Club Benefits
You'll find the best OnePlus phones among the best Android phones overall, thanks to their great performance and competitive prices.
The OnePlus 15 and the OnePlus 15R, released in November last year, stand as the best phones in this list. Both phones have a lot to offer users, especially when it comes to battery life, with the OnePlus 15 being the first phone to offer a two-day battery life. We also have the Nord N30 from OnePlus' budget line-up, which could be all the phone you need for only a small investment.
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.
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
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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 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 has made exactly one foldable phone, the OnePlus Open, which launched in 2023. It was a revelation at the time compared to rival foldables, but Samsung, Google and others have now caught up. Why OnePlus hasn't launched a sequel, we don't know, but we can only hope it does so, once again using tech pioneered by its partners over at Oppo.
There's also the T-series phones to keep in mind. These haven't been sold in the U.S. or Europe for some time, but we wish that would change since the current OnePlus 15T seems like a rare example of a small premium Android phone. OnePlus has used its T models to try other spins on its flagship models, such as more powerful chipsets or faster charging, so there's no guarantee that this approach will last for long. But it's always worth checking out if you're shopping OnePlus handsets.
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 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 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 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.
