The OnePlus 15 Is One of the Best Mainstream Phones for Gamers

If you're a mobile gamer, you know the fun of gaming wherever you are and the frustrating consequences of running out of juice on your phone's battery. That's why OnePlus 15A huge 7300mAh battery makes this phone promising for discerning gamers who are always on the go. Supposedly, you'll be able to play longer without draining your phone to the max.

The reality is a little more complicated, partly because the OnePlus 15's benefits may be diminished if graphics and frame rates are cranked up to the max. This is a good problem to have since a phone's premium specs provide a higher performance ceiling. However, unwary gamers can drain their battery almost as quickly as other gamers. top tier phones.

However, if you don't need a gaming phone like RedMagic 11 Pro or Asus ROG 9 Pro phoneNot easily available in the US, the OnePlus 15 is a mainstream phone with premium specs and features that make it a good choice.

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OnePlus 15 Gaming Experience

Good specifications, good display, decent speakers.

Battery life while gaming is important, but we'll put that aside for a moment to focus on the experience of the games themselves. While both versions of the phone are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, I used the more expensive $1,000 version with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which supposedly performs better than the cheaper $900 model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. I tested several popular games that are demanding enough to give the OnePlus 15 a run for its money.

Effect: High graphics and smooth gameplay. Apart from the high-end hardware, the OnePlus 15 also features a 6.78-inch OLED display with HD Plus resolution (2722 x 1272 pixels resolution) and a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz. The latter is a big deal for gaming, but most games don't hit this limit since they're usually set to a maximum of 120 frames per second.

One of the few big games to support such a high refresh rate is Dead cellswhose roguelike gameplay depends on reaction time. In theory it supports unlimited frame rates, but I didn't notice much difference between 120Hz and 165Hz – with more frames per second (roughly one per hertz, so 165fps at the phone's maximum) this should allow players to react faster, down to microseconds.

But I'll be the first to admit that my clumsy fingers can't press the touch controls precisely enough to provide this level of responsiveness. This is where using a third party controller comes in handy, and the Backbone I had in my desk drawer worked surprisingly well. I connected my OnePlus 15 and Dead Cells immediately switched to external controls, already mapping my assortment of weapons and items to different buttons. In a matter of seconds, I was sliding attacks between frantic dodge sequences and double jumps to evade enemy attacks.

When I switched to Destiny RisingThe mobile version of the venerable online shooter Backbone was a welcome experience, giving me a lot more control buttons at my fingertips. There's a smaller performance gap when using a physical controller in Destiny Rising, as touch controls work quite well, all things considered, compared to Dead Cells. Same with Diablo the Immortal.

The mobile version of the dark fantasy hack-and-slash game also has decent touch controls; Although there are a lot of buttons on the screen that block some actions, they are placed in such a way that I don't accidentally press them and usually press the one I want to press most of the time.

Destiny Rising and Diablo Immortal look good with the graphics set to the maximum allowed level, but strangely enough they cannot reach the maximum possible settings. It makes me wonder if such a phone even exists, because the OnePlus 15's specs are just about the best you can get on a phone today. However, with features like reflections and high graphics enabled, Destiny Rising and Diablo Immortal have good graphics, somewhere between PS3/Xbox 360 and PS4/Xbox One. As powerful as the OnePlus 15 is, it can't improve the visuals in older games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but games with a distinct style like Genshin Impact look good thanks to the phone's smooth frame rate.

This matches the OnePlus 15's benchmark results in Geekbench 6 (which tests the processor) and 3DMark Wild Life Extreme (which tests graphics). The OnePlus 15 delivered higher scores and frame rates than any other phone except the RedMagic 11 Pro. While the phones are in iPhone 17 series not far behind, old phones left in dust – my two year old iPhone 15 pro max got half the scores and frame rate of the OnePlus 15.

3DMark Wild Life Extreme

OnePlus 15 7.227RedMagic 11 Pro 8,074iPhone 17 4885OnePlus 13 6762

Gikbench 6.0

OnePlus 15 3670 11,061RedMagic 11 Pro 3683 11,664iPhone 17 3612 9.18OnePlus 13 3091 9,362

Big battery helps

But fast charging is much more useful

Besides the powerful specs, the OnePlus 15's biggest selling point is its 7,300mAh battery, which is half the capacity of the 5,000mAh batteries found in most premium phones like iPhone 17 pro max. This should result in longer game times, and anecdotally it does: when I started playing Dead Cells, the phone was at 2% to speed up battery drain, and I managed to play for 45 minutes before it automatically turned off to save the remaining 1%. It's possible that OnePlus is intentionally lowering the bottom of the battery to give people more time (similar to the feeling of putting more miles on your car than expected when the gas tank light comes on), but it still gives a feeling of longevity.

But outside of these few examples, the power advantage is more muted than I expected. The OnePlus 15's battery drains noticeably no slower during gaming than competing phones with smaller batteries. Some of this can be attributed to the phone's higher graphics and higher frame rates, which somewhat offset this performance advantage. If you raise them too much, they drain the battery faster.

I tested this by playing Destiny Rising for 20 minutes with all graphics and framerate settings set to maximum, which drained the OnePlus 15's battery by 6%. When I lowered performance to the minimum settings for a session of the same length, the battery drained 5%—a small change, but it adds up.

The OnePlus 15's big selling point, especially for gamers with access to power outlets, is its charging speed. The phone comes with an 80W charger. In my testing, it filled from almost empty (1%) to 73% in 30 minutes and reached 100% in 45 minutes. It's faster than everything else except the iPhone 17 series and Samsung Galaxy S25 FE in our tests they all have lower battery capacity. The phone also supports wireless charging up to 50W, and since most wireless chargers have a maximum power of 15 or 30W, good luck finding one that will back up your OnePlus 15 at the fastest supported speed. The phone also supports bypass charging, allowing you to game without draining the battery while it's connected (as long as you can play with the cord sticking out of the bottom of the phone).

While I was disappointed that the larger capacity didn't result in slower battery drain while gaming, I was happy with how quickly I was able to charge the phone between sessions. Heck, you can charge it even faster with the phone's maximum charging speed of 100W if you grab a separate OnePlus branded charger. It's worth noting that a larger battery will still extend day-to-day use of the phone without taxing the hardware, such as browsing and using apps.

Final showdown

What the OnePlus 15 offers gamers compared to other phones

I think the OnePlus 15 is a solid phone in every way and there is something to be said for a high-performance phone that suits the tastes of the mass consumer. Of course, there are fans of the “gamer chic” black color, angular lines and RGB lighting that characterize products aimed at the gaming audience – things similar to Decepticon accessories, including the Asus ROG series of phones. Personally, I love the styling of the OnePlus 15's rounded corners, flat sides, and sleek matte back cover.

Another advantage the OnePlus 15 has over gaming phones is its regular software interface. CNET senior reviewer Mike Sorrentino was disappointed by the numerous annoyances in RedMagic 11 Pro's software, from bloatware to proprietary photo watermarks enabled by default. The OnePlus 15 has a regular interface with OxygenOS 16 skin on Android 16 – no extreme gaming aesthetics. The Game Assistant app is simple and I find that it automatically collects games into its own folder which is very convenient.

And most importantly, the OnePlus 15 has much better photo capabilities than other gaming phones. Its set of three 50-megapixel rear cameras captured impressive color and detail in a series of images showcasing the streets of Lisbon, Portugal, which were captured by CNET's talented editor-in-chief (and professional photographer on his own) Andrew Lancson. Although they don't quite reach the quality Samsung Galaxy S25 series or Google Pixel 10they're close enough that they can be used as primary, ultra-wide and telephoto lenses.

The OnePlus 15 does have some downsides. Other gaming phones have useful features like the Asus ROG 9 Pro's external cooling fan and, most importantly, a side port for charging while gaming. Even worse, OnePlus continues to lag behind the competition, offering only four years of Android updates and six years of security patches, which is noticeably less than the seven years that Samsung and Google offer (Apple doesn't promise iOS updates, but usually gets by with six years or more depending on the device). Other gaming phones are worse: the RedMagic 11 Pro receives only three years of Android updates, and the Asus ROG 9 Pro receives a dismal two years of operating system updates. Even if the OnePlus 15 is a better gaming phone, it's not worth spending a ton of money on a phone only to see it stop getting cool new software features after half a decade.

The OnePlus 15 has one more caveat that I wouldn't call a deal breaker for gamers. The phone's maximum display brightness of 1,800 nits is good outdoors, but pales in comparison to the competition; for example, the iPhone 17 series boasts a peak brightness of 3,000 nits outdoors. But I still wouldn't expect many mobile gamers to play outside – I certainly wasn't there while I was doing this whole gamer science thing.