OnePlus 13 review: A focused flagship that ignores the AI hype

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 OnePlus has been a bit up and down since it merged with Oppo back in 2021. It gained greater access to powerful components and partnerships with brands like Hasselblad, while its software and product lineup took a few steps back before finding its stride again. But now, three generations after the merger, OnePlus’ latest flagship phone — the OnePlus 13 — feels like a fantastic return to form. In some areas, the company is even pushing the limits of hardware and gadget design in ways that rivals from Samsung and Google aren’t. And with a starting price of $900, OnePlus has managed to undercut its closest competitor too, which makes this phone a great choice for anyone who cares more about getting hardware upgrades than fancy new AI tricks.


 


88100Expert Score

Instead of focusing on AI, the OnePlus 13 packs a bunch of top-of-the-line components into an attractive chassis for a very reasonable starting price of $900.

Pros
  • Class-leading battery life
  • Super-bright display
  • Great performance
  • Attractive design
Cons
  • Photo quality could be a touch better
  • Only six years of software support instead of seven
  • Needs a case to fully support magnetic Qi2 accessories

In a time when Apple, Google and Samsung’s top phones all sport minor twists on practically the same formula, I love that OnePlus is doing its own thing. Instead of a completely boxy design, the OP13 has tapered edges that curve gently to meet its metal frame. You still get the company’s signature Alert Slider which makes it a cinch to set your phone’s ringer to silent, vibrate or fully audible. But my favorite design feature is that if you opt for the Midnight Ocean or Artic Dawn colors, the phone comes with a micro-fiber vegan leather back. And in a world full of glass bricks, OnePlus’ organic upholstery is simply a joy to touch. This is the kind of handset I’d feel sad to throw in a case.

Meanwhile, the OP13’s 6.8-inch OLED panel dazzles thanks to bright, vivid colors and a silky 120Hz refresh rate. With a peak of up to 4,500 nits, it gets even brighter than other Android flagships including Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 Ultra (2,600 nits). The one aesthetic choice I’m still not sure about is the gigantic circular camera module on the back. Between its pearlescent finish and the four circles for its lenses and the flash/autofocus system, it almost looks like OnePlus smashed a chronograph watch into the rear of the phone. But maybe that’s just me.

The OnePlus 13 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip along with 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. However, unlike the processors used in Samsung’s Galaxy S25 family, the chip in the OP13 doesn’t feature any additional customizations or overclocking. This leads to benchmark results that are about five percent lower (9,267 for the OP13 vs 9,828 for the Galaxy S25 Ultra in Geekbench 6 multi-core). In the real world, though, the phone still feels blisteringly fast.

I’d even argue that due to the OP13’s greater amount of memory, it’s a better choice for multitaskers or anyone who likes keeping a bunch of apps open in the background. Furthermore, over the past few years, OnePlus has refined Oxygen OS so that it feels smoother and more responsive than it did when it became a fork of Oppo’s ColorOS back in 2022.

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