by
Chris Harper
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Monday, September 29, 2025, 02:01 PM EDT
Earlier today, OnePlus finally announced the highly anticipated OnePlus 15, which is also debuting in a dune-colored "Sand Storm" skin made of an aerospace-grade "micro-arc oxidation ceramic coating". This should result in the OnePlus 15 being one of, if not the most durable smartphones ever made, with a mid frame stated to be "3.4 times harder than aluminum" and "1.3 times as tough as titanium", complimented with a fiberglass back side. OnePlus 15 is the follow-up to the acclaimed OnePlus 13 we reviewed earlier this year, and no you didn't miss a number: The China-based company is simply skipping the "14" numbering, since 4 and 14 are known to be omens of death in East Asian countries.
OnePlus 15 Sand Storm Edition
We don't know too much about the OnePlus 15 yet, but OnePlus has promised to reveal more detailed specifications for the device closer to the launch date. What we do know is that the OnePlus 15 will be built on top of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform, which should bode quite well for its performance as a mobile flagship phone. Our own early benchmarking of Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 easily places it in the upper echelon of what modern smartphones have to offer, so OnePlus certainly isn't slacking on the internals here. As long as the cooling, storage, and memory remain competitive with other flagship phones, OnePlus 15 should be a real winner once it releases.
Sadly, we'll still have to wait for any news of the phone's size, storage, other skin options, and even pricing. But it is promising to hear about the durable materials and get a peek at the design of the new OnePlus 15. With a similar multi-camera setup as the OnePlus 13 and other modern flagships, we're sure this will be a fully-featured follow-up. If we're lucky, we may even see it adopt mmWave 5G, the lack of which was our single point against the OnePlus 13. Things are overall looking promising for the next generation of Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered hardware, though—with industry-leading CPU performance seen on the laptop side with Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Extreme, as well.
