The OnePlus 15 Is One of the Best Mainstream Phones for Gamers

If you're a mobile gamer, you know the bliss of playing anywhere you want to go -- and the anxious downside of draining your phone's battery as you do. That's why the OnePlus 15's massive 7,300-mAh battery makes this a promising handset for the discerning gamer on the go. Presumably, you'll be able to play for longer without draining your phone down to low capacity.

The reality is a little more complicated, partially because the OnePlus 15's advantages can be diminished if graphics and the frame rate are cranked up to the max. It's a good problem to have, as the phone's premium specs give it a higher ceiling for performance. However, gamers who aren't careful can drain their batteries nearly as quickly as other top-tier phones. 

Still, if you don't want a gaming-specific phone like the RedMagic 11 Pro or Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, which aren't easily available in the US, the OnePlus 15 is a mainstream handset that offers premium specs and features, making it a good choice. 

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The OnePlus 15 has a Full HD Plus (2,722 x 1,272 pixel) display with up to 165Hz refresh rate.

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The OnePlus 15's gaming experience

Good specs, good display, decent speakers

Battery life while gaming is important, but we'll set that aside for a moment to focus on the experience of playing games themselves. While both versions of the phone pack the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, I used the pricier $1,000 version with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which presumably performs better than the cheaper $900 model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. I tested a handful of popular games that are demanding enough to gauge the OnePlus 15's capabilities. 

The effect: 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 (2,722 x1,272-pixel resolution) and 165Hz maximum refresh rate. The latter is a big deal for gaming, but most games won't hit that cap, as they're typically set to 120 frames per second (fps) at most.

One of the few big games that supports such a high refresh rate is Dead Cells, whose roguelike gameplay is dependent on reaction time. In theory, it supports an unlimited frame rate, but I couldn't tell much difference between 120Hz and 165Hz -- with more frames per second (roughly one per hertz, so 165fps at the phone's maximum), it should enable players to respond faster, in the matter of microseconds. 

But I'll be the first one to admit that my clumsy fingers can't hit the touch controls accurately enough to get that level of quick response. That's where using a third-party controller comes in handy, and the Backbone I had in my desk drawer worked amazingly well. I plugged the OnePlus 15 in, and Dead Cells immediately switched over to external controls, already mapping my assortment of weapons and items to different buttons. In seconds, I was slipping in attacks between frantic sequences of dodge rolls and double jumps to evade enemy attacks. 

The OnePlus 15 slots in to the Backbone gaming controller just fine. 

David Lumb/CNET

When I switched to Destiny Rising, the mobile version of the venerable online shooter, the Backbone was a welcome experience, giving me a lot more button controls at my fingertips. There's less of a performance gap when using the physical controller with Destiny Rising, as the touch controls work quite nicely, all things considered, compared to Dead Cells. Ditto with Diablo Immortal. 

The mobile edition of the hack-and-slash dark fantasy game also has respectable touch controls; while there are a lot of buttons on the screen that block some of the action, they're placed in a way that I don't hit them accidentally and generally tap the one I mean to hit most of the time. 

Destiny Rising and Diablo Immortal look good with the graphics cranked up to their maximum allowed, but curiously enough, they can't quite reach the highest possible settings. That makes me wonder whether there's even a phone out there that can, because the OnePlus 15's specs are nearly 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 a PS3/Xbox 360 and a PS4/Xbox One. Powerful as it is, the OnePlus 15 can't improve the visuals on old games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but those with a distinct style, like Genshin Impact, look good with the phone's smooth frame rate.

This matches the OnePlus 15's performance benchmark test results from Geekbench 6 (which tests the CPU) and 3DMark's Wild Life Extreme (which tests the graphics). The OnePlus 15 achieved higher scores and frame rates than any other phone, except for the RedMagic 11 Pro. While handsets in the iPhone 17 series were not far behind, older phones are left in the dust -- my two-year-old iPhone 15 Pro Max got half the scores and frame rates that the OnePlus 15 did.

The OnePlus 15 is a big Android phone with a bigger 7,300mAh battery.

Andy Lanxon/CNET

The big battery helps

But fast charging is much more useful

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

But outside of a handful of those examples, the capacity advantage is more muted than I expected. The OnePlus 15's battery doesn't noticeably drain more slowly during gameplay than rival phones with smaller capacity batteries. Some of this can be attributed to the phone's higher graphics and frame rate capability, which somewhat counteract this capacity advantage. Crank them up too high and they'll drain battery life faster.

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

The OnePlus 15's greater advantage, especially for gamers with access to power outlets, is its recharging speed. The phone packs an 80-watt 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 but the iPhone 17 series and Samsung Galaxy S25 FE in our tests, all of which have smaller battery capacities. The phone also supports up to 50-watt wireless charging, and because most wireless chargers top out at 15 or 30 watts, good luck finding one that'll juice back up the OnePlus 15 at its maximum supported rate. The phone supports bypass charging, too, letting you play without draining the battery while it's plugged in (as long as you can game with a cord sticking out of the bottom of the handset). 

While I was disappointed that the large capacity didn't lead to slower battery drain while playing games, I was delighted by how quickly I could top up the phone between sessions. Heck, you can recharge it even faster with the phone's maximum 100-watt charging speed, if you pick up a separate OnePlus proprietary charger. It's worth noting that the larger battery will still prolong casual phone use that doesn't strain the hardware, such as browsing and using apps.

The OnePlus 15 plays any mobile game in the Google Play Store.

David Lumb/CNET

Final confrontation

What the OnePlus 15 has for mobile gamers over other phones

I found the OnePlus 15 to be a solid phone all around, and there's something to be said about a high-performance handset that appeals to mainstream tastes. There are certainly fans of the "gamer chic" black, angled lines and RGB lights that characterize products sold to the gaming demographic -- things that look like accessories for Decepticons, including the Asus ROG series of phones. Personally, I like the stylized artfulness of the OnePlus 15's rounded corners, flat sides and smooth matte back cover.

Another advantage the OnePlus 15 has over gaming-specific phones is a normal software interface. CNET senior writer Mike Sorrentino was frustrated by numerous annoyances in the RedMagic 11 Pro's software, from bloatware to brand watermarks on photos toggled on by default. The OnePlus 15 has a normal interface with its OxygenOS 16 skin on Android 16 -- no extreme gamer aesthetic. The Game Assistant app is simple and I find it automatically collecting games within its folder to be handy.

And crucially, the OnePlus 15 has far and away better photo capabilities than other gaming phones. Its suite of three 50-megapixel rear cameras captured impressive color and detail in a series of images showcasing the streets of Lisbon, Portugal, that were shot by CNET's talented principal editor (and professional photographer in his own right) Andrew Lanxon. While they don't quite reach the quality of a Samsung Galaxy S25 series or a Google Pixel 10, they're respectably close, and have the utility of main, ultrawide and telephoto cameras.

The OnePlus 15 does have some drawbacks. Other gaming phones have neat features, like the Asus ROG 9 Pro's external cooling fan and, crucially, its side port for charging while you're gaming. Worse, the OnePlus continues to lag competitors in offering only four years of Android updates and six years of security patches, which is notably less than the seven years that Samsung and Google offer (Apple doesn't promise iOS updates, but generally manages six or more years depending on the device). Other gaming phones are worse, with the RedMagic 11 Pro receiving only three years of Android updates, while the Asus ROG 9 Pro receives an abysmally low two years of operating system updates. Even if the OnePlus 15 is better compared to gaming phones, it's not great to spend about a grand on a phone only to see it stop receiving new, fun software features after half a decade.

There's another caveat to the OnePlus 15, which I wouldn't consider a dealbreaker for gamers. The phone's 1,800-nit maximum display brightness is fine outdoors, but pales in comparison to its competitors; the iPhone 17 series, for instance, boasts a 3,000-nit peak brightness outdoors. But I wouldn't expect many mobile gamers to be playing outside anyway -- I sure haven't been while I've done all this gamer science.