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I loved the OnePlus 13 when it was launched at the beginning of 2025. Absolutely, without a doubt, I declared it a OnePlus flagship that I could finally trust to do, well, everything \u2014 it was just the right jack of all trades, and a master of most of them, if I\u2019m honest. So, it was only natural that I thought the OnePlus 15<\/a> would pick up right where it left off.<\/p>\n But now that the phone has become official in China, I\u2019m not quite so excited. Some of the rumored sidegrades and downgrades have come true, and it feels like OnePlus doesn\u2019t care much about the well-rounded foothold it so recently established. After such a brilliant OnePlus 13, here\u2019s why I think the OnePlus 15 will feel like a big step backwards.<\/p>\n It\u2019s tough to pitch design downgrades as upgrades<\/p>\n My love of the OnePlus 13<\/a> began, well, the minute I took it out of its iconic red box. It was distinct, with a massive camera bump and a gorgeous Midnight Ocean finish with a vegan leather back panel. Oh, and it featured a flat 120Hz AMOLED panel that was as sharp and smooth as any I\u2019d ever used \u2014 not to mention extremely bright. The OnePlus 13 became one of those phones I loved to use, simply because I loved to look at it.<\/p>\n Now, most of those things have changed. Well, the red box will probably return, as there are some things that OnePlus won\u2019t change. However, the rounded camera bump is gone, the vegan leather finish is gone, and the 120Hz panel<\/a> has been refreshed, to say the very least. It seems that the OnePlus 15 has lost its distinct personality, becoming just another phone with a square camera bump \u2014 much like the OnePlus 10T<\/a>.<\/p>\n The OnePlus 15 feels like a modern OnePlus 10T… which wasn’t a flagship follow-up.<\/p>\n Actually, equating the OnePlus 15 to the OnePlus 10T is a pretty spot-on comparison. Both phones have lower-resolution displays than their predecessors, downgraded cameras (at least in terms of aperture and likely sensor size as well), and they both ditch the beloved alert slider. Yes, the OnePlus 15 has gone full Apple in terms of its Action Button clone. You appear to be able to toggle it between things like screenshots, activating the camera, and turning on the flashlight\u2026 but I\u2019d imagine many will leave it as a go-to volume toggle, just like we already had.<\/p>\n There are, of course, a few things that the OnePlus 15 has that the OnePlus 10T didn\u2019t have, like wireless charging, IP69 and IP69K protection<\/a>, a blistering fast 165Hz refresh rate, and the ability to drop to just one nit of brightness, but we\u2019re not here to compare a late 2025 launch to one from 2022. When put back up against something like the OnePlus 13, the lower refresh rate, loss of the alert slider, and all-around more boring design are just not as easy to get behind.<\/p>\n I\u2019m worried we\u2019ll miss Hasselblad\u2026 like, a lot<\/p>\n OnePlus has also been very transparent about the fact that its partnership with Hasselblad has drawn to a close. That\u2019s fine, we knew that was coming, and we knew that the DetailMax Engine<\/a> would be making its debut on the OnePlus 15. What makes me nervous, though, is that I don\u2019t always want to expect much from a brand-new imaging engine \u2014 especially when it has to follow Hasselblad\u2019s carefully measured color science.<\/p>\n Now, if the OnePlus 15 had kept the same camera sensors from the OnePlus 13<\/a>, I think it might have been fine. That phone packed Sony\u2019s large (and very capable) LYT-808 sensor for its primary camera with the stacked LYT-600 as its 3x optical telephoto sensor, and they were both excellent. I trusted them, and I was all too happy to post sample after sample from OnePlus\u2019s product launch at sea.<\/p>\n Either swap the imaging engine or tweak the camera sensors, not both.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, rumors suggest that smaller sensors will be used across the board, and although the OnePlus 15<\/a> is officially available in China, the company has not yet specified all of its sensors. We do know that the primary camera features a narrower maximum aperture of f\/2.8, instead of f\/2.6, which means it will capture at least a bit less light than before. And, if we\u2019re pairing that with a physically smaller \u2014 albeit still 50MP \u2014 sensor, I\u2019m more than a bit worried about how the OnePlus 15 will fare in low light.<\/p>\n Hasselblad also played a key role in an awful lot of what made the OnePlus 13\u2019s cameras so great, like XPan mode, portrait modes that imitate classic Hasselblad lenses, and the foundation of OnePlus\u2019s Master Mode for manual camera controls. Of course, I\u2019m sure OnePlus has in-house alternatives ready to step in, I\u2019m just not sure they\u2019ll be quite as refined as the outgoing versions.<\/p>\n And, when I have this much doubt about the changes OnePlus is making, I think the decision is simple \u2014 buy the OnePlus 13 before it goes out of stock and is replaced by the modern OnePlus 10T.<\/p>\n OnePlus 13<\/a> Gorgeous design \u2022 Clever AI features \u2022 Flexible cameras<\/p>\n The OG flagship killer’s killer flagship.<\/p>\n The OnePlus 13 is the company’s most killer flagship to date, offering a massive battery, speedy charging, and powerful cameras that give Google and Samsung something to worry about.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/oneplus-15-hand-render-background-edited.jpg\"\/ "\\"oneplus")
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OnePlus 13<\/a><\/p>\n