OnePlus has been on a hot streak the last couple of years. With the OnePlus Open being deemed the best foldable sold in the United States by many, the company followed it up with the OnePlus 12, another device that was praised by reviewers. Now, the OnePlus 13 is here and it's dethroned the Pixel 9 Pro XL as my favorite Android phone. Gone are the days of compromises and underperforming cameras. OnePlus is back. It's been back.

This phone is a delight, starting with the deep blue color with silver accents. It's the kind of flashy design I used to praise HP for with the Spectre x360 (I know it seems like an odd reference, but it's legitimately similar). And one thing the Oneplus has never let us down on is having a best-in-class display.

The camera chops are there, even if it still falls short of Google and Apple in terms of low-light performance. And one thing I really love is that OnePlus is releasing a series of magnetic accessories, so if you're switching from an iPhone and have a bunch of MagSafe products lying around, you can use those. You do need a case for it though; unfortunately, it's not built into the device.

OnePlus sponsored us for its OnePlus Offshore event, where it seeded the OnePlus 13 and 13R for review. It did not have any input on the contents of this article.

OnePlus 13 pricing and availability

The OnePlus 13 is available starting today, January 7. It costs $899.99 for a 12GB/256GB configuration, and $999.99 for 16GB/512GB. The 12GB/256GB model only comes in Black Eclipse, and it's sold by OnePlus.com and Amazon, while the 16GB/512GB model comes in all three colors (Black Eclipse, Midnight Ocean, and Arctic Dawn), and you can get it from OnePlus.com, Amazon, and Best Buy.

OnePlus is also bringing back its trade-in deal where you can trade in any phone, in any condition, and get $100 off. There are better values for good phones too though.

Alongside that, the OnePlus 13R is available for pre-order beginning today, with a January 14 release date. That's going to be $599.99, and you can get it from OnePlus.com, Best Buy, and Amazon.

Finally, the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are available in a new Sapphire Blue color beginning today, and that's $179.99 from OnePlus.com.

Design and display

OnePlus is on another level

In an era when phones seem to be glass sandwiches in solid colors, OnePlus opted to do something different with the Midnight Ocean OnePlus 13. The deep blue back is made out of vegan leather, a material the company often uses in at least one variant of its phones. But what I really love is the silver accents, giving it a two-tone look that's unique and sexy.

Indeed, uniqueness is something that matters on a device like this. Part of the appeal is that it's not Yet Another Samsung/Apple Phone. And unlike other vendors that make similar-looking devices, the OnePlus 13 stands alone.

The USB Type-C port on the bottom is USB 3.2 Gen 1, so you get solid 5Gbps data transfer speeds. It's worth noting, since some companies still use the painfully slow USB 2.0.

And on the left side of the frame, there's the traditional OnePlus switch for controlling alert sounds, allowing you to set the phone to silent or vibrate. This is one of the several features that are unique to OnePlus that I truly appreciate.

The circular camera housing is still there, but it's no longer drawn out to the edge of the chassis, moving the flash back to where it was on the OnePlus 11.

Now, let's talk about this display. In my opinion, OnePlus has been putting the best displays on smartphones since 2019 when it released the OnePlus 7 Pro, showing the world what a 90Hz OLED screen looks like. The OnePlus 13 is absolutely gorgeous.

The device has a 1-120Hz refresh rate, meaning that you get those fluid animations while you're using it, but it can also scale back so as not to use too much power when you're not. That also means that it has a full-color always-on display, and OxygenOS has some fun wallpaper features with its Flux themes.

The QHD display is set to FHD by default. Refresh rate is set to automatically vary, but you can control that as well.

OnePlus is continuing its tradition of having the best display on a smartphone.

The bezels are uniform on all sides, as OnePlus boasts a quad-curved design, while the OnePlus 13R is totally flat. It's not too curved though, and I say this as someone that hates curved screens. This is mostly a design thing that doesn't affect usability.

More importantly, it doesn't affect the device's durability. The OnePlus 13 is both IP68 and IP69 rated. That pretty much means that you can beat the crap out of it.

The first digit of each, '6', means that it can stand up to dust. Nothing is getting in there. The second digit, '8' and '9', mean that it can be put under up to a meter of water, and it can handle water-jets at high temperatures, respectively. During out briefings, OnePlus actually used a portable dishwasher and put the phone in it. It should be able to handle temperatures of up to 80 degrees Celsius, so it'll probably make it through a trip through the laundry too. If you're especially careless with your phone, this is the one to get. No other company is doing this right now.

Camera

It's very good, but still not the best

As you'd expect, the OnePlus 13 has a triple-camera system. All three are 50MP, and all three (plus the front camera) support recording 4K 60fps video. It's fantastic.

In fact, the whole camera system is pretty fantastic. Over the last couple of years, the OnePlus/Hasselblad partnership has really paid off, and they've really nailed color science. Before that, a lot of us were scratching our heads wondering how sister company Oppo was so good while OnePlus wasn't.

The telephoto lens is 3x, and it's what OnePlus is calling a Triprism lens. As the name suggests, it reflects the light three times, allowing it to be smaller and not have that rectangular shape that periscope lenses tend to have. It also uses AI for enhancement, something I'm happy to see more and more across the market beyond just shots of the moon (AI moon!).

These photos were taken at a combination of 1x, 3x, 6x, 30x, and 120x zoom.

The results from the zoom tests are really cool, but they're also mixed. There was a bellyflop contest on the OnePlus Offshore cruise, and I took a 120x photo of the emcee that came out pretty good. Those sort of dome-like structures were on some island that we were docked near, and while I was initially impressed with the photo, look at the other shot. AI chose to compose it totally differently.

And then, of course, none of that stuff works at night. The more you zoom, the more it's impossible to achieve any kind of stabilization, which isn't surprising. You're essentially taking a small piece of what the camera can see; the smaller the piece, the more light it needs. The more light it needs, the longer it takes to take the photo. The longer it takes to take the photo, the harder it is to stabilize.

That said, other phones do handle motion in low light better. Above were my zoom tests. Here's a general sample of the camera.

Obviously, daytime shots come out great. Seriously, OnePlus and Hasselblad nailed the color science. And I was able to use the ultra-wide lens to get a perfect shot of a rainbow off the side of the boat.

But there's something about almost all of the low-light photos that bugs me, and it's not the same across the board. It does handle tricky lighting scenarios well, compensating for bright lights and such. But on nighttime shots of the ocean, you can see how AI touched up the waves. This is normal, of course. Remember, night modes on all cameras require the subject to stay still, so the phone saw moving waves, captured what it could, and used AI to compensate. It just didn't do a great job of it.

It also doesn't capture motion very well at night. For still subjects at 1x zoom, it's great. For everything else, it's not best-in-class.

And then there are the AI features. I don't want to get too into the weeds here, because this is stuff that we've seen from competitors. Google has its Magic Eraser, although it doesn't have a reflection remover like OnePlus and Samsung do. Here are some examples of both.

To me, photos are one of the most sensible use cases for AI. We have the technology to make things better, and it works. As you can see from the samples, it's not perfect. It's not perfect on any device or service.

The way you should treat AI in photos is that it's a tool for improving things. You should absolutely not take photos with the idea that it can be fixed in AI later. Always take your best shot, and if you can use AI to make it better later on, that's great.

OxygenOS 15

My new favorite flavor of Android?

I covered OxygenOS 15 when it first came out, and there's really a lot that I like about it, such as Flux themes. Actually, that's probably my favorite new thing just because it's unique. A lot of other features, such as AI Unblur and AI Detail Boost, are great, but they're things you can find on other platforms at this point.

Another of my favorite features, which isn't even close to new, is Zen Spaces. This basically forces you to not interact with your phone for a predetermined amount of time. And once you start it, you can't stop it, not even by rebooting. It's something that you really can't get elsewhere, so if you like it, it's valuable.

OxygenOS is the best flavor of Android, even better than Pixel at this point.

One new feature I don't like is Share with iPhone. It's just not good. It's this clunky system where you need the app to be installed on the iPhone, and you have to turn it on in Settings every time, as it only stays active for 10 minutes. I've seen other companies set up excellent AirDrop alternatives, so this could have been done better.

AI Notes is a great feature, which basically cleans up your notes and formats them. However, I'm a big fan of recording presentations and using AI to make a summary for me.

I find OxygenOS to be a delight to use. It's fast and fluid, thanks to new parallel processing that OnePlus talks way too much about, and it has some really useful and well-thought-out features.

Charging

There's a fun new wireless charger

The OnePlus 13 once again sports 80W wired charging, which is as fast as it gets. It's also the same wired charging speed as the OnePlus 12 and Open. You do have to use an official OnePlus charger, unfortunately, and that seems like something that's not going to change any time soon.

It also supports 50W wired charging, thanks to a new magnetic puck. It's...a bit strange. The OnePlus Airvooc 50W Magnetic Charger looks really cool, but it's also really thick and surprisingly loud. It has a fan built into it, so as soon as you put a device on it (it works with any Qi phone, although not at 50W), you'll hear it spin up.

You only need a few minutes on the charger and you're good to go.

I assume that people use these things, but I really don't see the point. You have to plug it into a standard Supervooc charger, so wouldn't you just used wired charging? They're both super-fast, but wired is faster and quieter.

It's a positive thing though. The Airvooc charger exists if you want it, and if not, you still get Supervooc, which is awesome. If you've ever only had 10 minutes before you had to go somewhere and realized your phone is dead, you know how valuable this can be.

Performance

All you need to know is it's Snapdragon 8 Elite

The Snapdragon 8 Elite uses Qualcomm's custom Oryon v2 CPU cores, so you already know that this is the most powerful Android phone on the market, blowing away last year's devices. And battery life is all day; if you use your phone heavily and it's not, a few minutes on the 80W charger and you're right as rain.

I don't want to get too deep into it because at this point, it's so irrelevant to about 99% of the people that buy a smartphone. I've been saying for years that flagship phones have more power than anyone except hardcore mobile gamers need, and with the generational leap that comes from the Snapdragon 8 Elite, you'll be comfortable for years to come.

Have some benchmark scores:

• Geekbench 6: 2,980 / 9,120
• 3DMark Wild Life Extreme: 6,046
• AnTuTu: 2,035,274 (CPU 272,179, GPU 1,027,074, Mem 435,877, UX 300,144)

I do have the OnePlus 13R, which has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 under the hood, and that should be solid as well. I can't talk about my actual usage of it just yet, but the chipset is a known commodity at this point, so you should have a good idea of how it performs at its lower price point.

Should you buy the OnePlus 13?

You should buy the OnePlus 13 if:

• You don't want the same thing that everyone else has
• You need to charge your phone in a short period of time
• Your phone takes a beating
• You're switching to Android from an iPhone

You should NOT buy the OnePlus 13 if:

• You take a lot of pictures at night, especially zooming in
• You want the absolute best camera
• You want to invest in an ecosystem

The OnePlus 13 is my new favorite Android phone, dethroning the Pixel 9 Pro XL (sorry Baby Pro fans). It's a delight to use, from the vivid and smooth display to the fact that all of my MagSafe iPhone accessories work with it.

It's not perfect. You'll still get a better camera from a Pixel or an iPhone, but the camera is still great. The only other con is that if you want to invest in an ecosystem, this isn't for you. For example OnePlus Smart Search is great, assuming you have all of your documents on your device. On the other hand, Apple, Samsung, and even Google all have ways to reach across devices for that kind of thing.

It charges fast, wired or wirelessly, and it's powerful. I'm not sure how much else you could want. It's just a wonderful device, and it's one of the best phones out there.