Flagship iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones rule the premium space, but OnePlus challenges both with specs that match, if not outpace, most of their offerings at significantly lower costs. OnePlus 13 has a real shot at going head-to-head with the iPhone 17 and Galaxy S25 and offers flagship performance without that flagship price tag.
Amazon dropped the 256GB model to $699 for Black Friday, down from its usual $899, which is an all-time low that makes this Samsung and Apple rival affordable.
Industry-Leading Performance
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is Qualcomm’s high-end chipset, fabricated on a 3nm node. It strikes an excellent balance between high performance and energy efficiency. It handles demanding tasks from 4K video editing to high-end gaming without any thermal throttling or slowdown. Benchmarks peg it above Apple’s A18 Pro in multi-core operations and somewhere around Apple in single-core tasks. In reality, apps open instantly, multitasking remains fluid even with several dozen apps open, and games run smoothly at the highest settings available with stable frame rates.
The 12GB RAM makes sure everything runs smoothly from casual use to pro workflows. You can switch between apps without reloading them, keep extensive browser sessions running, and open demanding apps together with no performance degradation. This amount of RAM is more than what the majority of its competitors offer in this price bracket, not to mention that Samsung demands a much higher price for the same amount of RAM in its S25 series.
The 80W SUPERVOOC fast charging fills the battery from empty to full in about 30 minutes, eliminating the anxiety of low battery during busy days. You plug in during a quick break and gain hours of usage. This is much faster than the iPhone 17’s 27W and Galaxy S25’s 45W, giving the OnePlus a substantial practical advantage. The 50W AIRVOOC wireless charging brings fast charging convenience without cables, matching what flagship phones typically offer through wired connections.
The Hasselblad camera partnership works with color science and image processing to ensure pictures appear natural instead of oversaturated social media-ready. The primary sensor takes vivid photos in bright daylight or challenging low-light situations. The camera system features ultrawide and telephoto lenses that maintain consistent quality across focal lengths. Hasselblad’s involvement shows in the nuanced color reproduction and dynamic range that gives photos a more refined look compared to typical Android processing.
The 6.82-inch AMOLED display features a refresh rate of 120Hz which smooths out scrolling and makes touches super responsive. The screen brightness goes as high as 4500 nits under very particular conditions, well enough that it’s readable in direct sunlight when other phones would wash out. It supports HDR10+ for better contrast while watching compatible video content.
OxygenOS offers a clean Android experience (our favorite) with some very useful customizations that don’t bloat the interface. It also comes with three years of major Android updates and four years of security patches, keeping your phone current and secure. Additional features include game mode, parallel apps that allow running multiple accounts, and expansive gesture controls to enhance daily usability.
Battery life reaches a full day of heavy use with screen-on time exceeding 7 hours for most users. With the combination of efficient processor and large battery capacity, you are not hunting for chargers in the middle of the day. The phone handles heavy tasks such as navigation, video streaming, and gaming without frequent power management.
You get here flagship spec with Snapdragon 8 Elite and 80W charging at $699 which is $200 less than Samsung’s equivalent S25 and $300+ below the iPhone 17. Leading performance meets extremely fast charging and Hasselblad camera processing for true value that makes the traditional flagship pricing from Apple and Samsung increasingly hard to justify.
