OnePlus 15 and iPhone 17 Pro Max. | Image by PhoneArena
OnePlus released its flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 15, last year with some superb specifications. The company is now working on its successor, and surfaced leaks suggest that the device will see an upgrade in almost all departments.
It'll be a performance beast
In our testing of the OnePlus 15, we found that it delivered incredible performance thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. In fact, it easily beat last year's top phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Pixel 10 Pro XL in the Geekbench 6 CPU test. Its successor would most likely perform even better if the leak regarding its chipset is true.
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According to a reliable tipster, Digital Chat Station, the OnePlus 16 would come equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro processor. It'll reportedly be built on a 2 nm node and feature LPDDR6 memory. For reference, the 12 GB variant of the OnePlus 15 uses LPDDR5X Ultra, whereas the 16 GB model comes with LPDDR5X Ultra Plus.
An even better screen
Last year's OnePlus flagship came with a 165 Hz refresh rate display. If that number sounds impressive to you, you would be really thrilled to know that the OnePlus 16 is reported to come with a 240 Hz refresh rate screen.
It's not that we're seeing such a high number for the first time. Sharp, a lesser-known smartphone brand, launched the Aquos Zero 2 in 2020 as the first phone with a 240Hz refresh rate display. But seeing this come from a mainstream company is really a big deal.
The phone will reportedly use a flat screen that will be developed by BOE. That said, we found in our testing that the OnePlus 15 captures a lot of reflections. So, we really hope that the tech giant addresses this in the upcoming model.
A huge camera upgrade
Rear camera setup of the OnePlus 15. | Image by PhoneArena
The OnePlus 15 scored 151 points in our internal camera testing, which is a big jump from its predecessor, the OnePlus 13. However, if you compare its camera performance with some of its rivals like the Galaxy S25 or the iPhone 17, you might find these two producing better images.
The brand is apparently looking to work on the camera department as well, as the upcoming phone is rumored to feature a 200MP telephoto lens. This will reportedly be paired with a 50MP primary and a 50MP ultra-wide camera.
A massive 9000 mAh battery
Lastly, DCS claims in their post that the phone will feature a humongous 9000 mAh cell. For reference, the current OnePlus flagship comes equipped with a 7300 mAh battery, and it itself is quite big. In fact, it's one of the very first major US flagships to come with such a large battery capacity.
In our in-house testing, we found that the OnePlus 15 was able to survive for almost 11 hours on a single charge. This number is only going to go up in the OnePlus 16 if its reported battery size pans out to be true.
Would you consider buying the OnePlus 16 instead of the iPhone 18 Pro based on these leaks?
Other tipped specifications
In addition to all the above-mentioned details, the tipster also mentioned that the upcoming phone would come with a bionic vibration X-axis motor and symmetrical dual speakers. It would be water-resistant and also have a dedicated AI button.
While there's not much information available about the AI button, I believe using it will allow you to quickly access all the AI features of OnePlus, like AI Suggest, AI Writer, and more.
Well, we definitely shouldn't compare it with the Pro model. Still, if you put the rumored specifications of the iPhone 18 Pro and the OnePlus 16 side by side, you'd find the latter easily winning the battle in multiple areas.
Starting with the display: compared to the rumored 240 Hz refresh rate display of the OnePlus 16, the iPhone 18 Pro is believed to feature a 120 Hz refresh rate screen. The upcoming iPhone Pro model is believed to come equipped with a roughly 5,000 mAh battery, which would be a big jump from the iPhone 17 Pro, but it's still less in raw numbers than the OnePlus 15, let alone the talk of competing against the 9,000 mAh OnePlus 16 battery.
The possibility of all these specifications actually appearing in the upcoming OnePlus flagship seems strong, because most of them were also shared a while ago by another reputable leakster, Smart Pikachu. All that said, if you've read this far, I'd highly appreciate a follow on Threads and X, where I regularly share news related to everything happening in the smartphone industry.
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Aman Kumar is a tech news writer with a long-standing passion for smartphones. Aman specializes in everything smartphones, from AI features like Pixel’s Camera Coach to understanding ideal hardware combinations. He loves breaking down complex features in a simple, clear way and hopes manufacturers bring back bold designs like the Nokia N-Gage. When he’s not writing, he’s either gaming on PUBG or talking fitness as a dedicated gym enthusiast.
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