OnePlus' flagship 13 series has been out for a few weeks now, and I have been using the OnePlus 13 for a while. The device starts at a price of Rs 69,999, which is slightly higher than the OnePlus 12 launch price. Let's try and see if it does justice to the price tag and deliver enough.
The OnePlus 13 sports a 6.82-inch (19.8:9 aspect ratio) display with ceramic guard glass over it for added protection – there are symmetrical and thin bezels to go around it. The sides are flatter and made of metal – the right side has the volume buttons and power/lock key, while the left side only has the alert slider. At the top is located the infrared port, additional mics; and at the bottom, you have the dual SIM card tray slot, USB type-C port and primary mic alongside the second outlet for loudspeakers. The glass back houses the familiar triple-rounded camera setup with the Hasselblad branding right next to it. The 'Arctic Dawn' colour that I used has a smooth finish and no fingerprints and smudges were seen. It's also available in Midnight Ocean (microfiber vegan leather back) and Black Eclipse. The phone has rounded corners and is slightly slimmer but heavier than its predecessor.
The 6.82-inch (3168x1440) LTPO AMOLED ProXDR display supports up to 120Hz refresh rates, and it's comfortably one of the best ones out there. It's bright, usable under direct sunlight, is clear reading long texts and does a good job of colour reproduction for watching high-resolution videos. The display is slightly curved on the sides but doesn't catch accidental touches too frequently. Other than HDR and Dolby Vision, it also supports HDRViVid, though I am not sure I have seen it anywhere for content so far.
Talking about the camera performance: you get a 50MP (f/1.6) main camera, a 50MP (2.65) telephoto camera, and a 50MP (f/2.05) ultra-wide camera, all with an LED flash and LIDAR sensor to complete the setup. I found the phone's camera performance to have improved quite a bit with the last two OS updates, and it has been getting updates quite frequently since the launch so far. The photos have really nice colour range with decent tuning to reduce noise in daylight and to some extent in low-light conditions. Details start to lose out after 10x zoom but hold up well till that. Portrait shots seem to be a little better in terms of the edges of the subject but still have some say to go to beat Samsung and Pixel in portrait shots. The front-facing 32MP (f/2.45) camera can take detailed shots but can have some shutter lag while taking shots indoors and still lacks autofocus. You can record 4k 60FPS videos with Dolby Vision from both front and rear cameras now.
Equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset (up to 4.32 Ghz octa core processor, Adreno 830 GPU) along with 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB UFS 4.0 internal storage (also comes in 12GB RAM plus 256GB and a limited edition 24GB plus 1TB variant). The phone's performance has also gotten better with the last update, with much smoother scrolling and switching between apps without frames dropping. Running on OxygenOS 15 based on Android 15 with the December security patch, OnePlus seems to have done better RAM management for background tasks – it's still not flawless but it's definitely going in the right direction.
AI unblur feature has also become a lot more reliable to remove unwanted objects in your photos, or for removing things like little stickers on an object. There's a new search feature where you can search all files stored in the phone, including their text inside. Another feature is ‘Find my device’ can now work even with the device turned off, thanks to its Bluetooth running even when the device is off. Games such as 'Call of Duty' was handled at the highest settings by the device really well and another game, 'Wuthering Waves', at 60FPS with smooth gameplay and no heating issues. The phone is said to get four years of OS updates and six years of security updates.
Powered by an upgraded 6,000mAh battery unit, the OnePlus 13 lasted me a whole day and then some more quite frequently. Of course lower with more gaming but still among more reliable ones when it comes to battery. The bundled proprietary 100watts SuperVooc charger can charge it from 1% to full in under 50 minutes.
The stereo speakers are loud and clear but not the best in terms of depth among flagships today. WiFi and GPS performance of the phone is top-notch and so was its 5G performance on the go. OnePlus claims it's bringing 5.5G, slightly advanced 5G that uses multiple towers for better network reception on the Jio network, but I can't say I noticed any significant improvements so far.
In brief, the OnePlus 13 is a really good performer on most counts and can be considered for somebody prioritizing smoother performance and battery life. Does it have enough to upgrade from a OnePlus 12? Absolutely not. It is a compact phone? Not even close. But on its own as a big smartphone, it does pack enough power and performance to be a recommendation around 70k as of now for those okay with its size.
