One of the standout phones this year has been the OnePlus 13, which was launched in January 2025. The OnePlus 13 continued a recent trend of OnePlus phones that broke barriers in different ways, and the OnePlus 13 ushered in a new era of water resistance for smartphones.
The OnePlus 13 was more than just this, however, as our OnePlus 13 review found it’s a brilliant all-around phone with a great design, excellent cameras, long battery life, and a feature-packed software suite.
How does OnePlus follow that up? Why is it not the OnePlus 14? What do we want to see in OnePlus’ next phone? Let’s find out.
Where’s the OnePlus 14?
You may be wondering: where’s the OnePlus 14? The answer lies in the translation of the number four into Mandarin, where it phonetically sounds similar to the word for death. This similarity leads to tetraphobia — a fear of the number four — and it’s the core reason that most East Asian companies avoid using this number in their model numbers. OnePlus previously jumped from the OnePlus 3 to the OnePlus 5 for this same reason.
What we want to see from the OnePlus 15
The OnePlus 13 is one of the best phones you can buy right now, and many of the competition still haven’t caught up, so there’s not a huge amount of improvement needed for the OnePlus 15 to compete. That said, there are a few key improvements that we’d like to see.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite 2
It’s almost certain that Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 will power the OnePlus 15, which should deliver a further boost in CPU and NPU (Neural Processing Unit) power. However, the Snapdragon 8 Elite draws a considerable amount of power, and hopefully, Qualcomm has improved the efficiency of the chipset as well.
One of the primary reasons for the new chipset is the inevitable boost in on-device AI performance. As we’d also like to see OnePlus bring its OnePlus AI key to the OnePlus 15, the likely improvement in NPU performance will make all of these, and the rest of Gemini, even smoother.
Even better battery life
If the rumors are true, OnePlus is poised to make a significant leap in battery life. This is no mean feat: the OnePlus 13 has one of the highest endurance ratings of any Android phone, and the likely jump to 7,000 mAh in the OnePlus 15 will increase this even further.
As someone who travels often, this will be a huge benefit. The OnePlus 13’s endurance makes it my favorite phone to use on a plane, as it’s easy to share the in-flight Wi-Fi connection with other phones, and the battery can last an entire long-haul flight with plenty to spare. The OnePlus 15 could make this even better.
A better telephoto solution
The OnePlus 13 camera has surprised me on several occasions, as it’s proven to be just as capable as the best smartphone cameras despite lacking a secondary telephoto lens like many Ultra phones. In many tests, it outperformed all the competition, thanks to its close partnership with Oppo, which resulted in similar hybrid zoom performance to the Oppo Find X8 Pro.
We’d like to see OnePlus finally address this in the OnePlus 15. In an ideal situation, OnePlus would add the secondary 50MP telephoto lens from the Oppo Find X8 Ultra, which offers 6x optical zoom and delivers performance up to 120x zoom.
A separate rumor suggests that OnePlus will stick to three cameras, but may follow rivals like Xiaomi by using a 200MP periscope telephoto lens. It’s unclear whether OnePlus will make broad changes to the camera on the OnePlus 15, but with the Pixel 10 and Galaxy S26 both expected to push the bar for cameras, I hope OnePlus will follow suit.
A thinner build
One last potential improvement is in the design. The OnePlus 13 boasts a stunning rear leather-like finish in blue, but its 8.5mm thickness is on par with some competition, but thicker than Samsung’s camera behemoth..
Given the ultra-thin design of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy S25 Edge, the Galaxy S26 Ultra could be slightly thinner, which makes it more comfortable in the hand. Hopefully, OnePlus will follow the current trend and make the OnePlus 15 a little thinner.
