OnePlus 13R

OnePlus traditionally offers an "R"-version of its flagship phone, offering many of the same features at a lower price. The same applies to the OnePlus 13 series. While the OnePlus 13R resembles the flagship in many aspects, there are some differences. Notably, the OnePlus 13R skips the curved edges on the display and there's a different camera setup with dual 50 megapixel cameras and an 8 megapixel wide-angle sensor. I took the OnePlus 13R with me over the last few weeks to try it out in practice, thereby focusing on its gaming and camera performance and checking out OnePlus' AI features.

• Don't miss our OnePlus 13 review

Look and Feel

For this review, I received the white version of the OnePlus 13R. It features a nice-looking plastic back with a brushed effect. Where the OnePlus 13 has a slightly curved display, the OnePlus 13R has a flat display and square edges that somewhat remind me of older iPhone models. The flat display combined with the aluminium edges give the OnePlus 13R a premium feeling when held in hand. Even though I like the OnePlus 13's design as well, the OnePlus 13R's square, aluminium design is somehow easier to hold, and after using the OnePlus 13R without a case for a while I personally like the OnePlus 13R's design more.

Display

One of the highlights of this phone is its 6.78" display with 1.5K resolution, which is a fraction smaller than the one on the OnePlus 13. I've put the two phones side-by-side, and to the untrained eye, the two displays seem nearly identical. The OnePlus 13R's screen has great colours, it's crisp and the peak brightness is spectacular at 4,500 nits. I cannot imagine any difficulties reading the screen under any circumstance, including at an angle. Additionally, the display features a dynamic 120 Hz refresh rate which makes animations fluid, and scrolling through web pages is super smooth. I maxed out the display quality with all the bells and whistles enabled, and it's simply a great experience watching Netflix or other video content. In all, the display is one of the best features on the OnePlus 13R.

Performance

Powering the display is the {Snapdragon 8 Gen 3} chipset, which OnePlus says has been optimised for performance and battery life. It's coupled with 12 GB LPDDR5X RAM plus 12 GB virtual RAM, and 256 GB of UFS 4.0 storage. The combination feels smooth at all times, with multiple apps effortlessly running simultaneously and in the background. I often open apps again after several hours or even days, discovering they are still open where I left off. As for mobile gaming, I tried more demanding games like {World of Tanks: Blitz}, {Ark: Ultimate Mobile Edition}, and {Call of Duty: Mobile}. Each of these games can be played maxed out and run like a charm, without the phone heating up considerably. In my experience, it makes the OnePlus 13R a great device for mobile gaming, especially when you consider its battery life.

Battery Life

As important for gaming as in every day use case is battery life, which is also excellent in my experience. The OnePlus 13R is powered by a large 6,000 mAh battery, the largest one so far in a OnePlus device. I once let the OnePlus 13R sit in my drawer for an entire week as I was testing the OnePlus 13, and the phone went from 100% to around 80%. Afterwards, when using the phone as a daily device, the battery easily and consistently lasted a full day. I hardly used battery saver mode as there's no need to besides when I leave home for a longer period just to be sure. The OnePlus 13R has no wireless charging support, but with charging allowing for up to 80 watts it's lightning fast and frankly, I wouldn't see the lack of wireless charging as a disadvantage looking at the short charging times.

Camera and Photography

In the camera department there's a 50 megapixel main camera with Sony's LYT-700 sensor and optical image stabilisation, coupled with another 50 megapixel camera for telephotos at 2x optical zoom and an 8 megapixel wide angle camera with a 112 degree field-of-view. Both secondary cameras only have electronic stabilisation. I've taken the OnePlus 13R with me outside a couple of times, and it consistently shoots great photos with the main and 2x zoom camera. Whether outdoors, or indoors with worse lighting, I'm able to shoot good-looking images with nice detail and good colours. The 8 megapixel wide-angle camera on the other hand delivers noticeable darker images, and details are more washed out compared to the other two.

The 2x zoom camera is especially nice for portraits. I've been consistently impressed with photos I shot using portrait mode. When shooting a couple of photos in succession, there's always a really sharp one with a beautiful bokeh effect among them, with a nice depth of field and clean lines between the subject and background. I therefore really like the 2x zoom camera, even though the zoom is less than on the OnePlus 13 and competitors. Beyond 4x zoom images are AI-enhanced on-device, which improves quality of zoomed photos a lot. The selfie camera also performs well enough for things like social media photos, though at a noticeable lower quality than the main cameras. Whereas I would say the main camera is definitely a highlight, the selfie camera is bang average.

Shooting Video

Video can be recorded at up to 4K at 60 fps using the cameras on the rear, while the selfie camera only goes up to 1080p at 30 fps. I never shoot video in more than 4K at 30 fps anyway to save on file size, and shooting with either the main camera or 2x zoom camera delivers great quality video. Daytime videos are excellent, and the 2x zoom camera allows for more creativity and zooming without losing quality. I didn't have a camera with optical zoom on my previous phone, and I'm really liking it on the OnePlus 13R. Shooting with the selfie camera at 1080p is similar to its photography performance: it's fine in good lighting, but definitely not a highlight on this device.

I also shot a short vlog of an evening walk outside. Under street lighting, the cameras still manage to capture a lot of detail and video stays clear. Only under very low lighting conditions, such as indoors with almost no lights on, there's a noticeable step down on what the OnePlus 13R's camera can capture, compared to the OnePlus 13. A final thing that's worth mentioning is that unfortunately, the wide-angle camera does not allow video for some reason. This can be a let down for people who like to shoot wide shots.

AI Features

The OnePlus 13 series comes with a couple of new AI features and as they're all the rage, let me just mention them briefly. {Gemini} is integrated and can be accessed by holding the power button. It's an easy way to start a quick voice conversation or chat, but besides trying it out I haven't used it regularly, as I'm still used to using ChatGPT as my AI companion. There's also on-device AI to help you write emails in notes for example, which works as well as any other similar tool. The most useful AI trick up the OnePlus 13R's sleeve are for enhancing images, though. Using Wi-Fi and a cloud connection, any photo can be optimised with AI to boost sharpness. Additionally, you can unblur images, erase elements and remove reflections. I'd rate the latter features as semi-useful additions though, as they still can't fix a bad photo entirely. Thankfully, many of the photos I shot already came out as intended.

In Conclusion

Taken together, the OnePlus 13R is a great cheaper alternative to the OnePlus 13 and offers great value for money on its own. It looks and feels like a premium device, and looking at the excellent display, fast performance and great battery life, this is certainly one of the top phones offering value for money right now. For photography and video, the main camera and 2x zoom camera offer great shots under most lighting conditions, and I've been impressed each time by the portraits I've been able to shoot. Video performance is equally impressive, but sadly not possible with the wide-angle camera. The selfie camera on the other hand is nothing to write home about, either for video or shooting pictures in lower light scenarios. However, with its high-resolution 120 Hz display, fast {Snapdragon 8 Gen 3} chipset and amazing battery life, the OnePlus 13R is really suitable as a mobile gaming device. In all, it's a solid phone by OnePlus that ticks a lot of boxes without any major compromises.