I have been using OnePlus 13R as my daily driver for the past week. For this price, I think it is (if not the best) one of the best phones out there with as usual one major compromise – the cameras. But there is certainly more to it that I will be covering in this content piece. So, without much ado, let’s talk about OnePlus 13R in detail.
OnePlus 13R Review: The Performance
I had to talk about the performance first because this bad boy is a beast when it comes to performance.
It has the same flagship chipset as that of the OnePlus 13, which offers a similar performance as that of the OnePlus 13. I know they may sound like big claims, but I have thoroughly tested its performance by playing heavy mobile games and multitasking. To give it a fair front, I relied on my high-speed Cox Internet for testing. Cox is my choice for home WiFi because of its reliability, affordable plans, and 24/7 available Cox customer service.
OnePlus 13R held up really well during those long gaming sessions. There was no lag and the games played out smoothly. As for multitasking, I opened multiple apps at the same time to stress out the phone, but it didn’t, thanks to its 12 gigs of LPDDR5 RAM. The switching between the apps was smooth like a knife through the butter.
The only performance issue I faced was when the battery dropped under 20% (which makes sense). Apart from that, this Android is a great choice for people looking to keep power in their pockets.
OnePlus 13R Review: The Cameras
Why did I call it ‘almost’ flagship? It was because of the cameras. As of the current standards, the cameras of this phone are subpar. By current standards, I mean when compared to the modern Pixels and Galaxy’s.
It has a 50MP main shooter, a 50MP telephoto lens, and an 8MP ultrawide lens.
The main shooter comes with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), whereas the other two lenses don’t have OIS. The telephoto lens can take photos up to 2x optical zoom and struggles a lot in low light. The main shooter is okay in low light and great when the scene it is trying to capture is properly lit. The same story follows for the 8MP ultrawide lens as those photos from this lens are barely usable in low light. The corners fringe a lot in the ultrawide photos.
The best thing about this camera system is its capability to shoot portraits that are nice and do a great job, distinguishing the foreground and the background.
OnePlus 13R Review: The Design and the Display
This is where the OnePlus 13R shines again in my review. The design of this phone is great, and it is pretty comfortable to hold because of the rounded corners. The camera bump feels slightly weird because of its uncentred placement, but you will get used to it.
The front and the back of the phone are glass. While the front glass is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i, there is no protection on the back of the phone (tip: always use a case with this phone). The overall design of this phone is great, and now, let us come down to the display.
I am in love with this display; it is nice, sharp, and bright, and the colors are pretty accurate. Though it is not a quad-HD display, OnePlus does a great job bumping up the pixels to 450ppi. Unless you do the pixel-peeping, you won’t be able to tell the difference between this display and the OnePlus 13’s quad-HD display.
I have been consuming most of the content on this screen, and the overall experience has been fantastic.
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OnePlus 13R Review: The Battery and Charging Experience
OnePlus 13R has one of the biggest battery capacities on any phone in the market right now: 6000mAh.
This phone is an easy two-day phone with heavy usage (except gaming). OnePlus is using silicone batteries for both the OnePlus 13 and 13R. Silicon batteries have greater capacity while occupying less space inside the phone. They might charge rather slowly compared to previous OnePlus standards, but they still offer plenty of fast charging speeds with the 80W charger that can charge the OnePlus 13R from zero to 100 in around 55 minutes.
However, there is no wireless charging support, which is okay to not have for the upper midrange price of 600 bucks.
OnePlus 13R Review: Should You Buy One?
Let’s address the elephant in the room – should you swipe your credit card for OnePlus 13R?
Well, if you have a three to four-year-old Android, and it has started to struggle with battery and performance, then I think you should get the OnePlus 13R.
