Home NEWS OnePlus 13’s brilliance is a positive complication for your flagship shortlist

OnePlus 13’s brilliance is a positive complication for your flagship shortlist

OnePlus 13’s brilliance is a positive complication for your flagship shortlist


The first flagship arrival of 2025 isn’t actually the first Android flagship announcement for 2025, and that’s a barometer for the intensity of competition that OnePlus has to contend with. The OnePlus 13 is already contending with competition from the Vivo X200 Pro and the Oppo Find X8 Pro, with Samsung’s next Galaxy flagships arriving soon. With that as the backdrop, there was little that OnePlus could really get wrong with this flagship Android smartphone. The unequivocal observation is, they haven’t. The latest chapter that would perhaps define this year, as one with truly great Android flagship phones.

The OnePlus 13 mobile phone. (Vishal Mathur / HT Photo)

There is of course always the matter of pricing, and how we decipher value (it’s more subjective, than pure weightage on the spec sheet). OnePlus has widened the window of relevance, with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage priced at 69,999 while its 79,999 for 16+512GB. The bragging rights, if you can part with 89,999 that is, arrive with top-tier 24GB RAM and 1TB variant, which really does put most of the competition in the shade. More than anything else, for a willingness to walk the talk.

Also Read: The X200 Pro extends generational imaging excellence: Vivo’s Vikas Tagra

There can of course be an argument for simplicity, something Vivo’s sided with for the 16+512GB spec X200 Pro with a sticker price of 94,999. The Oppo Find X8 Pro follows a similar method, sporting a price tag of 99,999. Both brands, have a single spec option available for now, albeit with some colour choices. If you indeed have a budget big enough to touch the 90,000-mark, the OnePlus 13’s 24GB+1TB variant really doesn’t have a like-for-like competition. Would Vivo and Oppo respond? Unlikely, unless there is a significant price correction in the lead-up to that.

White phones look good, which is perhaps why I’m not complaining much at the OnePlus 13 review unit being the Arctic Dawn colourway instead of what would undoubtedly be a luxurious vegan-leather finish on the Midnight Ocean (read, blue) option. The glass panel has a nice frosty look, and is perhaps one of the factors why fingerprints hide away so nicely. The silver of the camera island is a nice contrast, and it’s the same hue for the Hasselblad and OnePlus logos that blend in easily.

A subtle change is the aluminum frame that’s flat instead of slightly curved, and that has improved the in-hand grip. The Alert Slider which we all have come to love generation after generation of OnePlus flagships, is still very much around. Overall, that family familiarity isn’t entirely lost despite more than incremental design changes. No ambiguity or half measures with water and dust resistance capabilities either (this was long overdue), with IP69 and IP68 ratings differentiating capabilities to withstand being submerged in water to holding off sprays.

Also Read:As the first flagship for 2025, Oppo hopes time is Find X8 Pro’s trump card

OnePlus 13 uses Qualcomm’s fancy new chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, and the biggest takeaway from that happens to be pristine thermal optimization — 30 minutes of gaming would render most Android flagships from recent memory between toasty warm and uncomfortably boiling, but the OnePlus 13 barely registers any heating on the back. That will also be good for battery life, and an ability to hold performance. This is a window of opportunity for OnePlus to translate its undeniable performance superiority into sales, before more Android phones eventually arrive with this chip later in the year.

Battery life on the OnePlus 13 as we tested it, can at best be described as astonishing. Even in high performance mode for around half of the day, this 6000mAh lithium-silicon NanoStack battery fully charged in the morning still returned with around 70% charge — with always-on display and 120Hz refresh rate enabled. Chip level improvements and the new battery architecture, truly shine through. You’re unlikely to drain this phone in a day, and through it may still not deliver two-day usage for heavier usage scenarios, the robustness of battery frugality erases excruciating anxiety.

There is little doubt that the Zeiss partnership has delivered more than enough to ensure the Vivo X200 Pro is by far the photography (and increasingly, videos too) benchmark for the current Android flagship crop. The 50-megapixel troika (that’s the primary wide, ultrawide with 3x optical zoom and telephoto cameras) does serve the OnePlus 13 rather well, but the differential approach towards using AI becomes clear. As is also the reason for different tonality in results. Mind you, both methods would find favour with preferences.

Also Read:Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL as AI superphones, augmenting Android’s acumen

Having Hasselblad calibrate the colours, and the use of AI, does have its positives. It is worth noting that often, the OnePlus 13 is a tad too enthusiastic in boosting details or colours in a photo you’ve just clicked (interesting is, this behavior isn’t always apparent). Shadows may be less pronounced than they need to be, or the frame may be a tad too sharp resulting in unnatural skies or textures. It could well be that the new Dual Exposure Algorithm fine-tuning in due course, will iron this out.

That over-processed look may be fine for social media posts but perhaps less so, if details and a natural memory of that moment in time, is what you’re going for. The solution, if realism is what you’re going for, also resides within the OnePlus camera app — the Master mode (even when all other settings are left unaltered). All of the algorithmic interventions are less profound here, including the reproduction of how a scene was naturally illuminated.

As it happened, I began to use this more than the Photo mode, with time. Portraits see a significant upgrade within the OnePlus 13’s photography suite. The telephoto performance of the Vivo X200 Pro may be difficult to match, the OnePlus 13 does return really good detailing even at 20x zoom. The detailing replicated here is one positive from the active image processing. You’d need a really stable hand (or a tripod, and a really clear day) for 30x zoom photos to shine through.

Also Read: Xiaomi 14 is a true flagship phone underlined by Leica’s photography expertise

While the Vivo X200 Pro sets the bar with the camera, it is the OnePlus 13 that has emphatically done the same for battery life, which is ready for the future with a new composition. A first for the OnePlus 13 is support for Reliance Jio’s upcoming 5.5G network upgrade, which will theoretically offer up to 1Gbps data transfer speeds. We are yet to see the cards Samsung has up their sleeve with the upcoming Galaxy flagships for 2025, but it is shaping up to be a close contest.

OnePlus has played its cards just right with the OnePlus 13, and if the experience with the OnePlus 11 and the OnePlus 12 points to anything, it is an expected urgency with software updates for the coming months that’ll further improve the cameras. There is the expected AI layer too, including Google’s Circle to Search and OnePlus’ own AI Reflection Remover (mileage varies, depending on frame and complexity of elements within) and AI Unblur (handy, more than you may realise).

We aren’t in a position to make a call on the definitive Android flagship for 2025, but the three main contenders thus far have their own strengths. But if we do have to settle on a pecking order for now, it’ll be a tie between the OnePlus 13 and the Vivo X200 Pro for the top spot, with the Oppo Find X8 Pro a close third. Not to be forgotten is the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL very much hanging around in the back of shot, and it holds fort till H2 2025. But the pressure clearly would now be on Samsung. Much as it was on OnePlus to get things absolutely spot on. And they absolutely have.



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