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There’s a lot going for the latest flagship phone, from the more secure (and reliable) ultrasonic fingerprint sensor to the IP69 rating to the 6,000mAh Silicon NanoStack battery. It’s also one of the first phones in North America to feature Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, which promises improvements to performance, efficiency, and AI workloads.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been testing the OnePlus 13 alongside my iPhone 16 Pro Max to see exactly how the new Android stacks up against one of the best phones from 2024. In a few ways, the OnePlus 13 falls short. In many ways, it puts the iPhone and Pixel to shame.
When I first unboxed the OnePlus 13 and held it in hand, my reaction was audible. Allow me to geek out here: The slightly curved glass, slimness of the phone, and overall appearance made my four-month-old iPhone look and feel outdated. It’s as if OnePlus made the iPhone 17 Air before Apple did.
However, what sells the OnePlus 13 design for me is the new Midnight Ocean colorway, which flaunts a vegan-leather backing that makes the phone visually distinctive and more comfortable to hold than its glass-only predecessors. The texture isn’t as rough and grippy as actual leather though, so I’d be interested in seeing how it ages over the year.
For years, one aspect that’s held OnePlus phones back is the water and dust resistance rating or lack thereof. With the OnePlus 13, the company is finally taking a stronger stance on the endurance standard, certifying the phone with an IP69 rating. It’s a step above the IP68 ratings we commonly see on competing devices, and allows the OnePlus 13 to withstand high-pressure, high-temperature water jets, and humidity changes.
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In practice, this means the OnePlus 13 can function properly even if you leave it in your washer and dryer, dishwasher, or a pot of boiling soup. The IP69 rating feels very much like a flex, but it’s a benefit that users will appreciate when they least expect it.
On the camera front, the OnePlus 13, with its triple camera setup (50MP wide, ultrawide, and telephoto), has been a reliable shooter throughout most of my days. While the Sony LYT-808 sensor isn’t on par with the one-inch sensors I’ve tested on international phones, it does an excellent job of capturing details and finishing the output vividly. If you’re a fan of sharp, bright, and slightly oversaturated imagery (read: more colorful than how the actual subject appears), then the OnePlus 13 will serve you well.
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Where the camera sensors fall short is in post-processing and AI-tuning features. For example, the phone leans heavily on computational photography to contextualize details when taking far-distance shots. This sometimes leads to images with an artificial, over-smoothening filter. But when the backend software works, it’s able to reproduce details that you probably didn’t think you’d capture in the first place.
ZDNET’s buying advice
For a starting price of $899, the OnePlus 13, as the company is offering a free OnePlus Watch 2
Source : ZDNet