OnePlus 13 review
6.82-inch OLED display
The OnePlus 13 features a thoroughly capable 6.82-inch LTPO OLED display. It's got a 1,440x3,168px resolution (510ppi pixel density) and a 1-120Hz refresh rate range, and uses a 2,160Hz PWM frequency for dimming. All sorts of HDR standards are supported, too.
The 13 introduces a new technology on improving sunlight legibility that we've occasionally seen in one way or another on phones from other brands. Dubbed Radiant View here, it not only boosts overall brightness, but analyzes content and can selectively crank up the nits on individual pixels.
When it comes to brightness, you shouldn't expect record numbers from the OnePlus 13, at least not under our standard testing conditions. We got just over 1,200nits with the auto toggle engaged and the phone placed under bright light. It's not a bad result, strictly speaking, but we've seen nearly twice that from some of the latest handsets, including the somewhat related Realme GT 7 Pro. While not chart topping either, the 800-ish nits that you can get manually is a more convincing figure.
Refresh rate
The OnePlus offers a fairly straightforward selection of refresh rate modes with both High and Auto allowing the maximum 120Hz and Standard capping things at 60Hz. In normal conditions we observed it readily dialing down to 1Hz for idle states in all three modes (provided the brightness was above a certain threshold), and the refresh rate would shoot to 120Hz or 60Hz (depending on mode) as soon as you touched the screen.
We didn't get anything above 60Hz/60fps in our typical set of games though - that's often been the case with Color OS phones (and their Realme UI/Oxygen OS relatives), though the OnePlus 12 did allow high fps gaming in our experience at the time of reviewing. The recent Oppo X8 and X8 Pro were hit and miss too, and the Realme GT 7 Pro was supposedly good for some titles, but not others.
Streaming and HDR
The OnePlus 13 has checkmarks for all major HDR standards including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. We got HDR streams from YouTube, as well as Netflix (both HDR10 and Dolby Vision). The Widevine L1 certification does ensure you get high-res playback of DRM protected content, in Netflix too.
Unsurprisingly by now, the OnePlus 13 supports the Android Ultra HDR standard for displaying HDR photos with a brightness boost for highlights. It works in Google Photos and in Chrome - for images from other compliant phones, too. The in-house Photos app offers an additional button to turn off the effect on a photo-by-photo basis for comparison, or keep it off for all images.
OnePlus 13 battery life
The OnePlus 13 is powered by a 6,000mAh battery - a meaningful improvement over the OP12's 5,400mAh capacity. The 13 also gets a switch to the latest silicon carbon chemistry. It's the year of high-capacity SiC batteries and OnePlus is keeping up with the times.
In our testing, we got a pretty impressive video playback runtime and an excellent result in web browsing. The gaming test returned more of a so-so number, but the call time was pretty solid. The overall Active Use Score of 15:28h is an excellent figure.
Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.
Charging speed
The OnePlus 13's specsheet lists a 100W charging capability and a 36-minute zero to 100% time. Since the phone doesn't ship with a charger, we tried with the closest we had on hand - the Realme GT 7 Pro's 120W adapter.
Our power meter maxed out at around 79W up to a 5% battery state, at which point it dropped to about 68W and the usual gradual decline followed. OnePlus's speed claims checked out and we clocked 35 minutes from empty to 100% and around 55% at the 15-minute checkpoint. It's not quite the OP12's time, but not half bad either - better than most of the recent releases, in fact.
If you're not using a SuperVOOC adapter, you'll probably get slightly slower results, though not necessarily by much. We tried with a random unit from our selection of (nice) aftermarket 65W adapters and got a steady 40-42W all the way up to 80%. The half-hour result was a rather solid 86% and the full charge took 51 minutes.
The OnePlus 13 also supports wireless charging, maxing out at 50W with proprietary peripherals - like the AirVOOC Magnetic Charger below (sold separately). Reverse power output is also possible - up to 5W over cable and 10W wirelessly.
AirVOOC Magnetic Charger on top of the Sandstone Magnetic CaseAs usual with Color OS and Oxygen OS, there's a fairly wide-ranging set of battery saver and battery health options on the OnePlus 13. It has the Smart charging toggle that attempts to learn your charging habits and does the final top off just before it predicts you'll be needing the phone. It also has the option to limit the charge to 80% when it detects you've got the phone plugged in for prolonged amounts of time. You can also turn off the Smart rapid charging and have the phone charge (slightly) slower than its maximum capability.
Speaker test
The OnePlus 13 doesn't bring any surprises with its speaker implementation and features a familiar hybrid system with one bottom-firing unit and another one above the display that directs sound towards the front and serves as an earpiece for voice calls. Both speakers will also output the opposite channel's track at a lower volume, in addition to their own. The phone will switch channels to match its orientation when in landscape, while the top speaker gets the left channel when the handset is held vertically.
Bottom speaker • Top speaker/earpiece
We got a 'Very Good' rating for loudness out of the OP13, a step up from the OP12 and on the same level as the vivo X200 Pro, Find X8 Pro , and Realme GT 7 Pro, though the OP13's numerical score is higher than all them. Sound quality is pretty great too, a noticeable improvement over the predecessor and better than most potential rivals.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Reader comments
- iIi
- 5 hours ago
- a3y
First things first There's no such a thing as "bbk" anymore. It's just oppo and vivo.(just google it) Then the flagship thing, are oppo x8 pro, vivo x200 pro, Xiaomi 15 pro, the upcoming s25+ not flagships? They aren't ev...
- Hi
- 5 hours ago
- 39x
Why this phone is not called Pro ? should be..
- bulbulito.bayagbag
- 5 hours ago
- UD$
Just imagine how much this is in the Philippines. Its very close to the newest iphones and galaxy flagships.