOS-ification of OxygenOS. The app drawer now has a “Categories” page that looks like it was ripped straight from the iPhone. There are Liquid Glass-like elements throughout the UI and some OnePlus apps, and the settings page for the Plus Key is a (poorly done) rip-off of the same exact interface Apple uses for its action button. OnePlus even has its own version of the Dynamic Island, but whenever it appears, it hides the battery percentage from the status bar. All of it just feels so cheap and lazy.

Even more frustrating is how heavy OxygenOS 16 feels. This is something my colleague Ryan Haines mentioned in his OnePlus 15 review, and it’s something I’ve noticed too. Opening the app drawer, swiping down for Quick Settings, and other actions are slowed by sluggish, deliberate animations that make the OnePlus 15R feel slower than it should. Considering how fast and snappy OxygenOS 15 felt, this is a big step down.

There are a lot of other little things, too. The Standard display size makes most of my apps look way too big, but switching to Small makes the Quick Settings toggles look ridiculous. OnePlus’s AI features all feel half-baked. I had to dig into a submenu in the Settings app to enable fast charging, and the OnePlus 15R consistently receives notifications more slowly than my Pixel 10 Pro.

On top of all this, there’s also OnePlus’ middling update policy. The OnePlus 15R is promised just four years of Android OS upgrades and six years of security patches. While not the worst in the industry, it’s also far from the best. Google and Samsung have established seven years as the baseline, and that has been true for a while now. For a $700 smartphone, this no longer cuts it.

Heading into this review, I expected the answer to this question to be pretty straightforward. The OnePlus 12R and OnePlus 13R were both very easy recommendations, and I thought that would continue with the OnePlus 15R. Instead, I’m left struggling to figure out if anyone should buy the phone.

If you’re in the market for a lower-cost OnePlus phone, you’re much better off buying the still-excellent OnePlus 13R ($549.99 at Amazon). It’s less than a year old, already has great battery life, very good performance, an LTPO display, and a better camera system. It remains a good deal at its full $600 retail price, and you can almost certainly find it discounted for less now that the 15R is available.

I’d also sooner recommend splurging on the OnePlus 13 ($849.99 at Amazon). It has better performance than the 15R, two-day battery life, wireless charging, a nicer display, and significantly better cameras. At the time of writing, it’s on sale for just $750, and those upgrades are well worth an extra $50 over the OnePlus 15R’s retail price.

There are better options outside of OnePlus’s portfolio, too. The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE ($534.99 at Samsung) wasn’t our favorite phone of 2025, but it’s a much better product for the mid-tier flagship space that the OnePlus 15R is trying to compete in. Samsung’s phone has much more cohesive software, seven years of Android updates, and good battery life/charging. The $650 price tag is already lower than the 15R, and it’s not uncommon to find it on sale for dramatically less.

It feels weird to be so down on the OnePlus 15R when its much more successful predecessor launched in the US less than 12 months ago and in the same calendar year, but that’s where we’re at. I love seeing OnePlus push the battery envelope as it has with the 15R, but that alone isn’t enough to justify the rest of the phone’s shortcomings — especially when it’s as expensive as it is.

The OnePlus 15R is overpriced, outclassed, and a victim of OnePlus’s previous success. This isn’t the path forward for the R series, and I hope OnePlus realizes that sooner rather than later.