OnePlus 15 vs 15R: What Changes and What Stays the Same?

After the recent unveiling of the top-notch OnePlus 15, the company is all set to bring in the OnePlus 15R. The flagship OnePlus 15 has grabbed attention primarily for its battery, performance and camera improvements, and the 15R is going to cater for these experiences at a much lower price than the latter one.

Last month, the OnePlus 15, which was globally launched, has the price tag of $899 in the U.S. – this simply means that it followed the same pricing trend as the previous model. OnePlus has already planned a teaser for the 15R on December 17, and from it, we can assume a possible beginning price of $599. The previous R series models such as the 12R and 13R have had slightly lower specs in return for lower prices, and the areas that mainly got affected were storage, chipset, and camera configurations.

Comparing designs, the 15R seems to take up less space than the 15, as its rear camera layout is narrower. The first renders show the 15R in black and mint colors, whereas the 15 can be found in black, violet, and Sand Storm. It is believed that both the devices would support a 165Hz display refresh rate and possibly possess wide-ranging durability certifications such as IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings which imply resistance against high-pressure and high-temperature water jets.

The camera specifications of the 15R are pending to be confirmed in their entirety. Nevertheless, it is expected to be identical with that of OnePlus Ace 6, having a primary and ultrawide sensor and the telephoto lens being excluded. Video recording features are specified at 4K 120fps, hence the main advantage over the previous R models that maxed out at 4K 60fps. Initial testing indicates that the image quality will be at par with the top-of-the-line OnePlus 15.

The OnePlus 15R will performance-wise, use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 as its chipset which is an inferior version of the 8 Elite Gen 5 present in the OnePlus 15. Slightly lower scores for CPU, GPU, and NPU will be the result, yet benchmarks are showing that the performance gap between the two, i.e., the 15 and 15R may be less than in the past.

Battery life continues being a major selling point. The OnePlus 15 comes with an enormous 7,300 mAh silicon-carbon battery which holds up for more than 25 hours in standard tests. On the other hand, the 15R is expected to have a larger 7,400 mAh battery that will be made of the same materials, thus it will not have a shorter life but rather one that lasts a little longer.

Users of both devices will get Android 16 out of the box and besides that OnePlus’ Plus Mind AI feature will allow them to engage in an efficient manner by making automatically taking screenshots and retrieving of information. R series units have been typically introducing high-end AI features, therefore it is reasonable to assume that the 15R will also be up to its premium counterpart regarding the intelligent functions offered.

It has been pointed out by the experts that the R series presents a good deal that is hard to refuse especially considering it gives nearly flagship encounters but at a fraction of the value. So, the OnePlus 15R, in the market of the costs of the above-mentioned features, could lure consumers with long battery life, AI leverage and good performance at a lesser price. The announcement date of December 17 is not far off and hence the question-that-can’t-be-answered is “how closely will the 15R resemble the flagship 15?”-still holds very good.