No phone has disappointed me more this year than the OnePlus 15R — here’s why

This is the time of year when people in my line of work start thinking about the biggest hits and misses of the past 12 months. When it comes to my area of interest, I have plenty of candidates to consider for the best phones of the past year. But there's no debate over which phone has disappointed me the most — the OnePlus 15R.

That may be a surprising choice, as the OnePlus 15R is seems like a very solid phone. In his OnePlus 15R review, my colleague Richard Priday praised the phone overall, citing how closely it mirrors flagship phones like the OnePlus 15. And certainly, the OnePlus 15R's battery life — it's the runner-up on our best phone battery life list after lasting nearly 22 hours on our custom battery test — makes it a phone that commands your attention.

But one of Richard's arguments in favor of the OnePlus 15R exposes its greatest weakness. Yes, this midrange phone shares a lot in common with the flagship OnePlus 15. And unfortunately, that includes the price.

OnePlus 15R: The price isn't right

The OnePlus 15R starts at $699. That's just $100 less than entry-level flagships like the Galaxy S25, Pixel 10 and iPhone 17 — three phones that you'd have to concede are more fully featured than OnePlus' midrange offering.

Even if you factor in a $50 trade-in rebate that OnePlus is offering, the 15R's discounted $649 price remains well ahead of what you'd pay for similar midrange models like the Pixel 9a ($499) and iPhone 16e ($599). And while those phones have their limitations, you can argue that they offer more than the OnePlus 15R is areas ranging from photography to AI features.

The OnePlus 15R suffers from neither fish-nor-fowl pricing. If cost is important to you, there are cheaper phones with similar-to-better features. And if you want a more premium handset, you don't have to stretch your budget too far to afford a true flagship.

Even worse, the price of OnePlus' R series phones is moving in the wrong direction. Two years ago, the OnePlus 12R debuted in the U.S. with a $499 version that offered 128GB of storage and enough features in common with the OnePlus 12 to make the less-expensive model a real bargain. The OnePlus 13R dropped that 128GB option, raising its starting price to $599, but at least you could say you were getting double the storage in return. And now we've got another $100 price hike for the OnePlus 15R.

Striking the wrong balance

OnePlus would contend the improved features in the OnePlus 15R help justify the higher price. Past R series phones ran on a year-old Snapdragon chipset compared to the latest Qualcomm silicon inside the regular OnePlus flagship. This time around, the OnePlus 15R is turning to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 system-on-chip, a less-powerful version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 running the OnePlus 15, but still plenty powerful nonetheless.

Besides a more impressive chip, this year's R series model offers a fast-refreshing display — not the usual 120Hz refresh rate, but one that can go all the way up to 165Hz if you're playing certain games. The phone's design offers the same level of water resistance as the OnePlus 15, wired charging speeds top rival phones and OnePlus' greater array of AI tools are on board this phone, too.

Still, there are trade-offs. The zoom lens found on the OnePlus 13R is gone despite the new phone's higher price tag. You still don't get wireless charging on board the OnePlus 15R. And OnePlus' software support lags behind what you receive for comparable devices from Samsung and Google.

These omission are easier to excuse when you're paying around $500 for a phone. When price hikes take the cost just shy of a flagship device, they become a lot more glaring.

My biggest OnePlus 15R complaint

I've been a big fan of previous OnePlus R offerings. Usually, the device ranks among my favorite phones of the year, given how much value you get while paying hundreds of dollars less than a premium device. And, of course, a phone that lasts as long as the OnePlus 12R and OnePlus 13R did in our testing is always going to be worth a look when you're mulling over a new device.

As for the OnePlus 15R? Well, at least that battery life still impresses, even if very little else about the phone makes it stand out.

And that's probably the most disappointing thing about the OnePlus 15R. In OnePlus' rush to make a flagship lite, it sacrificed too much of what made the phone unique and appealing to a wider audience.

That's not to say that the OnePlus 15R is a bad phone. I think it's earned its 4-star rating, and the things that standout about this device — the performance, the display and especially the battery life — will make it an appealing choice for gamers in particular.

But the OnePlus 15R seems to mark the end of that model's run as a lower-cost alternative to some of the pricier flagships out there. And that's going to take some getting over.

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