The 7,300mAh silicon-carbon battery is the best ever tested — a record ~25h drain test and 2–2.5 days of real-world use, beating the iPhone 17 Pro Max and S25 Ultra by hours.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 makes it one of the fastest Android phones, beating the iPhone's A19 in multi-core and topping benchmark charts.
120W SuperVOOC wired charging is class-leading — a full charge in roughly 40–51 minutes — plus 50W AirVOOC wireless.
At under $900 it undercuts the Pixel 10 Pro XL, Galaxy S26 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro Max while matching or beating them in core areas — exceptional value.
The 165Hz LTPO display is bright, smooth and excellent for gaming, with IP68/IP69/IP69K durability.
Pros & Cons
OnePlus 15
Pros
The 7,300mAh silicon-carbon battery is the best ever tested — a record ~25h drain test and 2–2.5 days of real-world use, beating the iPhone 17 Pro Max and S25 Ultra by hours.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 makes it one of the fastest Android phones, beating the iPhone's A19 in multi-core and topping benchmark charts.
120W SuperVOOC wired charging is class-leading — a full charge in roughly 40–51 minutes — plus 50W AirVOOC wireless.
At under $900 it undercuts the Pixel 10 Pro XL, Galaxy S26 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro Max while matching or beating them in core areas — exceptional value.
Detailed Comparison
Design & Build
OnePlus 15
OnePlus went restrained this year: a flatter, boxier body that's slightly thinner than the OnePlus 13 despite a much bigger battery, with a new square camera bump, a new MAO/micro-arc-oxidation black finish — and, controversially, no alert slider. Reviewers respect the durability but mourn the lost OnePlus identity.
It's more restrained than previous OnePlus phones — the reviewer misses the navy-blue curves of the OnePlus 13 and jade-green OnePlus 12 but understands the impulse to be less flashy.
It does all this while being slightly thinner than the OnePlus 13 despite a massive battery upgrade — but OnePlus continues to abandon the alert slider, which many fans loved.
OnePlus makes its flagship more durable than any Samsung or Apple phone, and the sand-brown colour is slightly more durable thanks to the electrified way the colour is applied to the frame.
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OxygenOS 16 is clean and fast with a strong AI suite (Plus Mind, AI Eraser, Gemini, Circle to Search).
Deal Breakers
OnePlus dropped its 5-year Hasselblad partnership for smaller sensors — cameras are 'consistently inconsistent' with color-accuracy and high-zoom AI-artifact issues.
It sheds OnePlus identity: no alert slider, a square camera bump, and a lower FHD+ (1.5K) resolution down from QHD+.
Only 4 years of OS updates + 6 years of security — behind Google and Samsung's 7 years.
Sustained 3DMark-style stress tests trigger an overheating warning that shuts down the benchmark (though day-to-day use stays cool).
The matte/MAO finish shows marks constantly and the design is criticized as a generic iPhone clone.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
What Reviewers Agree On
One of the best — frequently the best — camera phones of 2026, with a uniquely versatile quad Hasselblad system and class-leading 10x optical zoom
Class-leading battery life: a 7,050mAh silicon-carbon cell routinely delivers 8–10+ hours of screen-on time and can stretch to two days
100W SuperVOOC wired and 50W AirVOOC wireless charging — roughly 0–100% in 45–52 minutes
Stunning, distinctive Hasselblad-inspired design widely called one of the best-looking phones of the year
Excellent, very bright display — ~3,600 nits HDR peak and ~1,800 nits full-screen outdoors
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 delivers top-of-chart benchmark performance
Best-in-class video on an Android phone, with strong stabilization and 8K30 / 4K120 Dolby Vision across lenses
Deal Breakers
Heavy and large (≈236–239g, ~9.1mm) with a polarising oversized circular camera island
Expensive (≈€1,699 / ~$1,100+ in China) with limited or no official availability in many markets
ColorOS trails Samsung and Google on AI-feature depth and integration, and feels iOS-derived to some users
Mediocre sustained performance — 3DMark stability around 49% with peak performance dropping within a minute
The 165Hz LTPO display is bright, smooth and excellent for gaming, with IP68/IP69/IP69K durability.
OxygenOS 16 is clean and fast with a strong AI suite (Plus Mind, AI Eraser, Gemini, Circle to Search).
Cons
OnePlus dropped its 5-year Hasselblad partnership for smaller sensors — cameras are 'consistently inconsistent' with color-accuracy and high-zoom AI-artifact issues.
It sheds OnePlus identity: no alert slider, a square camera bump, and a lower FHD+ (1.5K) resolution down from QHD+.
Only 4 years of OS updates + 6 years of security — behind Google and Samsung's 7 years.
Sustained 3DMark-style stress tests trigger an overheating warning that shuts down the benchmark (though day-to-day use stays cool).
The matte/MAO finish shows marks constantly and the design is criticized as a generic iPhone clone.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
Pros
One of the best — frequently the best — camera phones of 2026, with a uniquely versatile quad Hasselblad system and class-leading 10x optical zoom
Class-leading battery life: a 7,050mAh silicon-carbon cell routinely delivers 8–10+ hours of screen-on time and can stretch to two days
100W SuperVOOC wired and 50W AirVOOC wireless charging — roughly 0–100% in 45–52 minutes
Stunning, distinctive Hasselblad-inspired design widely called one of the best-looking phones of the year
Excellent, very bright display — ~3,600 nits HDR peak and ~1,800 nits full-screen outdoors
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 delivers top-of-chart benchmark performance
Best-in-class video on an Android phone, with strong stabilization and 8K30 / 4K120 Dolby Vision across lenses
Cons
Heavy and large (≈236–239g, ~9.1mm) with a polarising oversized circular camera island
Expensive (≈€1,699 / ~$1,100+ in China) with limited or no official availability in many markets
ColorOS trails Samsung and Google on AI-feature depth and integration, and feels iOS-derived to some users
Mediocre sustained performance — 3DMark stability around 49% with peak performance dropping within a minute
The new MAO (micro-arc oxidation) black finish feels incredibly tough but constantly shows marks and quietly holds some forever — it can look abused even if you were careful.
The matte black is essentially fingerprint-proof and largely scratch-resistant unless it takes a hard fall, and it's noticeably thinner than the OnePlus 13.
It still looks a lot like the iPhone with a square bump, and many will not like the boxier feel — but the build quality and frame are rock solid.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
A Hasselblad-camera tribute in phone form — vegan leather, a symmetrical 'master eye' module and a Hexagon-inspired ring. Gorgeous to most, oversized to some, and undeniably heavy.
One of the best-looking phones of the year.
Inspired by the Hasselblad X2D camera — the most beautiful phone of 2026 so far.
The perfectly symmetrical 'master eye' camera module and Hasselblad-style shutter button clearly pay tribute to the brand's classic camera aesthetics.
The hardware is insanely ambitious, but the first thing you notice holding it isn't elegance — it's size and weight.
It weighs about 239g and measures ~9.1mm thick — a genuinely big phone.
Some find the huge circular camera apparatus ugly, when we usually ask for less intrusive camera bumps.
Display
OnePlus 15
A 6.78-inch flat LTPO AMOLED that drops the OnePlus 13's QHD+ for a 1.5K (FHD+) panel but adds a 165Hz refresh rate and a dedicated touch-response chip. Lab-measured brightness (~1,200–1,950 nits depending on test) trails the iPhone, but reviewers find it bright, smooth and a standout for gaming.
The OnePlus 15 has a slightly smaller 6.78-inch display with a lower 1272×2772 resolution, down to FHD+ from QHD+, but it hit 1,940 nits at 10% fill and 2,187 nits at 75% fill, and confirmed 165fps gaming.
OnePlus claims 1,800 nits HBM; lab testing reached 1,951 nits in a 1% window, and the display refreshes up to 165Hz in gaming mode.
Wired charging is now 120W and the screen reaches 1,800 nits full-screen; the bezels are even thinner at just 1.15mm and the LTPO panel genuinely drops to 1Hz.
Independent testing measured peak brightness of 1,222 nits — an improvement over the OnePlus 13's ~1,140 nits but still trailing the iPhone 17 Pro Max by a wide margin.
For gaming it stands out like no other phone — incredibly bright and colourful with the 165Hz refresh.
It uses a dedicated display/touch-response chip that samples touch inputs at 3,200Hz, and the touch experience is noticeably better than the iPhone 17's.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
A 6.8-inch LTPO OLED with up to 144Hz and very high real-world brightness — among the brightest screens on any phone outdoors.
6.8-inch LTPO OLED panel up to 144Hz, with a maximum brightness around 1,800 nits and dimming as low as 1 nit.
Hits a staggering ~3,600 nits of peak HDR brightness, making it incredibly easy to see and edit shots in direct sunlight.
In manual mode the display peaks at 840 nits, rising to ~1,156 nits in auto on a 75% white patch and up to ~1,932 nits in the native gallery app.
The smoother 144Hz panel and 3,600-nit brightness outperform Samsung's display.
Performance
OnePlus 15
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with up to 24GB RAM and a custom tri-chip setup — it tops benchmark charts, beats the iPhone's A19 in multi-core and runs games at up to 165fps. The asterisk is sustained thermals: day-to-day it stays cool, but extended stress benchmarks repeatedly overheat and shut down.
Across a benchmark suite the OnePlus 15 performed 19–22% better than the OnePlus 13 and 14–19% better than the S25 Edge, and outperformed the OnePlus 13 by 10% in the stress test.
Geekbench shows the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 easily beating the A19 with a multi-core score over 11,000; in Genshin Impact it averaged 119fps vs the iPhone 17's 107fps over 30 minutes, running cooler at under 36°C.
BGMI runs native 120fps (165fps with frame interpolation) at under 35°C and under 4W power draw, making it one of the best phones for gaming with its 165Hz panel and bypass charging.
In a 15-minute 20-thread CPU throttle test it throttled to 82% of max performance at a controlled 34–35°C with only 3% battery drain.
It flashed an overheating warning after barely 8 minutes of a peak-load benchmark, shutting it down and disabling the flashlight and hotspot — though in day-to-day use it runs smoothly with only moderate warmth.
In Wuthering Waves it held 60fps until ~46°C then capped to 45fps and recovered after ~3 minutes, averaging 57fps and 7W — heavy sustained 3D load is where the thermal limits show.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 puts it near the top of the benchmark charts, but sustained-load stability is mediocre and Oppo deliberately throttles early to control heat.
As expected, the Find X9 Ultra earns excellent benchmark scores near the top of the charts.
A 3D ultrasonic fingerprint scanner Oppo claims is 35% faster and 33% more reliable, plus vapor cooling to dissipate heat through the aluminium frame for better sustained performance.
3DMark returned ~7,530 best-loop and ~3,682 low-loop with only ~49% stability, and peak performance didn't last a minute — weak sustained behaviour.
Genshin Impact stayed consistently above 50fps and remained smooth even when throttling to ~30fps after ~16 minutes at 41.5°C, at under 4W power draw.
Honor of Kings averaged 144fps over 30 minutes at max settings; Genshin held max 60fps before stabilizing near 50fps.
Battery & Charging
OnePlus 15
The single biggest reason to buy this phone. A 7,300mAh silicon-carbon cell delivers the best smartphone battery life ever measured — a record ~25-hour drain test and 2–2.5 days of real use — with 120W wired charging refilling it in ~40–51 minutes plus 50W wireless.
The OnePlus 15 lasted an insane 25 hours 13 minutes in the drain test — officially the best phone for battery life, beating the iPhone 17 Pro Max's 17h54m and lasting over 10 hours longer than the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
The OnePlus 15 just delivered the best battery life we've ever measured — a very, very good phone and a strong value pick for late 2025.
In real use it averaged 2 days 11 hours on a full charge, and 7–8 hours of screen-on time is effortless thanks to the 7,300mAh cell and aggressive standby management.
120W SuperVOOC charged 1→50% in 22 minutes, 75% in 36 minutes and a full 1→100% in 51 minutes; other tests hit a full charge in roughly 40–43 minutes.
It also keeps 50W AirVOOC wireless charging — about 30% in 30 minutes and ~85% in 92 minutes, with the device staying cool around 34–35°C.
The battery is so large you could cap charging at 85% to preserve long-term health and still have more capacity than a Galaxy S25 Ultra at 100%.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
A genuine highlight: a 7,050mAh silicon-carbon cell that posts some of the best endurance numbers of any 2026 flagship, with fast 100W wired and 50W wireless charging.
Draws power from a 7,050mAh battery — a sizeable increase over the previous generation — with 100W SuperVOOC wired and 50W AirVOOC wireless charging.
Earned an active-use battery score of over 20 hours; with the SuperVOOC charger it went 0–75% in 30 minutes and to full in 45 minutes.
After ~10 hours of continuous use starting at 7am it still had 53% battery, regularly getting 8–9 hours of screen-on time and ~40% left after a 13-hour day.
A PCMark synthetic loop returned 15 hours 2 minutes, and 100W SuperVOOC charging took ~49–52 minutes (the charger isn't included).
With moderate usage you can easily expect more than 2 days of battery life — Oppo finally feels like a truly complete product.
Cameras
OnePlus 15
The most divisive part of the phone. OnePlus ended its 5-year Hasselblad partnership and moved to smaller in-house-tuned 'DetailMax' sensors: a triple 50MP wide + ultrawide + 3.5x telephoto. Some reviewers rate the results among the best camera phones; many call it a regression from the OnePlus 13 with color-accuracy and high-zoom issues.
OnePlus's 5-year Hasselblad partnership has ended and the rear sensors are smaller than the OnePlus 13's — every rear camera sensor is smaller, which doesn't bring joy.
The camera is consistently inconsistent — a recurring theme across reviews of this phone's imaging.
The photos were usually just as good as the best camera phones, and in some cases the OnePlus 15 shots were the best compared to the Pixel 10 Pro and Galaxy S25 Ultra — and it's the best camera phone tested for fast-moving subjects.
It has three 50MP rear cameras (wide, ultrawide, 3.5x optical telephoto); both it and the iPhone 17 Pro are impressive zoom shooters, but the iPhone is the obvious selfie winner.
Zoom looks great up to 30x in good daylight, but beyond 20x it leans heavily on AI — human faces look drawn-on or flat, though buildings and signboards hold up well; 8K30 video doesn't feel sharp.
After two to three software updates the biggest remaining camera issue is still color accuracy, with a tendency to crush shadows and pump contrast — but 4K 120fps recording is finally back since the OnePlus 9 Pro.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
The reason to buy it. A Hasselblad-tuned quad system with the most versatile zoom on any phone, a true 10x optical periscope and an optional 300mm Hasselblad teleconverter. Near-universally praised, with only minor sharpness and ultrawide caveats.
A 200MP main, 200MP 3x telephoto, 50MP 10x optical telephoto and 50MP ultrawide, all Hasselblad-branded — camera-first overkill in the best way.
Consistently great photos, sharpness and dynamic range with really good color calibration — this phone did basically everything right in the camera department; an incredibly well-rounded smartphone camera.
Is this the best camera phone ever built? — my new favorite camera phone and one of the best Android phones I've ever used.
Even after a direct shootout, still the best camera phone I've ever used.
Detail is very good, but sharpness remains a bit underwhelming on the main camera.
Software & AI
OnePlus 15
OxygenOS 16 on Android 16 — clean and fast, and a clear AI redemption after the OnePlus 13: Plus Mind (via the new plus key), AI Eraser, plus Google's Gemini Live and Circle to Search. The reservation is the 4-year OS / 6-year security commitment and the lingering uncertainty over OnePlus's regional operations.
OnePlus redeems the OnePlus 13's lack of AI with OxygenOS 16 — AI Eraser, the Pixel-Screenshots-like Plus Mind via the dedicated plus key, plus Gemini Live and Circle to Search.
Under all the AI trends OxygenOS still feels like OxygenOS — clean, light and more customisable than a Pixel, with one of the best dark-icon implementations in the segment.
OnePlus commits to 4 years of major Android updates and 6 years of security patches — not elite, but solid for a phone at this price, though it trails Google and Samsung's 7 years.
OnePlus does its usual ~1-month post-launch update that fixes some camera issues, and despite overheating reports two reviewers couldn't get their units to overheat in normal use.
When you buy a phone like the OnePlus 15 you're trusting the software too — and OnePlus's regional operational uncertainty (e.g., India) is a real long-term consideration, though it has promised continued updates.
The Mind Space feature is a genuine standout that the reviewer uses a lot, and OxygenOS's gaming tools (Game Assist) meaningfully enhance the experience.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
ColorOS 16 has matured a lot and is fast and smooth, but it still trails Samsung and Google on AI depth and feels iOS-derived to some — the phone's clearest weak point relative to its hardware.
ColorOS 16 feels like one of the best versions yet.
It's a good Android experience but not on par with the Galaxy experience for AI features and tool integration, and portrait autofocus struggles in some low-light conditions.
For me it's the best version of Android I've ever used — light, fast and smooth with no major issues.
The hardware is superior to the latest Samsung, but the software feels like an imitation of iOS.
With a bit of tweaking and updates, Oppo's software and camera engineers can make this even better — there's clear headroom.
Value vs Competition
OnePlus 15
At $899 (12/256) / $999 (16/512), the OnePlus 15 undercuts the $1,000+ Pixel 10 Pro XL, Galaxy S26 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro Max while matching or beating them on battery, performance and charging. The recurring caveat: it's an outstanding-value flagship that camera-focused buyers may still pass on.
OnePlus has gone from flagship killer to flagship — available for $899 (12/256) or $999 (16/512).
It's not trying to be better than everything else — it's trying to be the best phone for $899, and it absolutely nails that, even if cameras are a bit of a letdown.
I'll just call it the best phone you can buy and the first phone I have tested that deserves a perfect score — OnePlus's best phone, not a step down.
The honest counterpoint: I'm not angry at the OnePlus 15, I'm just disappointed — the camera and identity sacrifices undercut an otherwise excellent phone.
From a US perspective the performance and longevity make it a fantastic value compared to the much more expensive $1,000–1,200 offerings from Google, Samsung and Apple — the 'downgrades' are mostly hair-splitting.
If OnePlus wants to be the flagship killer in the US it still has to give consumers a compelling camera argument — for some, the camera alone kills the deal.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra
Premium-priced and hard to buy in many markets, but reviewers broadly conclude it out-cameras the S26 Ultra and Pixel and edges the Vivo X300 Ultra on usability.
Its main compromises are the ~€1,699 price, large 236g body, occasional software concerns and limited availability in some markets.
It feels like Oppo wanted to make the camera first and just happened to also create the best Android phone you can get right now — though it won't win every year-end award.
The base Find X9 Ultra starts at 7,499 yuan in China — roughly £814 / ~$1,100 — but the heaviness and visual pressure are the first impression.
The closest rival is the Vivo X300 Ultra, but the X9 Ultra wins by having a more user-friendly OS.
The Hasselblad alliance delivers a phone that genuinely challenges the Galaxy S26 Ultra on cameras.
Charges 0–100% in about 52 minutes on the official 80W charger in a head-to-head charge test.
The ultrawide is probably the weakest part of the setup — with the first three cameras taking so much space, Oppo reused the Samsung GN5 sensor here.
Night-mode processing — color, contrast and exposure handling — is so much better than the Galaxy S26 Ultra's, and the ultrawide is now one of the best for detail preservation.
The optional 300mm Hasselblad teleconverter delivers ~13x (300mm) optical-feel zoom that retains real telephoto sharpness, extending to ~60x (1380mm).