As 2025 moves towards its final months, smartphone makers are clearly not waiting for the new year to bring out their best. The global flagship race is just heating up, with a number of premium launches taking place in November and early December. Some big names like the OnePlus 15 and iPhone 17 Pro Max have already arrived. Oppo Find Each of them brings their own strengths, which can excite many people. If you’re planning to upgrade, here’s a closer look at how these giants stack up.

OnePlus 15: performance-first flagship

Amid an early 2025 arrival, the OnePlus 15 has already made its debut. OnePlus has long maintained a reputation for raw speed, and this year the brand has doubled down on it with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. In our testing, the phone achieved a massive score of 3.6 million on AnTuTu, which no other flagship has touched so far, which gives you an idea of ​​how much OnePlus has pushed its hardware.

You also get a bright and smooth 6.7-inch display, a large 7,300mAh battery that easily lasts a whole day or more, and 120W fast charging for users who don’t like to wait. The premium build feels even more sophisticated this year, although the phone isn’t priced as aggressively as previous OnePlus flagships. Still, with a starting price of Rs 72,999, it is lower than most of the competitors arriving this month. That said, Vivo, Oppo and iQOO are gearing up for big launches, so performance comparisons will get more interesting soon.

Oppo Find X9 Pro: The camera-first challenger with a makeover

Oppo’s Find The phone is already available globally, and one feature everyone is talking about is the new telephoto camera system, which also supports an optional add-on extender lens for shooters who want additional optical reach.

The Find X9 Pro has many similarities with Vivo’s upcoming Still, according to global tech reports, Oppo has made significant improvements to the camera. Even though the Pro model only uses a telephoto lens, its advanced zoom behavior and close-up clarity make it a really powerful camera phone. The high-resolution OLED display with Dolby Vision support ties it all together.

The X9 lineup has two models: the regular Find X9 with a 6.59-inch AMOLED panel and the X9 Pro with a larger 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED screen. Both are powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500 SoC, paired with 16GB of RAM and UFS 4.1 storage. The vanilla model of Oppo is expected to be priced around Rs 75,000, while the Pro variant could be priced at Rs 1,00,000.

Vivo X300 Pro: Zeiss Optics and Telephoto Extender Kit

Vivo will enter the ring a little later, launching the X300 and X300 Pro in India on December 2. The brand is making big noise about its new Telephoto Extender Kit, which brings the Zeiss 2.35x teleconverter lens to smartphone photography. This accessory works with a dedicated teleconverter mode and even uses NFC for instant pairing, which photography enthusiasts will appreciate.

Inside, the X300 series uses the same 3nm Dimensity 9500 chip as Oppo’s The X300 Pro sports a Zeiss-tuned triple camera setup with a 50MP Sony LYT-828 main lens, a 50MP JN1 ultra-wide unit, and a 200MP HPB APO telephoto camera. Even the front camera is a 50MP shooter.

The standard X300 takes a different approach, housing a 200MP main sensor and 50MP telephoto, as well as a 50MP ultra-wide and 50MP selfie camera. With this level of hardware and Vivo’s image-processing pedigree, the X300 Pro is expected to be a strong contender among camera-first flagships.

iPhone 17 Pro Max: Apple’s bold redesign meets video mastery

Opinion is divided on Apple’s top-end model for the year, the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Apple used aluminum for the frame this year, which helps lighten the phone and may help maintain consistent performance. But the downside is durability, the new finish is more prone to scratches, and the mixed metal-glass back isn’t to everyone’s taste.

The display gets a new anti-glare coating, although the cutout remains unchanged. The performance is powered by the new A19 Pro chip that promises 40 percent better sustained output aided by a vapor chamber cooling system. Battery life has improved and charging speeds have finally become faster, resolving a long-standing complaint of users.

Photography gets minor upgrades in zoom and selfies, but many global reviewers note that Apple still lags behind Chinese flagships, especially in zoom quality. Where the 17 Pro Max absolutely shines is video. It handles every lighting scenario, every format, and every lens effortlessly, with the camera app striking a perfect balance between professional control and ease of use. Apple retains the video crown in 2025 too.

Apple’s latest model brings a unibody design with a wide rectangular camera plateau, Ceramic Shield 2 protection, and an IP68 rating. The 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen has all the expected features: ProMotion, HDR, True Tone, and a P3 color gamut. Storage increases to 2TB. It comes with a starting price of Rs 1,49,900.

iQOO 15: A valuable flagship worth looking at

iQOO’s flagship line is known for balancing price and raw speed, and the iQOO 15 continues that tradition. The phone is already available in China, priced at CNY 4,199 (approximately Rs 52,400) for the base model with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. It features a 6.85-inch 2K+ LTPO AMOLED display and shares the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip with the OnePlus 15. But iQOO adds its own Q3 gaming chip that unlocks 144fps gaming at 2K+ resolution, something gamers may want to keep an eye on.

The camera system is joined by a trio of 50MP sensors, and powering everything is a 7,000mAh battery with 100W wired and 40W wireless charging. In India, the iQOO 13 was launched last year with a Snapdragon Elite chipset for Rs 54,999, making it one of the most affordable phones with that processor. If iQOO follows a similar pattern, the iQOO 15 could be priced around Rs 60,000 when it launches on November 26, making it the most budget-friendly of the Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 flagships.