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Marques Brownlee
OnePlus 15 Review: This is Not Normal!
OnePlus 15 Review: This is Not Normal!
Marques Brownlee
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12:52 · Nov 13, 2025
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All
right,
I'm
not
going
to
bury
the
lead.
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0:01
All right, I'm not going to bury the lead.
0:03
This phone is so good.
0:08
There's a new chip and then a bunch of extra stuff on top.
0:11
There's a new design and a bunch more extra stuff with that.
0:14
A new display with a bunch of extra stuff and new silicon, extra battery.
0:20
There's just so much extra stuff.
0:26
This is OnePlus 15.
0:28
So, I already really liked the OnePlus 13 earlier this year.
0:31
I made a whole video about it, enjoyed it,
0:34
and they of course did skip 14 because four is super unlucky.
0:38
So, now here comes the OnePlus 15.
0:41
And all I really expected from it is just a little spec bump refresh
0:45
cuz that would have been normal.
0:46
OnePlus has done it before.
0:47
Back when they did the T version of phones,
0:49
they'd basically refresh a phone 6 months later and, you know,
0:51
just be the first ones to ship with the new chip for those sweet
0:54
bragging rights.
0:54
And honestly, that would have been pretty solid.
0:56
The new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, as you've probably seen, is really good.
1:01
It's 20 to 40% faster than the 8 Elite.
1:04
Record setting multi-core performance, 4.6 GHz clock speeds.
1:08
It's already goated.
1:09
I could have just packed that up in the same phone and just said,
1:12
"All right, ready to go."
1:13
But instead, they just decided to sprinkle in a whole bunch of extra overkill.
1:19
a bunch of little tiny stuff
1:22
that honestly even the most insane enthusiasts would barely even notice
1:27
or care about.
1:28
Type of stuff that like people who watch an MKBHD video of a new
1:32
phone that they're not even going to buy might appreciate.
1:36
So, on top of this new chip and a huge vapor chamber,
1:38
they also dropped in super fast UFS 4.1 storage.
1:42
And the base version of this phone has 12 gigs of LPDDR5X Ultra RAM,
1:48
which is really fast, but it might not even be enough for you.
1:51
So, the upgraded version has 16 gigs of LP DDR5X Ultra Plus RAM.
1:59
That's as fast as it gets.
2:01
This is not normal.
2:02
They also, of course, updated the design of this phone, so it's simpler, cleaner,
2:06
it's more squared off.
2:07
I like it. the sides of the phone
2:09
and the camera bump
2:10
and and basically everything is is flattened
2:12
and more squared off.
2:13
Now, I kind of like how the cameras right in the middle are perfectly
2:16
aligned with the center of the phone through the logo.
2:18
It's clean and it's also all matte all the way around.
2:21
So, the back and the sides, no gloss needed.
2:24
And there's three colors: matte black, matte sand, and matte violet,
2:29
which is pretty unique.
2:30
Okay, so even if they did just that,
2:32
the new chip and this new design,
2:34
that would have already been about what I expect from a spec bump refresh
2:38
a couple months later.
2:40
Uh, but this is not that.
2:41
This is the OnePlus 15 we're talking about.
2:43
So, bring on the overkill.
2:45
So, all of the colors of this phone have this newly developed super tough
2:49
finish from a process called microarchc oxidation.
2:52
Essentially, it creates a ceramic coating on the metal.
2:55
And normally I wouldn't notice stuff like that too specifically,
2:59
but this matte black phone has turned out to be one of the most
3:03
impressive matte blacks I've ever seen on a phone.
3:05
Not only is this nice micro texture kind of soft to the touch,
3:08
but also matte blacks are actually typically pretty fingerprinty
3:12
and a little harder to keep clean,
3:13
I admit, but somehow this one does not fingerprint at all.
3:18
And then normally when I pull something matte black out of my bag
3:21
and it has scratches on it,
3:23
that hurts a little bit inside like
3:25
and that happened with this one
3:26
and I pulled it out
3:27
and it has scratches
3:28
and that was devastating.
3:30
And then then I realized these scratches wiped off every single time
3:36
because it turns out those scratches are actually just the material from the other
3:41
things in my bag scratching off onto the ceramic.
3:44
Since ceramics are like an eight or nine on the MO scale,
3:47
anything that's not literally diamond is going to be softer than it.
3:51
This phone isn't taking the damage, it's doing the damage.
3:54
That's not normal.
3:55
It's like call an ambulance, but not for me.
3:57
Now, I don't know exactly how thick this coating is
4:00
or exactly how well it'll hold up to a Jerry rig everything knife event
4:03
or even a big drop,
4:05
but I do feel pretty good about normal wear and tear here.
4:08
And on top of all of that, they've also certified it for IP66, IP68,
4:13
IP69, and now IP69K dust and water resistance.
4:17
So, not only can it be dunked in water for minutes at a time,
4:20
but it can also be blasted from close range with high pressure,
4:24
high temperature water jets up to 80° C.
4:27
Pretty sure it could literally survive a laundry cycle and be fine.
4:30
That is also not normal.
4:31
And it's also hilarious
4:32
because of OnePlus's history of not wanting to pay for official IP certification for
4:37
years to save a few bucks.
4:38
Now they're just doing all the things.
4:40
Oh, and by the way,
4:41
it does all this
4:41
while being slightly thinner than the OnePlus 13
4:45
and while getting a massive battery upgrade to a 7,300 mAh silicon carbon battery.
4:52
So, the OnePlus 13 this year already set the tone with an awesome 6,000
4:57
mAh silicon carbon battery,
4:58
which I praised because it dwarfed the S25 Ultra and the other flagship phones,
5:03
but now it's just getting ridiculous.
5:06
It's literally twice as much battery
5:07
as some other phones from just a few years ago,
5:09
thanks to more silicon content in the anode
5:12
and higher energy density than ever before.
5:14
So, yeah, this thing just lasts forever.
5:17
Now, I recently talked on the Waveform podcast about why I don't do battery
5:21
benchmarks because so few of them actually represent real world usage.
5:26
You can optimize for different things.
5:28
But just know that not only is there no way a phone with 7,300
5:31
mAh doesn't do well on benchmarks,
5:33
but also OnePlus is one of those companies
5:35
that notoriously aggressively kills background tasks
5:38
and manages standby time really well.
5:40
So, the fact that I'm getting 7 to 8 hours of screen on time
5:44
easily on one charge
5:45
and can basically never kill it in a day is no surprise.
5:48
Sometimes I'd end a day with like 50%, go to sleep, wake up,
5:52
and it would have 49% ready for a whole another day.
5:55
Also, the fast charging brick comes in the box,
5:57
which is sadly also not normal.
6:00
Uh, but it also fast charged to the tune of 80 watts here in
6:02
the US,
6:03
but it'll do 100 watts in other countries with more powerful outlets.
6:06
And there's 50 watt wireless charging as a cherry on top.
6:09
It's still super vuk, so it's still USBA on the brick,
6:12
but I don't mind this because it comes with the cable anyway.
6:15
Uh, you can also turn on battery management features, limit your charge capacity.
6:19
There's bypass charging.
6:21
Actually, this phone's battery is
6:22
so big that you could turn on charge limits to 85% every time,
6:26
which you don't need to, by the way,
6:28
but if you just wanted to guarantee the long-term battery health of the phone
6:31
and limit it to 85% charge,
6:33
it would still have more battery than the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
6:37
Now, one of the biggest stories in smartphones
6:40
and computers over the past couple years has been custom silicon,
6:43
and this phone also does that.
6:45
So, I mentioned already it has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5,
6:47
but what I didn't mention is there's also two other custom chips on this
6:51
phone that help OnePlus continue to chase
6:54
that fast and smooth dream.
6:56
There's a new Wi-Fi chip and a new touch response chip.
6:59
So, the Wi-Fi chip you can think of
7:00
as their equivalent to Apple's new C1
7:03
and C1X modems in the iPhones. instead of using a built-in Qualcomm modem,
7:06
they've developed their own, calling it G2.
7:09
And I don't know much about it other than the fact
7:10
that it occasionally pulls higher speeds than other devices on the same network sometimes.
7:15
But then the touch response chip is even more impressive actually
7:17
because they're pairing it with this new display
7:20
which can refresh now up to 165 Hz,
7:23
but it only refreshes at 165 Hz sometimes.
7:27
It's funny when you go to display settings under refresh rate,
7:30
you can turn it up to high, which says up to 165 Hz.
7:34
But when you flip through and actually use the phone,
7:37
you can see it's mostly going between 1 herz and 120 Hz.
7:41
It's 120 when scrolling, 120 when in apps, 120 when multitasking.
7:48
So when is it 165 Hz?
7:50
Well, it's just for gaming.
7:52
So, if you open a supported game like Call of Duty
7:56
or Clash of Clans
7:57
or Real Racing 3,
7:58
there's a list of them.
7:59
That is when it kicks up to 165 hertz.
8:02
So, the list of supported games is is pretty short right now.
8:05
But in these specific games,
8:06
it basically pins the frame rate at 165 and keeps it there.
8:11
So, for the specific mobile gamer whose eye is
8:14
so well tuned that they can see the difference between 120
8:16
and 165 and actually care about
8:18
that in the game of their choice,
8:20
well then this phone is clearly for you.
8:23
I'm more the type of person that's just happy to have a higher refresh
8:25
rate and high resolution on at the same time
8:27
because so many phones make you pick one
8:29
or the other.
8:30
And the dedicated touch response chip enables a ridiculous 3200 Hz touch sample rate.
8:36
For reference, most normal flagships are typically 1440 hertz to about 2400 htz.
8:42
So that is also clearly not normal.
8:44
But there are some downsides to this phone though.
8:46
And that brings me to one of them.
8:47
So I mean there's a couple small ones and then one really big one.
8:51
The display is technically a higher refresh rate sometimes
8:55
and a little bit brighter sometimes,
8:57
but it's also a slightly lower resolution than before.
9:00
Cuz see, OnePlus 13 was 1440p and OnePlus 15 is 1272 across.
9:08
You probably won't notice.
9:09
They're both very sharp, but hey,
9:10
there's been lots of little overkill stuff in other parts of the phone
9:13
that you won't notice either.
9:14
So, I had to mention that.
9:15
And OnePlus also continues to abandon the alert slider, which I personally loved.
9:20
Uh, but they are replacing it with just this one customizable button.
9:24
Most people end up being fine with this.
9:27
I know there's a lot of vocal people like me that miss the thing,
9:30
but you can customize it to make it a long press silent switch,
9:33
but I just really like being able to know the state without turning on
9:35
the screen or taking it out of my pocket.
9:37
But of course, people will map this to other things that they find useful.
9:40
So, that's fine, I guess.
9:42
The haptic motor also got a downgrade from the 13 on paper,
9:46
but I can confirm
9:47
that you absolutely will not notice
9:49
that it's still really good haptics in the OnePlus 15.
9:51
But the really big one is the cameras.
9:53
And I feel like this has been this has been a story of OnePlus
9:56
phones for forever now.
9:58
Every time they have a great phone with great specs, great performance,
10:01
and they always botch the cameras.
10:03
And with this one, it's not like just a, oh, you know,
10:06
the phone's really great, it's just not the best cameras.
10:09
No, this is actually a a pretty substantial downgrade.
10:11
Like the sensors are smaller, the apertures are smaller,
10:14
and the photos and videos are just worse and disappointing across the board.
10:18
So, it's a triple 50 megapixel camera system back here, which sounds promising,
10:22
but this primary sensor has been a surprisingly weak performer.
10:26
This is actually the same one that's in the $400 Honor 200,
10:29
and it kind of acts like it.
10:30
There's more noise than you'd want to see in some medium lighting shots where
10:33
other flagships do just fine.
10:35
There's also a decent three
10:36
and a halfx telephoto zoom
10:38
and a 116 degree ultra wide that's a little soft around the edges.
10:42
They get the job done, but in general,
10:44
I found colors pretty dull
10:46
and just too much noise
10:47
and not enough detail in most shots from any of these cameras.
10:51
And then you've probably also noticed there's no Hasselblad logo on the back of
10:54
this phone anymore.
10:55
And it kind of looks like they're done with that camera partnership.
10:59
The orange shutter button is gone.
11:01
The XPAN mode is gone.
11:03
They still do call their pro mode master mode
11:05
though and they still use this incredibly loud leaf shutter sound.
11:09
So I guess they're not totally done wiping out any trace of it.
11:11
But yeah, in a world where they have done
11:13
so much and even done overkill with the performance
11:16
and the usability of this phone,
11:18
once again on a OnePlus phone,
11:20
the cameras are an area where you'll have to be okay with being disappointed
11:23
again.
11:24
So look, I've really enjoyed using this OnePlus phone for the same reasons I've
11:28
enjoyed using a lot of previous OnePlus phones.
11:31
They make these things so fast and smooth.
11:34
So even as their software has changed
11:36
and Oxygen OS has kind of devolved into a Color OS clone,
11:40
which is also kind of an iOS clone,
11:43
at least it stayed buttery and packed with features,
11:46
and there's still plenty of customization to set it up the way I want.
11:49
Uh, you can choose to use any of the AI features or not,
11:52
like always.
11:52
I didn't.
11:53
You can also choose to adjust some of the default behaviors or not,
11:57
like always.
11:58
I did.
11:58
It's just a a really confidence inspiring phone.
12:00
No matter how hard you push the phone,
12:01
no matter how much you try to get it to do crazy stuff,
12:03
it always loads things ridiculously fast and lasts all day.
12:07
So, that's great.
12:08
But, yeah, it's it's not normal.
12:09
This phone is so not normal.
12:11
And I appreciate that so much for all the little performance stuff,
12:14
but they do now have a longer way to go to get me to
12:17
daily a phone like this
12:18
if the camera is going to be lagging
12:19
so hard.
12:20
But thankfully, it is very competitively priced.
12:22
So, this phone is $8.99 US uh
12:25
or $9.99 if you want
12:27
that sweet sweet 16 gigs of LP DDR5X Ultra Plus RAM.
12:36
Um, but yeah, can you guys can you guys make like an ultra version
12:40
with a really nice camera,
12:42
please?
12:43
That'd be nice.
12:44
Okay, thanks.
12:45
Bye.
12:46
Peace.
12:46
>>
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