OnePlus 15 vs OnePlus 13, detailed performance test analysis

OnePlus Nord has been my daily-driver for more than 4 years. I use it on its base Android 10 to have a snappy performance for long period of time. In my experience, upgrading the software makes smartphones slower over time. My good-experience using OnePlus phone make me interested in new OnePlus devices. OnePlus 15 just got released couple of months ago, reviews and tests are out now. Interestingly, OnePlus 14 has been skipped, which makes the comparison between OnePlus 15 and OnePlus 13 smartphone. In this article, I will be focusing on CPU, GPU, storage, gaming, under-load video recording performance and more between them including different benchmark scores.

OnePlus 15 has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor vs OnePlus 13's Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite - both have 3-nm fabrication. The clock-speed is higher on the 8 Elite Gen 5 variant. Among the 8 cores, 2 of the high-performance cores have 4.6 GHz on OnePlus 15 vs 4.32 GHz on OnePlus 13, and the other 6 cores have 3.62 GHz on OnePlus 15 vs 3.53 GHz on OnePlus 13 smartphone. GPU is Adreno 840 on the OnePlus 15 vs Adreno 830 on OnePlus 13. Both come with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage as base variant. OnePlus 15 has UFS 4.1 vs OnePlus 13's UFS 4.0 storage. Both of them support Wi-Fi 7 standard. Bluetooth version is 6.0 on OnePlus 15 vs BT 5.4 on the OnePlus 13.

OnePlus 15 comes with Android 16 at its core vs OnePlus 13 has Android 15. Both have Oxygen OS 16 as a skin on top of Android OS for the international variant. They support additional 4 years of major Android OS upgrade.

The AnTuTu benchmark was done on AnTuTu version 11.0.4 by Techniqued - huge thanks to Techniqued on youtube. OnePlus 15 scored around 3.52 Millions vs OnePlus 13's 2.95 Millions. That looks like a decent improvement on the OnePlus 15 smartphone. The AnTuTu test measures performance of CPU, GPU, Memory and User Experience. OnePlus 15 has better CPU, GPU and User Experience. It will feel smoother in daily usage. The memory performance is pretty similar on both.

The Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark test had a score of 3523 on OnePlus 15 vs a score of 2858 on OnePlus 13 for single-core result. For multi-core score OnePlus 15 got 10364 vs OnePlus 13's 8185 score. I think this Geekbench test also shows decent improvement in both single-core and multi-core performance. This will make CPU-heavy work faster to finish, like video editing, opening games and all kinds of other processing. But you will not notice it through normal apps opening as they open very quick on both - it will be noticeable on heavy games and apps.

Both the OnePlus 15 and OnePlus 13 throttled to 82% of their maximum performance. However, the max score was a lot higher on the new OnePlus 15 device. This is because of the higher clock-speed for the CPU-cores and better thermal management. Both device supports Wi-Fi 7, and they show similar networking speed in download and upload scenarios. Also, check out my OnePlus 15 teardown article where I wrote about the crazy construction and crazy features of the OnePlus 15 device.

This test is GPU-heavy, there is a lot of load for graphics rendering. Both the OnePlus 15 and 13 has a similar stability score of around 71.5 percent. However, the OnePlus 15 with a better GPU has a better best-loop score of 6853 vs OnePlus 13's 6052 score. The highest temperature reached was around 47.5 degree celsius on both phones. The highest FPS recorded was 50 FPS on OnePlus 15 vs 46 FPS on OnePlus 13 during the test. This is not a significant improvement, but the improvements are there on the new OnePlus 15.

The gaming performance is also as expected, which is a more smoother gaming experience with the OnePlus 15 smartphone. OnePlus 15 finished opening some heavy games first, but OnePlus 13 also finished first in some other games. The new more powerful OnePlus 15 should have been ahead in opening all the heavy games. This might be because of all the optimizations done in the OnePlus 13 over time, but the OnePlus 15 is just new right now without further optimization.

The real smoother experience is noticeable in extended gaming sessions. In Battlegrounds Mobile, also known as PUBG Mobile, both devices support 120 FPS gaming. Over a gaming session on both devices, the OnePlus 15 had an average FPS of 113 vs OnePlus 13's 107 FPS-count. This points to a better gaming experience. There isn't any major heating issues while gaming on these devices. Screen recording while gaming is also better on OnePlus 15. The previous OnePlus 13 locks the gameplay to 60 FPS after turning on screen recording, but new OnePlus 15 allows 120 FPS gameplay while screen recording - this is a big plus.

Check out those articles from above, you can click on those linked images to read the articles. A while ago I published a review of the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G smartphone, check that out if you are into budget phones. In case you are interested in portable speakers, I compared 3 Boombox type speakers from 3 different brands such as Soundcore, Tribit and JBL. So don't forget to also check out that detailed comparison article about the JBL Boombox 3 vs Tribit Stormbox Blast vs Soundcore Boom 2 Plus.

The extreme scenario is probably recording at 4K resolution under sunlight on a hot day. They temperature can reach over 48 degree celsius within 5 to 10 minutes. If the device reaches 50 degrees, it will bring down the brightness of the device to reduce temperature. This can be seen on both the OnePlus 15 and OnePlus 13 devices. However, this high temperature event doesn't happen usually if you are recording under 4K resolution. Even hours of continuous gaming of heavy games doesn't hit 50 degree celsius usually. So, performance under load is well maintained on both.

The CPU performance and user experience is noticeably better on the new OnePlus 15 device. Both of them have flagship hardware, it's just the fresh OnePlus 15 has the latest and fastest processor. All the benchmarks shows better results for OnePlus 15 than the old OnePlus 13. In terms of performance, the OnePlus 15 is very smooth and snappy. It is also kind of a spec-king. I think, no matter what you do on your OnePlus 15, it will not disappoint you in terms of performance.

Also, please check out the JBL Charge 6 vs Charge 5 story for highlights.
IF you're interested in mid-sized portable speakers, check my JBL Charge 6 vs Bose SoundLink Plus article. The JBL Charge 6 did better in the head-to-head comparison.