The OnePlus 15 is one of the best mainstream phones for gamers

If you’re a mobile gamer, you know the joy of playing wherever you want to go — and the troubling downside of draining your phone’s battery while you’re doing it. That’s why OnePlus 15The phone’s massive 7,300mAh battery makes this a promising phone for discerning gamers on the go. Presumably, you’ll be able to game for longer without draining your phone to low capacity.

The truth is a bit more complicated, partly because the OnePlus 15’s advantages could be diminished if the graphics and frame rate are pushed to the max. It’s a good problem to have, as the phone’s premium specs give it a higher ceiling for performance. However, players who aren’t careful can drain their batteries almost as quickly as others Top notch phones.

However, if you don’t want a gaming phone like Red Magic 11 Pro or Asus Rog Phone 9 Prowhich is not readily available in the US, the OnePlus 15 is a flagship phone that offers premium specifications and features, making it a good choice.

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OnePlus 15 gaming experience

Good specifications, good screen, good speakers

Battery life while gaming is important, but we’ll put that aside for a moment to focus on the gaming experience itself. While both versions of the phone have the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, I used the more expensive $1,000 version with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which should perform better than the cheaper $900 model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. I tested a number of popular games that are demanding enough to benchmark the OnePlus 15’s capabilities.

Impact: High graphics and smooth gameplay. Aside from its high-end hardware, the OnePlus 15 also has a 6.78-inch OLED display with HD Plus (2722 x 1272 pixels resolution) and a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz. The latter is important for gaming, but most games won’t go that far, as they’re usually set to 120 frames per second (fps) at most.

One of the few big games that support this high refresh rate is Dead cellsthe gameplay of which is a roguelike based on reaction time. In theory, it supports unlimited frame rate, but I can’t tell much difference between 120Hz and 165Hz – with more frames per second (about one per Hz, i.e. 165fps max for the phone), it should enable gamers to respond faster, in a matter of microseconds.

But I’ll be the first to admit that my clumsy fingers couldn’t press the touch controls precisely enough to get that level of quick response. This is where using a third-party controller comes in handy, and a workhorse tucked away in my desk drawer works amazingly well. I plugged in my OnePlus 15, and Dead Cells instantly turned into external controls, and I actually mapped a variety of my weapons and items to different buttons. In seconds, I was slipping through attacks between frenetic sequences of dodging and double jumps to avoid enemy attacks.

When it turned into The height of the potthe mobile version of the venerable online shooter, Backbone was a welcome experience, allowing me more button controls at my fingertips. There’s less of a performance gap when using a physical controller with Destiny Rising, as the touch controls work very well, all things considered, compared to Dead Cells. Ditto with Diablo Immortal.

The mobile version of the hack-and-slash dark fantasy game also has respectable touch controls; While there are a lot of buttons on the screen that prevent certain actions, they are placed in such a way that I don’t accidentally press them and I generally press the button I meant to press most of the time.

Destiny Rising and Diablo Immortal look good with the graphics maxed out, but strangely enough they can’t reach the highest possible settings. This makes me wonder if there’s a phone that can do that, because the OnePlus 15’s specs are pretty much the best you can get on a phone today. Regardless, with features like reflections and high graphics turned on, Destiny Rising and Diablo Immortal have good visuals, somewhere between PS3/Xbox 360 and PS4/Xbox One. Despite its power, the OnePlus 15 can’t improve the visuals in older games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but premium-style games, like Genshin Impact, look good with the phone’s smooth frame rates.

This matches the OnePlus 15’s performance test results from Geekbench 6 (which tests the CPU) and 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme (which tests graphics). The OnePlus 15 achieved higher scores and frame rates than any other phone, except the RedMagic 11 Pro. While phones are on iPhone 17 series I wasn’t far behind, old phones left in the dust – my two-year-old iPhone 15 Pro Max It got half the results and frame rates as the OnePlus 15.

3DMark Wildlife Extreme

OnePlus 15 7,227Red Magic 11 Pro 8,074iPhone 17 4,885OnePlus 13 6,762

Geek Punch 6.0

OnePlus 15 3,670 11,061Red Magic 11 Pro 3,683 11,664iPhone 17 3,612 9.18OnePlus 13 3,091 9,362

The big battery helps

But fast charging is more beneficial

Aside from its powerful specs, the OnePlus 15’s biggest flex is its 7,300 mAh battery, which is half the capacity of the 5,000 mAh batteries found in most premium phones, such as iPhone 17 Pro Max. This should result in a longer playback time, and from anecdotal experience, it does: the phone was at 2% charge when I started Dead Cells to speed up the battery drain, and I was able to play for 45 minutes before it automatically shut down to preserve the remaining 1%. It’s possible that OnePlus is intentionally lowering the bottom of the battery to give people more time (similar to feeling like you’re putting more miles in your car than expected when the gas tank light is empty), but it still gives the feeling of longevity.

But with the exception of a few of those examples, the ability advantage was less than I expected. The OnePlus 15’s battery does drain slower while gaming than competing phones with smaller capacity batteries. Some of this can be attributed to the phone’s higher graphics and frame rate capability, which somewhat contradicts this capacity advantage. Raise it too high and it will drain battery life faster.

I tested this by playing Destiny Rising for 20 minutes with all graphics and frame rate settings turned up to max, which drained 6% of the OnePlus 15’s battery. When I lowered performance to minimum settings for a similarly timed session, it drained 5% of the battery — a small change, but it adds up.

The biggest advantage of the OnePlus 15, especially for gamers who have access to power outlets, is the speed of recharging. The phone has an 80W charger in the box. In my testing, it refilled from nearly empty (1%) to 73% in 30 minutes and reached 100% in 45 minutes. That’s faster than everything except the iPhone 17 series Samsung Galaxy S25 FE In our tests, they all have smaller battery capacities. The phone also supports up to 50W wireless charging, and since most wireless chargers are rated at 15 or 30W, it’s a good idea to find a device that can back up your OnePlus 15 at the maximum supported rate. The phone supports bypass charging as well, letting you game without draining the battery while plugged in (as long as you can game with a cord coming out of the bottom of the phone).

Although I was disappointed that the larger capacity didn’t slow battery drain while gaming, I was pleased with how quickly the phone charged between sessions. Well, you can recharge it faster using the phone’s maximum charging speed of 100W, if you opt for a separate OnePlus-specific charger. It’s worth noting that the larger battery will still extend casual use of the phone that doesn’t strain the hardware, such as browsing and using apps.

The final confrontation

What the OnePlus 15 offers mobile gamers compared to other phones

I found the OnePlus 15 to be a solid phone all around, and there’s something to be said for a high-performance phone that appeals to mainstream tastes. There are certainly fans of the “great for gamers” angled black lines and RGB lights that characterize products sold to the gaming sector – things that look like accessories for the Decepticons, including the Asus ROG phone series. I personally like the stylized artistry of the OnePlus 15’s rounded corners, flat sides, and smooth matte back cover.

Another advantage that the OnePlus 15 has over gaming phones is the regular software interface. CNET senior writer Mike Sorrentino was frustrated by several annoyances in the RedMagic 11 Pro software, from bloatware to branding watermarks on images that turn on by default. The OnePlus 15 has a regular interface with Android 16-based OxygenOS 16 — no extreme gamer aesthetic. The Game Assistant app is simple and I find that it automatically groups games within its folder to be useful.

More importantly, the OnePlus 15 has much better photography capabilities than other gaming phones. Its array of three 50-megapixel rear cameras captured impressive color and detail in a series of photos showcasing the streets of Lisbon, Portugal, captured by CNET’s talented senior editor (and Professional photographer per se) Andrew Lanxon. While they don’t quite reach the quality of A Samsung Galaxy S25 series Or a Google Pixel 10it’s respectably close, and has the advantage of the main, ultra-wide, and telephoto cameras.

The OnePlus 15 has some drawbacks. Other gaming phones have cool features, like the Asus ROG 9 Pro’s external cooling fan and, more importantly, its side port for charging while gaming. What’s worse is that OnePlus still lags behind competitors in offering just four years of Android updates and six years of security patches, which is significantly less than the seven years offered by Samsung and Google (Apple doesn’t promise iOS updates, but generally manages six years or more depending on the device). Other gaming phones are worse, with the RedMagic 11 Pro only receiving three years of Android updates, while the Asus ROG 9 Pro receives a very low two years of OS updates. Even if the OnePlus 15 is better compared to gaming phones, it’s not great to spend around a thousand dollars on a phone only to see it stop receiving fun new software features after half a decade.

There’s one more caveat to the OnePlus 15, which I wouldn’t consider a deal-breaker for gamers. The phone’s maximum screen brightness of 1,800 nits is good outdoors, but pales in comparison to its rivals; For example, the iPhone 17 series has a peak brightness of 3,000 nits outdoors. But I don’t expect many mobile gamers to be playing overseas anyway — I’m sure I didn’t while I was doing all this gaming science.