OnePlus 15R Review: Compromises In All the Right Places

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While the OnePlus 13 and 13R arrived at the start of the year, OnePlus has made us wait longer for its next-gen R-branded almost-flagship.

A month on from the chart-topping OnePlus 15, the spotlight now turns to the OnePlus 15R, and its job is to distil the company’s latest top-tier experience into a more affordable package, with as little compromise as possible.

Having reviewed the OnePlus 12R and 13R before it, I had high hopes going into this review. The 15R deviates from its predecessors by repackaging less existing hardware and debuting some truly new tech, namely its new Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip co-developed with Qualcomm. It’s the first phone on the international stage with this particular silicon.

Beyond that, this still looks like a performance-first offering from OnePlus, with a faster-than-average display, faster RAM, fast charging and one of the biggest smartphone batteries around. This thing should be fast, if you couldn’t tell.

The question is, has OnePlus made the right weight-saving cuts to render this ‘R’ entry worthy of your hard-earned cash?

Design & Build

• New design language
• IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69K rated
• Supports magnetic accessory ecosystem with compatible case

As per my OnePlus 15 review, I really like the new design direction OnePlus has taken for its latest high-end phones. The OnePlus 13s debuted this minimalist new aesthetic earlier in 2025, and pairing that with the clean matt finishes available to the 15 made for a stellar combo.

The OnePlus 15R is not a bad-looking phone but the confident, clean lines and proportions of its predecessor have been worn away

I didn’t love the look (or feel) of the OnePlus 13, so the visual changes made between generations felt like a serious upgrade. In contrast, with the move from the 13R to the 15R, the opposite feels true.

The OnePlus 15R is not a bad-looking phone but the confident, clean lines and proportions of its predecessor have been worn away, leaving a much softer and less impactful-looking device. The effect wouldn’t be so pronounced if the 15R didn’t also come with a significantly shrunken rear camera bump, which this year hosts only two sensors, instead of the three before.

While its Chinese counterpart – the OnePlus Ace 6T – comes in four finishes (including a special edition light blue), almost everywhere else the 15R comes in just two: Charcoal Black and the pastel green Mint Breeze.

The black model goes some way to clawing back some of its launch sibling’s ‘cool’ factor, while the Mint Breeze finish only highlights the weaker elements of the phone’s form. There’s also the fibreglass-backed Electric Violet (purple) finish, exclusively available in India.

The 15R’s arrival also marks the end for the brand’s once-iconic three-stage alert slider, as the Nord 5 and OnePlus 15 already nixed this feature.

In its place – driven by the brand’s increasing focus on AI functionality – is the Plus Key: a programmable action button of sorts that, by default, lets you capture screenshots and voice notes to be saved directly to Mind Space (more on that later).

Despite my resistance to the look of the 15R, you can’t fault its durability credentials. Competent Gorilla Glass 7i on the front and a pleasingly fingerprint-repellant glass back sandwich a (not-so-fingerprint-repellant) aluminium frame, with complementary metal hardware controls down either side.

Its edges and those more rounded corners mean it’s perfectly comfortable in the hand too, albeit a little slippy and heavy (around 215g).

A total of four different IP-certifications mean that it’s better protected than most phones against dust and water ingress (ironic for a company that once shied away from IP certification entirely), with OnePlus testing the 15R in up to two metres of water, which is deeper than required for certification.

As with the OnePlus 15, there’s a selection of magnetic cases available separately for the 15R, which will let you snap the phone onto desk mounts or MagSafe-style accessories. Unlike the 15, you can’t power the 15R back up through such accessories, as it lacks wireless charging altogether.

Screen & Speakers

• 6.83-inch 1.5K LTPS AMOLED display
• 165Hz peak refresh rate & dedicated touch response chip
• New, more balanced stereo speaker layout

If you were put off by the drop in display size from the OnePlus 13 to the 15, you’ll appreciate the generational increase in screen size the 15R enjoys, with OnePlus’ latest premium entry sporting an expansive 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED display.

While it lacks the vanilla 15’s truly dynamic 1 to 120Hz LTPO tech (meaning it’s less power efficient), it does boast the same party piece, with support for boosted refresh rates of 144Hz and 165Hz in supported games.

The 15R thankfully enjoys an upgrade to a more premium, fast and reliable ultrasonic fingerprint sensor

As to which games use the panel’s peak refresh rate to its fullest, beyond the usual suspects like Call of Duty: Mobile and Clash of Clans, other compatible titles include Delta Force, League of Legends: Wild Rift, KartRider Rush+, Real Racing 3, Standoff 2, Blood Strike, and – via frame interpolation – PUBG Mobile.

OnePlus also says more titles are expected to capitalise on the 15 and 15R’s peak refresh rate abilities in the future, but those are unconfirmed for the time being.

That also comes paired to a dedicated touch response chip, which allows for a phenomenal 3200Hz touch response rate. By comparison, the Galaxy S25 Ultra‘s TRR clocks in at just 240Hz.

Having trialled the 15R’s use of the company’s Aqua Touch tech, it handles typing with wet fingers or droplets on the screen well, but struggles to register taps if water consistently runs down the screen. OnePlus’ approach isn’t alone in this, and I’d rather have it than not, but it’s clear what the next upgrade for this feature should be.

One of the more practical issues with the 13R was its fingerprint sensor placement. It was too low down towards the phone’s bottom bezel to really be comfortable. The 15R thankfully enjoys an upgrade to a more premium, fast and reliable ultrasonic sensor (just like the OnePlus 13 and 15) which, by being thinner, can be placed higher on the display for better ease of use.

As for the audio experience, you get a similar stereo speaker setup to the 15, delivering nice clarity at all but the top of its range. There’s a slight bass bias to the down-firing speaker, but it’s not so pronounced that when watching content in landscape, one side of the phone sounds unbalanced. Bass is still lacking, particularly at higher volumes where the mix gets muddy.

The 15R almost approaches the 15’s level of haptic feedback, but everything feels softer. Speaking of which, diving into both phones’ haptics menus, the 15R also loses out on the ability to sculpt the feel of its haptic output, with the OnePlus 15 boasting additional ‘Crisp’ and ‘Gentle’ profiles, absent on the 15R.

Specs & Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset
• 12GB RAM Ultra & up to 512GB storage
• Dedicated G2 WiFi chip

One of the biggest unknown quantities with the OnePlus 15R is its chipset. Having worked directly with Qualcomm to develop it, OnePlus is the first to launch a phone internationally that runs on the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 5.

If you’re wondering about the technical differences, while it’s built on the same 3nm architecture as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 powering the OnePlus 15, the 15R’s SoC runs at lower clock speeds across its eight cores (two at 3.8GHz and six at 3.32GHz, compared to 4.61GHz and 3.63GHz on the Elite).