Top hardware and best-in-class performance, yet unlike phones under Rs 1 lakh, the OnePlus 15 is priced right
Of all the flagship phones this year, the OnePlus 15 is arguably the best priced for consumers, given the rise in the cost of phone components and the advent of flagship phones under Rs 1 lakh.
The OnePlus 15 is here and now on sale in India. In the coming days, it will have its critics and supporters. But as it is being discussed, many people may overlook an important aspect of the OnePlus 15 this year. They may miss the whole picture. And the whole picture is that the OnePlus 15 is arguably not only the highest value premium phone you’re going to see this year, but likely next year as well. For a loaded phone like the OnePlus 15, the starting price of Rs 72,999 – and even better if you use exchange and bank offers – is really great.
Why do we say this? Well, look at it this way: If you’ve recently bought coffee, filled up your car, or looked at rental prices, you’ll know that everything costs more now. Then there’s the matter of the devaluation of the Indian rupee, imports becoming expensive and prices of components for Made in India phones skyrocketing. And yet the price of OnePlus 15 is reasonable.
Even more so when you look at the bigger picture, which is not only the core hardware of the phone, but also the cost of accessories, such as chargers that most phones no longer bundle in their boxes. Add to this long-term warranties – for example a lifetime green-line guarantee – and software support. It’s easy to see that the OnePlus 15 is ahead of all its competitors, if not in absolute terms, then at least in price.
With the OnePlus 15, you get what you pay for and even more
In a market where some brands are charging you extra for chargers and asking Rs 70,000 for “mid-premium” specs, the OnePlus 15 feels like a change agent, a phone that’s ready to challenge the status quo by staying connected to its roots and loyal to its community in an ever-changing market. Given that it replaces the brilliant OnePlus 13, the shoes were always going to be very big to fill, and yet, somehow the OnePlus 15 has become more than just a spec-bump. It is a statement, in style and substance – and more importantly, confidence and commitment.
Not that it’s any secret, but most “flagships” right now are struggling to adapt to older chips. The OnePlus 15 skips the line and takes the lead in becoming the first smartphone in India to pack the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. This is Qualcomm’s latest mobile platform, and it’s a beast.
More brands will follow but there is no point in a fast engine if the tires are flat. This is where up to 16GB of LPDDR5X Ultra+ RAM is added. It is billed as the fastest RAM available on a smartphone to date. When you combine this with OnePlus’ advanced triple-chip system (main CPU + dedicated touch chip + standalone Wi-Fi chip), you’re not just buying a phone for 2025. You’re buying a performance that will still feel sharp even after many years. The dedicated chip, in particular, is important because it enables touch sampling rates at 3200Hz! This should make the phone feel extra buttery smooth.
Then there’s the camera system, which this time is using the company’s new image processing system called DetailMax Engine. Its purpose: to bring out more detail in photos, so that everything from colors to textures, is top class. The DetailMax engine does this with the help of stellar camera hardware. It is built around a 50-megapixel main camera. There are two additional cameras – a 50-pixel telephoto camera with 7X optical-quality zoom, and another 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera. On the front, there is a 32-megapixel selfie camera made using a custom RGBW sensor. How do all these cameras perform? Well, to keep a long story short – brilliantly. For details, check out our OnePlus 15 review.
But that is not all. For years, we’ve been told that if you want a thin phone, you have to compromise with a 5000mAh battery. Apparently OnePlus didn’t get that memo. It built a 7300mAh silicon nanostack battery and then put it inside the OnePlus 15. TL; The DR version is: It has 15 percent silicone content to keep it dense but lightweight and is rated to retain more than 80 percent health after 4 years of use. It is worth noting that this is not just a number. We at India Today Tech have owned the phone and our experience with the battery life of the phone has been excellent. It lasts a long time and lasts a while, and for many users this will provide about 2 days of battery life!
When you need to top up, the 120W SuperVOOC gets you from 0 to 100 percent in less than 40 minutes. If you’re a gamer, bypass charging mode is a lifesaver. It supplies power directly to the motherboard, bypassing the battery to prevent heat build-up, so you can perform better without interruptions and at a tactical advantage.
We usually ask people to buy a case for their brand-new phone. With the OnePlus 15, you might not have to. The Sandstorm variant uses an aerospace-grade micro-arc oxidation (MAO) ceramic coating. It looks like ceramic, but it is 3.4 times harder than aluminum and 1.3 times harder than titanium. Again, there is a story here beyond the numbers. The coating on the OnePlus 15 is extremely scratch-resistant and tough, something you might have seen in some of the videos going viral. And if sandstorm isn’t your thing, the phone is also available in Infinite Black and Ultra Violet variants.
Durability may be a boring topic compared to chips and megapixels, but this phone has the industry’s most complete IP ratings: IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K. This means it can handle dust, water immersion, and even high-pressure water jets. Talk about showing up and showing off in every situation – the OnePlus 15 does double duty.
Speaking of which, if you play Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), this is your last game. The OnePlus 15 is the first smartphone to achieve a stable 120fps with zero frame drops for over 60 minutes, thanks to its powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip and super-fast RAM. And if you play Call of Duty or similar games, this is still your phone as it is loved even among the elite gamers attending the 2025 Call of Duty: Mobile World Championship finals. One of the reasons the OnePlus 15 is great at gaming is its 3200Hz touch response rate powered by a dedicated chip. This allows gamers to aim and shoot faster in the game. It registers every flick, every touch of your fingers on the screen, giving games a fluidity that other phones can’t match.
The screen, meanwhile, is a 6.78-inch 1.5K LTPO AMOLED panel, which boasts an industry-first 165Hz adaptive refresh rate. It’s also a beautiful display, one of the best we’ve seen on a phone, which we noted in our review of the OnePlus 15. The display brightness in HBM is 1800 nits, with a maximum brightness of up to 3600 nits. More importantly, the brightness can drop down to 1 nit for comfortable bedtime reading, supported by TUV Rhineland Intelligent Eye Care 5.0.
Why the OnePlus 15 is a “steal deal”
Here is what we need to understand. Flagship phones are already expensive this year. We mean that a price of Rs 1 lakh is ideal nowadays. Smartphones are going to become even more expensive next year. The OnePlus 15 is one of the last major flagship launches of 2025. If you’ve come this far, you can make an educated guess about how well this new phone from OnePlus has been put together.
Or consider this: You buy a phone, then a charger, then a case, then a screen guard. By the time you are done, you will have spent more than Rs 10,000. The OnePlus 15 comes with OxygenOS 16 lineage, a fast charger in the box, and build quality so you won’t need to baby the phone.
When you compare the OxygenOS 16 experience with its Plus Mind AI, powered by Google’s world-class Gemini LLM, versus the awkward interfaces of competitors, the premium feel more than justifies the price. You’re paying for a sophisticated, cohesive experience, not just parts that anyone can pick off the shelf and assemble. Then when you bring specifications into the equation, the math adds up like magic. We’re looking at a phone that offers the best chipset in the world, one of the biggest batteries in its class, and durability ratings that put rugged phones to shame.
Here on these pages, we like to evaluate phones by placing them into two categories – there are phones that are less than the sum of their parts. These are those phones which for some reason or the other do not match their specifications and price. And then there are phones that are much more than the sum of their parts. These are phones that come as a package so complete, that they’re more than worth their price. Priced at Rs 72,999, the OnePlus 15 is one such phone.
