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OnePlus phones are slowly becoming some of the best Android phones that you can buy, and there's a good reason for that.
The best OnePlus phones cover a surprising range of devices, despite the company's fairly small portfolio. But for phone buyers who want good value and excellent hardware, it's good to have a company to rely on, whatever your budget.
The first OnePlus phone I tried was the OnePlus 7 Pro (the one with the fun pop-up selfie camera) and I was instantly captured by the company's approach to making phones. I also remember encountering OnePlus in my pre-phones life when a work colleague showed me his OnePlus 2, from back when OnePlus sold its phones by invitation only. It's a brand that is dedicated to its own vision of how smartphones should work and feel. But even better than just having a clear goal — these phones stand up to scrutiny even after rigorous testing by me or my colleagues.
The quick list
The OnePlus 15 offers several satisfying OnePlus AI features, alongside a stylish, sleek design. However, the real winner here has to be the battery life, which makes use of new technology to offer something that far exceeds everything else we've seen in modern smartphones.
However, the prior benefit of being cheaper than other smartphones is no longer the case, with increased import costs pushing the cost to match other smartphones.
The OnePlus 15R has the performance, battery life and display responsiveness to justify its increased focus on gaming. But a price increase and the removal of a telephoto camera make it harder to recommend this as a flagship alternative.
OnePlus absolutely cracked the foldable phone formula on its first try, with a gorgeous design, ingenious multitasking and the performance, battery and charging abilities you'd expect. But you'll be paying quite a bit for it.
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It's not too strong in the photography department, but you'll love how high the battery life, charging speed and display refresh rate are on this sub $300 phone.
The best OnePlus phones you can buy
Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate.
The best OnePlus phone overall
OnePlus 15 takes everything we loved about the OnePlus 13 and pushes it to 11. Not only is this a stylish-looking phone with an excellent collection of hardware specs, but OnePlus has also exceeded anything we've seen in a battery thanks to the introduction of silicone carbon cells. We're talking about a battery life that hits a total of 25 hours when we tested it, outpacing anything from Samsung and Apple.
Other standout features are exactly what you'd expect, including the newly-increased 100W wired charging speed, the return of 50W wireless charging, and the power of the newly-minted Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. That means that your phone will last longer than ever, to the point you might even forget to charge it.
You can't forget about the influx of AI features either, which cover everything you would ever want, or the excellent display that's as impressive as ever.
Read our full OnePlus 15 review
The best OnePlus phone value
The OnePlus 15R charts an unusual path. Previous phones in OnePlus' R-series have been simply more accessibly-priced versions of its main numbered flagship phones. But rather than be a cheaper version of the excellent OnePlus 15, the 15R has a whole new focus instead.
The OnePlus 15R moves towards a focus on offering one of the best gaming experiences for the series, thanks to the power of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the bright, colorful display. The Battery life remains fantastic, breaking company records thanks to the 7,400 mAh battery.
While the OnePlus 15R might not be as affordable as other R-series phones, it more than makes up for it thanks to the improved hardware. On that note, it's still not as expensive as many other devices that feature a similar level of hardware and specs, making it still relatively affordable.
Read our full OnePlus 15R review.
The best premium OnePlus phone
Thanks to some help from sister company Oppo, OnePlus' maiden voyage into the world of foldables turned out brilliantly. The OnePlus Open is our favorite foldable around right now, due to its compact folded size and light weight, lengthy battery life and impressive specs like 512GB of storage by default, two 48MP cameras and a 64MP telephoto one on the back, and the Open Canvas system that lets you open and work between multiple apps very easily.
This is a foldable phone though, which means that it doesn't offer the best photo-experience, even among OnePlus' own phones. There's also no wireless charging, which is an odd thing to leave out on a premium phone, but unfortunately this is something OnePlus has missed off of its phones historically. If you can live with that though, there's little to turn you off of this impressive example of a foldable phone.
Read our full OnePlus Open review.
The best budget OnePlus phone
The OnePlus Nord N30 5G (or OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite if you're outside the U.S.) is very affordable but still spoils you in some areas. Most notably it gives you 50W charging and a 120Hz display in a device that costs less than $300. If you combine that with the strong battery life, and you are literally getting more bang for your buck.
However, no cheap phone is perfect and the OnePlus Nord N30 5G has limited itself in one conventional way. As it stands, the phone's biggest limitation is photo quality, which could be a dealbreaker for some of you. This is unfortunately the literal price of making a cheap phone, as is the Nord N30's low-powered chipset. So hopefully if you want to save money, you will focus on the great display, charging and battery instead.
Read our full OnePlus Nord N30 5G review.
Also tested
While we've basically run the gamut of all OnePlus' current smartphone offerings, there are a few still worth singling out for being good, albeit in more limited ways.
What to look for in a OnePlus phone
When shopping for the best OnePlus phones, keep in mind that OnePlus divides its smartphone product line into two different categories. The more expensive OnePlus flagships usually cost $700 and up and pack in the best features OnePlus has to offer. OnePlus Nord devices are the phone maker’s budget devices — prices are lower and features are scaled back, though you’ll still find a few notable capabilities.
OnePlus used to release flagships twice a year — once in the spring, followed by a T series version of that same phone in the fall. But OnePlus has changed a lot in recent years, so it's hard to predict what the company will do next. You can play the waiting game forever with OnePlus, so it's best to just go for the phone that stands out to you at the time it makes sense for you to upgrade.
How we test the best OnePlus phones
We take the same approach to finding the best OnePlus phones as we do any smartphone we review, running various tests and benchmarks. We use Geekbench 6 to measure overall performance and 3DMark Wild Life to test graphics performance. For real-world testing, we use Adobe Premier Rush to transcode a video, timing how long it takes. (This test does not work on all devices due to app compatibility issues.)
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Geekbench 6 (single-core / multicore) | 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited (FPS) |
OnePlus 15 | 3,618 / 11,116 | 173.83 |
OnePlus 15R | 2,691 / 9,502 | 27.96 |
OnePlus Open | 1,087 / 4,203 | 84.8 |
OnePlus Nord N30 5G | 690 / 2,011 | 7.2 |
In our lab, we test the brightness of the phone’s display as well as how colorful each screen is (using both the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut). We measure color accuracy as well.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | sRGB (%) | DCI-P3 (%) | Delta-E |
OnePlus 15 | 111.8 | 79.2 | 0.29 |
OnePlus 15R | 115.2 | 81.6 | 0.29 |
OnePlus Open | 111.8 | 111.8 | 0.14 |
OnePlus Nord N30 5G | 152.7 | 108.2 | 0.09 |
We have a custom battery test in which we have phones surf the web continuously over a cellular connection, timing how long it takes until they run out of power. We also time how quickly a phone can recharge, checking the battery status after 15 and 30 minutes.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Battery life (Hrs:Mins) |
OnePlus 15 | 25:13 |
OnePlus 15R | 21:54 |
OnePlus Open | 11:31 (main display) |
OnePlus Nord N30 5G | 12:42 |
Finally, to test cameras, we take the best OnePlus phones out into the field and shoot photos of landscapes, portraits, night images and other shots. We compare those shots to similar images captured by phones with comparable specs and prices.
