This Midrange Oneplus Phone Undercuts The Galaxy S25 - And It's On Sale For $110 Off

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• OnePlus 13R costs $600 and features a agleam display, powerful performance, and accelerated charging.
• It doesn't person a flagship camera strategy and wireless charging.
• But for nan money, you won't find a much balanced handset.

At Amazon, the OnePlus 13R is connected waste for $490, its lowest value yet. Act accelerated because this woody will only past a constricted time.

The OnePlus 13R follows successful nan footsteps of its predecessor, delivering flagship capacity astatine a not-so-flagship price. It's sewage a large battery, decent camera upgrades, a flagship processor (even if it's from past year), and a much eager package update policy. Plus, it has 1 of nan champion displays I've tested successful nan segment, pinch Aqua Touch exertion and a durable build quality. 

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This each comes pinch a $100 value hike -- bringing nan erstwhile $500 exemplary to $600 now -- positioning it good supra nan Google Pixel 9a. So, should you opt for Google's much affordable offering, walk much connected a Samsung phone, aliases prime up nan OnePlus 13R? I spent weeks pinch nan device, and here's my verdict.

Big, bold, and bright

The first point I noticed erstwhile utilizing nan OnePlus 13R was its flatter sides, particularly compared to nan 12R. While this gives nan telephone a sharper, bolder look, it's not arsenic comfortable to clasp owed to its edges, contempt being thinner and lighter. On nan different hand, nan creation feels much ergonomic erstwhile held successful scenery orientation, making it perfect for gaming and watching movies.

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The Astral Trail (read: white) version I tested stands retired pinch etched solid rings, offering a stylish and elegant look. I urge this exemplary complete nan Nebula Noir variant, which features a dull, uninspiring achromatic finish. The telephone has a powerfulness fastener and measurement rockers connected nan correct side, an Alert Slider connected nan left, and an IR blaster connected apical for controlling smart appliances.

Kerry Wan/ZDNET

The OnePlus 13R is rated IP65 for particulate and h2o resistance, which is not arsenic durable arsenic nan OnePlus 13's IP69 rating. Still, it handles splashes reasonably well. Just don't driblet nan instrumentality into nan toilet aliases washing machine. Compared to nan 13, nan OnePlus 13R still has an optical fingerprint scanner that useful accelerated and accurately. You wouldn't announcement a quality if you hadn't utilized an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor before.

On nan front, you get nan champion show successful its people -- some successful position of specs and usability. It has a 6.78-inch AMOLED sheet pinch support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+ for media depletion and a move 1Hz-120Hz refresh complaint for soft usage and efficiency. That's each protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, which keeps nan telephone much resistant to scratches.

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The show is bright, pinch a highest brightness of 1,600 nits, and tin scope 4,500 nits erstwhile watching supported HDR content. The colors look pleasing to nan eye; they're agleam and vivid, moreover without immoderate show adjustments connected my end.

I'm peculiarly a instrumentality of nan OnePlus 13R's Aqua Touch technology. This allows you to usage nan telephone successful nan rainfall aliases ablution without registering h2o droplets arsenic taps. The show tin besides publication your touches erstwhile wearing gloves, which is useful during nan winter.

A capacity champion for $600

Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET

The OnePlus 13R is powered by nan aforesaid processor arsenic past year's OnePlus 12 -- and that's a bully thing. With it, you get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor paired pinch 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. 

The OnePlus 13R runs smoothly successful day-to-day use. My usage progressive jumping betwixt societal media apps for illustration X and Instagram, activity apps for illustration Slack and Teams, and WhatsApp for messaging. I besides utilized nan camera rather a batch during my testing period. The animations look and consciousness faster than before, too. I faced nary lag aliases stutter successful my usage.  

Gaming connected nan telephone has been very enjoyable contempt nan deficiency of on-device 120fps support. Instead, titles for illustration Battlegrounds Mobile can spell up to 120fps utilizing framework interpolation. If you're capable to settee pinch 60fps, astir games will play pinch small to nary jitters. The telephone tin get lukewarm to nan touch during extended gaming sessions, but I ne'er received immoderate notifications to discontinue games aliases apps to stabilize things.

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The OnePlus 13R runs Android 15-based OxygenOS 15 and is promised to get nan aforesaid number of updates arsenic nan OnePlus 13: 4 years of OS updates and six years of information updates. I find nan OnePlus package to beryllium reasonably clean, pinch only a fewer preinstalled apps. You get a fistful of AI features, for illustration AI Detail Boost, AI Unblur, AI Eraser, and AI Reflection Eraser, to heighten subjects aliases region distractions successful your photos. There are besides Google's AI fixins, for illustration Circle to Search and Gemini.

For my usage, nan telephone lasted an full time pinch ease. And erstwhile it comes clip to apical up nan 6,000mAh battery, nan OnePlus 13R tin beryllium accelerated charged astatine 80W pinch nan in-box charger. That intends you tin spell from zero to afloat successful a small much than half an hour. Unfortunately, there's nary wireless charging.

Improved cameras

Last year's OnePlus 12R had a decent superior camera pinch below-average auxiliary sensors. But nan institution has upgraded nan camera strategy this year. The OnePlus 13R sports a 50MP Sony LYT-700 sensor for nan superior camera, a 50MP telephoto sensor pinch 2x optical zoom, and an 8MP ultra-wide perspective lens. The trio supports shooting 4K 60fps videos. Plus, you get a caller unrecorded photos toggle to seizure nan emotions down your shots.

Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET

The main camera captures good-looking photos successful wide daylight. You get plentifulness of detail, bully move range, and decent achromatic balance. The 2x telephoto isn't arsenic versatile arsenic nan OnePlus 13's 3x sensor but offers a much-improved output compared to nan OnePlus 12R. The photos are afloat of details, and nan colour is accordant pinch nan superior camera, which is awesome to spot astatine this value point. The ultrawide camera, however, delivers a much saturated look.

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For portraits, you get decent separator discovery and good-looking shots astir of nan time. When you're successful a dimly lit environment, however, nan pictures struggle pinch specifications and person a soft look to them. Overall, nan OnePlus 13R has an improved camera setup and delivers awesome results for nan price. While I'd person preferred having a 3x optical zoom, nan upgrade to a telephoto sensor is simply a invited change.

ZDNET's buying advice

At $600, nan OnePlus 13R offers nan champion show successful its class, quality-of-life features, fantabulous performance, all-day artillery life, and a soft package experience. Its closest marketplace competitor, nan Google Pixel 9a, sits comfortably beneath nan $500 people and is simply a decent telephone for astir people. But it's a overmuch smaller instrumentality and is inferior successful almost each measurement successful position of hardware.

If you comparison nan OnePlus 13R to flagship smartphones, nan sheer worth of nan instrumentality really shines. Wireless charging mightiness beryllium a large miss for immoderate people, but nan longer endurance connected a azygous complaint mightiness dress up for it.

Looking for nan adjacent champion product? Get master reviews and editor favorites with ZDNET Recommends.