OnePlus 13 evaluate: The perfect flagship expertise beneath ₹70,000

Through the years, OnePlus has steadily advanced its quantity collection from being ‘flagship killers’ to to striving for flagship standing.. Nonetheless, the corporate has typically fallen brief in a single space or one other—till now. The not too long ago launched OnePlus 13 stands out as the corporate’s first full flagship providing a lot of what premium gadgets from Samsung and Apple ship, and in some instances, much more.

The OnePlus 13 is round ₹5,000 costlier than the asking value of final 12 months, however it provides an entire host of options that make it a correct flagship gadget, together with IP68 and IP69 safety, an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, a way more highly effective processor within the Snapdragon 8 Elite, an even bigger battery and help for MagSafe equipment.

I have been testing the OnePlus 13 for the previous 15 days, and here is how the smartphone carried out in the actual world.

Unboxing and design:

OnePlus 13 is available in a pink colored field with the letter 13 plastered on the highest and OnePlus and Hasselblad branding discovering a spot on the backside. Inside the colorful field you get the telephone itself, a 100W SUPERVOOC adapter, an ordinary OnePlus pink colored kind A to kind C cable, a SIM ejector pin, a black colored case and a few documentation.

Whereas the OnePlus 13 retains a lot of the design of its predecessor,refined modifications have been made to make gadget look way more premium and rather less cumbersome. For example, the Hassleblad branding is now out of the digicam module and as an alternative positioned proper beside it with a straight strip highlighting it fantastically. The aluminium body stays the identical however the removing of curved show (extra on this later) make for a extra stable grip.

OnePlus’ iconic alert slider continues to be there and the IR blaster that was added final 12 months continues to be a mainstay on this 12 months’s flagship as properly and so is NFC. However its the upgrades that OnePlus made this 12 months that actually stole the present.

OnePlus 13 include an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor feels considerably quicker than OnePlus 12’s optical sensor. It additionally comes with an IP68 + 69 score (up from IP65 on OnePlus 12) which signifies that the telephone might be submerged in as much as 1.5 meter of water for as much as half-hour and in addition deal with sizzling water jets.

One factor I actually appreciated in regards to the OnePlus 13 is that weighs in at round 213g (virtually 10 grams lower than OnePlus 12) whereas packing in an even bigger battery and with out every other compromise to the {hardware}. That being stated, the OnePlus 13 was nonetheless a bit of heavy and barely bigger for my palm and I actually hope that OnePlus takes a leaf out of Vivo X200’s playbook to enhance the size on OnePlus 14.

Show and battery:

OnePlus boasts the identical 6.82-inch QHD+ 120Hz AMOLED show with 4,500 nits peak brightness (1,600 nits on HBM) as its predecessor, however it options the newer BOE X2 2K+ quad curved panel and LTPO 4.1 know-how.

The show continues to be one of many robust factors of OnePlus’ quantity collection and it could simply go face to face with the Apple and Samsung’s of the world with good viewing angles, glorious colors true-to-life colors and slim bezzels. I additionally had no issues with the OnePlus 13 in vivid out of doors situations the place it even surpassed the brightness ranges of iQOO 13 and Vivo X200 that I’ve additionally been testing.

OnePlus 13 will get a 6,000mAh battery (up from 5,500mAh from final 12 months) and help for 100W of wired quick charging and 50W of wi-fi charging. OnePlus has additionally launched a couple of instances (bought individually) with the OnePlus 13 which assist the telephone make the most of all of the MagSafe equipment available in the market.

Whereas essentially the most Chinese language flagships launched within the final month have include a large battery, the continuation of wi-fi charging and even help for MagSafe equipment does make the OnePlus 13 standout in a crowded market.

As for battery life, let me put it this manner, OnePlus 13 can simply final a full day much more energy customers however the comparatively average customers like me will discover that it could final over a 1 ½ day with a display of time of over 7 hours.

Software program and efficiency:

Whereas the OnePlus 12 with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was already fairly highly effective, OnePlus 13 takes the efficiency to a different degree with the inclusion of Snapdragon 8 Elite. In case you’ve gotten have been dwelling beneath a rock, this chip is flagship SoC from Qualcomm which comes with many firsts together with Oryon structure, {hardware} accelerated ray tracing and help for AAA titles.

In actuality, nevertheless, a lot of the prowess of the brand new chip is just not but sensible and one is left to only admiring the smoothness with which the telephone runs.

On the software program entrance, OnePlus 13 runs on Oxygen OS 15 based mostly on Android 15 with promise of 4 years of OS updates and 6 years of safety patches. I really feel that is maybe the one space the place OnePlus is severely lagging behind the Google Pixel’s Samsung Galaxy lineups that provide for much longer 7 years of OS updates.

There’s been a whole lot of chatter in regards to the new OxygenOS 15 and for good measure. The brand new UI feels way more fluid with improved animations and app closing/opening occasions together with some helpful options like reside alerts, aka iPhone’s Dynamic Island and Open Canvas (OnePlus’ improved cut up display system).

The AI options which had been first teased with OnePlus Nord 4 (evaluate) and OxygenOS 15 are actually absolutely part of OnePlus 13 together with AI abstract, AI communicate (solely in Chrome browser), AI transcript and abstract for recorder app, AI element enhance, AI eraser, AI Unblur, AI Relfection Eraser and course Circle to Search however all of them require an web connection to run. Reality be instructed, although, other than AI Eraser and AI transcript (for sure individuals), you wouldn’t be utilizing most of those options however it’s nonetheless type of good to have them bundled with the OS.

What’s not good is the adware that OnePlus is including even to its flagship fashions. OnePlus 13 comes pre-installed with a ‘Telephone Supervisor’ and ‘App Picks’ whereas the notorious ‘International Search’ that we encountered first with the OnePlus Nord 4 can also be current right here however it is not turned on by default which means that there are not any advertisements within the app drawer as of now.

Digicam:

OnePlus 13 packs the identical 50MP Sony LYT-808 major lens and 32MP Sony IMX615 selfie shooter because the OnePlus 12 whereas the ultra-wide angle lens has been upgraded with 50MP Samsung ISOCELL JN5 sensor. The telephoto lens, nevertheless, has seen a downgrade – not less than on paper- from 64MP OmniVision OV64B lens on the OnePlus 12 to 50MP Sony LYT-600 shooter on the OnePlus 13.

OnePlus 12 was already had a really succesful digicam setup and the the OnePlus 13 has solely improved on it. I in contrast the OnePlus 13 with a few of its not too long ago launched counterparts just like the X200 in an effort to confirm the place it stands.

One factor you discover proper from the beginning is that OnePlus is vulnerable to extra cooler colors whereas Vivo and iQOO ship hotter tones within the photographs. The first digicam is fairly nice each telephones taking eye-pleasing photographs in pure lighting situations however Vivo usually has higher particulars. Issues change for the more serious in night time and artificially lighting situations the place each telephones enhance the colors however Vivo nonetheless a lot nearer to pure picture whereas OnePlus struggles sorely.

Each OnePlus 13 and X200 are able to taking good trying portrait photographs however Vivo has barely higher detailing and color accuracy. Nonetheless, Vivo, tends to overbrighten the face throughout sure portrait photographs whereas OnePlus will get it nearer to pure pores and skin color. The X200 does present extra choices for portrait photographs with lenses various from 23mm to 100mm whereas OnePlus 13 provides 1x, 2x and 3x portrait photographs like final 12 months.

OnePlus 13 does maintain a slight edge in macro photographs with detter particulars and sharpness. However Vivo is a transparent winner in the case of zoomed-in photographs, with the X200 able to capturing handsome photographs even at 25x zoom, whereas OnePlus clearly struggles with photographs past 10-15x zoom.

The largest letdown with OnePlus 13 for me is with the selfie digicam. By itself, OnePlus 13 does an honest job with selfies however in comparison in opposition to the likes of Vivo X200, the latter seems to be a far forward with higher pores and skin tones, dynamic vary and an general extra balanced picture.

General, whereas OnePlus 13’s cameras nonetheless fall a bit of behind Vivo’s flagship collection, they’re greater than workable for the worth vary.

Verdict:

OnePlus 13 begins at a value of ₹70,000 and at this value it’s at present essentially the most full Android flagship one can purchase with a mixture of good high quality show, huge battery, quick wired and wi-fi charging, premium design and lengthy software program replace coverage. The addition of IP68 + IP69 water resistance score and quick in-display ultrasonic sensor are the added cherry on prime.

Nonetheless, OnePlus would need to deal with enhancing the selfie cameras and night time time efficiency of rear cameras in an effort to retain the sting on this extremely aggressive flagship market.