OnePlus 13 Review: Flagship Killer Phone Takes On CES For The Win

When it comes to software, OnePlus always delivers greatness. And OxygenOS 15, which is based on Android 15, is no exception. It’s smooth and refined, clean and super responsive – without deviating too much from stock Android. OxygenOS still shares code, features, and design with Oppo’s ColorOS, but it’s clear that OnePlus has added its own special sauce to this software, especially when it comes to performance.

OnePlus 13 Software, User Experience and AI

One important optimization is with animations, which are now rendered in parallel instead of in sequence. This makes the user interface extremely fluid and snappy, and prevents the animation stutter we sometimes notice with other phones. Open Canvas, which was first introduced with the OnePlus Open, is now built right into OxygenOS 15, and delivers a powerful but intuitive multi-window experience.

In terms of AI features, the OpenPlus 13 comes with Google’s Circle To Search, Gemini, Gemini Live, and Magic Compose (inside of Google Messages). Other OnePlus AI features include Intelligent Search, which combines OnePlus’ local AI search with Gemini’s cloud-based search, and AI Notes, a note-taking app with AI-based tools that help you reformat, clean-up, polish, elaborate, and shorten your notes.
OnePlus’ own Photos app now includes a few interesting AI-based image editing tools. Besides AI Eraser, which helps you remove object or people from pictures, there’s also AI Detail Boost, which restores details in lower-quality shots that have been cropped or zoomed, AI Unblur, which removes blur from photos, and AI Reflection Eraser, which eliminates unwanted reflections in pictures (often with mixed results).
With the OnePlus 13, the company is promising four years of OS upgrades and six years of security updates (up from five years previously). As for pre-installed software, our unlocked review unit came with minimal bloatware. Other than Google’s suite of apps, and several (mostly useful) OnePlus apps, the only pre-installed third-party app was Netflix, which is arguably quite popular, and easy to uninstall.

OnePlus 13 Price and Competition

The OnePlus 13 is available for purchase unlocked from OnePlus, Best Buy, and Amazon starting today. It comes in two configurations: 12/256GB for $899 (Black Eclipse only) and 16/512GB for $999 (Black Eclipse, Midnight Ocean, and Arctic Dawn). For a limited time (until Feb 7), OnePlus is also offering a $100 trade-in credit with any phone in any condition, and $100 off the 16/512GB model, lowering the price to $899.

Alternatives to the OnePlus 13 include Samsung’s Galaxy S24+ ($999) / S24 Ultra ($1299), Google’s Pixel 9 Pro ($999) / 9 Pro XL ($1099), and Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro ($999) / 16 Pro Max ($1199). For gamers, there’s also the ASUS ROG Phone 9 ($999) / 9 Pro ($1199) and the RedMagic 10 Pro ($649). Outside the US, consider the new Snapdragon 8 Elite- and MediaTek Dimensity 9400-equipped flagships from Xiaomi, Oppo, and Realme.

OnePlus 13 Review Summary

Yes, the OnePlus 13 lacks support for mmWave 5G, but that’s a minor niggle because most folks rely on Sub-6 anyway, unless you're fortunate enough to live in the tight radius of a mmWave tower. At $899, it’s also $100 more expensive than its predecessor. However, considering Google and Samsung’s largest flagships now also cost an extra Benjamin, does this really make the OnePlus 13 any less of a flagship killer? We don’t think so. It still costs hundreds less than the competition for the same amount of storage, and unfortunately inflation is real.