OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: Can the flagship killer take another head?

OnePlus looks like it’s hit another one out of the park with this year’s OnePlus 13. The enthusiast brand’s latest flagship launched in China in late October, and this week, the company officially announced it will be landing in North America on January 7, 2025. As one of the first mainstream phones to be powered by Qualcomm’s bleeding-edge Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, it should bring significant improvements in the OnePlus 13’s performance, battery life, and photographic prowess compared to its predecessor.

This also puts the OnePlus 13 first in line to challenge Apple’s 2024 flagship. This year, the iPhone 16 Pro has raised the bar with Apple’s A18 Pro chip that powers new Apple Intelligence features and turns the smartphone into a gaming powerhouse. There’s also a clever new Camera Control and studio-quality cinematography features. Does Qualcomm’s latest silicon give the OnePlus 13 enough of an edge, and has the smartphone maker put it to good use? Let’s dig in and find out how these two measure up to each other.

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: specs

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: design

Although the OnePlus 13 preserves the iconic design language of its predecessors, this year’s entry modernizes things to match an aesthetic that’s now become the norm among flagship smartphone makers: flat sides.

That’s a departure from the rounded curves of the OnePlus 12 and prior models, but this new phone is still unmistakably a OnePlus device. It preserves the elegant circular camera bump that’s become a hallmark of the lineup since its introduction on the OnePlus 11, but also refines it in some interesting ways.

For one, the camera ring now stands alone. Gone are the horizontal tangents connecting it to the phone’s side, and the outer ring is considerably more subtle than before. The LED flash has been moved inside the camera bump, and the Hasselblad logo, which went from a full wordmark to a stylized “H” on last year’s model, has been moved out to the edge, above a horizontal line that bisects the camera array. The OnePlus 12 was already a slick-looking smartphone, but the changes in the OnePlus 13 add a new level of class to the design.

OnePlus is also making two big changes to its colors this year, departing from last year’s Flowy Emerald and years of green shades in favor of a new blue finish. That was released in China as “Blue Moments,” but it will be dubbed “Midnight Ocean” for the North American release. That’s joined by “Black Eclipse” as the more typical neutral shade (known as “Obsidian Secret Realm” in China). However, we’re getting the company’s third color here this year, with the ordinarily China-exclusive “White Dew Morning Dawn” coming to the U.S. as “Arctic Dawn.”

However, there’s more to these than merely colors. Only Black Eclipse will sport the traditional OnePlus finish. Midnight Ocean will be coated in a micro-fiber vegan leather finish — a first for OnePlus — while the Arctic Dawn will use a special coating on the glass to give it a silky smooth finish. We’ll have to wait and see what that last one means for grip and smudge resistance, but it sure sounds nice.

Compared to what OnePlus has done this year, the iPhone 16 Pro seems considerably more pedestrian. That’s not to say it doesn’t have a great design, but little has changed on the iPhone front in the past four years. Apple led the way in the move to flat edges with the iPhone 12, and this seems to be the year where everyone else is catching up to that design.

Apple switched from stainless steel to titanium for the iPhone 15 Pro lineup in 2023, which reduced the weight and smoothed the sides a bit, but it hasn’t made the same kind of bold design choices that OnePlus has. Even the phone’s colors have been relatively muted over the past two years, with the iPhone 16 Pro available in Natural Titanium, White Titanium, Black Titanium, and Desert Titanium. The first three are exactly what they sound like, while Desert Titanium leans more toward champagne than brown.

The OnePlus 13 retains the alert slider in its left-side position after moving it there on last year’s model, while the iPhone 16 Pro similarly sticks with the Action button introduced on the iPhone 15 Pro and adds a new Camera Control button for quickly pulling up the camera and snapping pictures. Apple retains its standard IP68 dust and water resistance rating for immersion in up to 6 meters of water for up to 30 minutes, while OnePlus seriously upped its game this year by giving the OnePlus 13 both IP68 and IP69 ratings — a significant improvement over the relatively weak IP65 of its predecessor.

For OnePlus, this IP68 rating means it can hold up in up to 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes, so it’s not rated to go as deep as the iPhone 16 Pro. However, the additional IP69 rating gives it more protection in another area, certifying the OnePlus 13 to handle high-pressure and high-temperature water jets. This means you could power-wash your phone if you wanted to — though please don’t.

With a classy look, unique finishes, and an IP69 rating, the OnePlus 13 is the clear winner for this round.

Winner: OnePlus 13

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: display

The OnePlus 13 display remains essentially the same as that of its predecessor. It’s still a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED panel with a 3168 x 1440-pixel resolution and an adaptive refresh rate ranging from 1Hz to 120Hz. That works out to a pixel density of 510 pixels per inch.

The main change in this year’s OnePlus 13 display is a slight increase in brightness — 800 nits of typical brightness compared to 600 nits for the OnePlus 12. The peak brightness is still 4,500 nits, but that’s more than enough for anyone.

Even though the specs remain the same, the switch to flat edges on the OnePlus 13 means the screen is also almost entirely flat, so you’ll end up with slightly more of it facing you. There’s technically a very subtle curve at the edges — by definition, it’s a 2.5D quad-curved screen — but don’t expect it to be anywhere near as curvy as the OnePlus 12.

Apple’s iPhones never embraced curved screens, and the iPhone 16 Pro is no exception. This year’s model has grown over its predecessor, but the new 6.3-inch display is still smaller than that of the OnePlus 13 (you’ll have to go with the pricier iPhone 16 Pro Max to get something comparable in size) and offers a lower 2622 x 1206-pixel resolution at 460 ppi. That makes it slightly less crisp than OnePlus’ larger screen, but it does get brighter during everyday use, with 1,000 nits of typical brightness. It can also drop to a single nit on the low end, making it ideal when you want to use it in a darker room without overpowering your eyeballs.

The iPhone 16 Pro maxes out at 2,000 nits of peak outdoor brightness, which is less than half of what the OnePlus 13 can do on paper, but it’s hard to see this as much more than a spec sheet difference, as we’ve never had any problem seeing the iPhone 16 Pro even in direct sunlight.

The bottom line is that both phones offer bright and vivid displays, Full HDR and Dolby Vision support, fast 120Hz refresh rates for buttery smooth scrolling, gorgeous colors, and deep blacks. The primary differences come down to specs like peak brightness and pixel density, which most people won’t notice, and while the OnePlus 13 is larger, size isn’t everything; some folks prefer a more pocketable phone, so we’re calling this one even.

Winner: Tie

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: performance

Over the past few years, top-of-the-line flagships have proven how much we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns in performance, and the OnePlus 13 and iPhone 16 Pro prove that even more this year. Both phones are powered by silicon with power far beyond what most folks will need, so the simple answer to which of the two performs better is that it won’t matter as you’re unlikely to push either to its limits.

The OnePlus 13 is one of the first mainstream phones on the market to be powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform. Apple develops its own chips; this year, it’s the latest A18 Pro inside the iPhone 16 Pro.

We’ve done a more detailed comparison of the Snapdragon 8 Elite versus the Apple A18 Pro for those who want to delve into the details, but the differences have more to do with the platform than the performance.

For instance, Apple has worked hard to court AAA game developers for the App Store. Last year’s iPhone 15 Pro lineup, powered by the A17 Pro chip, ushered in an era of console-quality games in your pocket, from Resident Evil Village to Assassin’s Creed Mirage. These played well on the A17 Pro chip thanks to Apple’s new GPU technology with hardware-accelerated ray tracing and Metal effect upscaling, and they run even better on the A18 Pro.

However, Apple’s coup here wasn’t only in producing groundbreaking silicon, but in convincing game studios to embrace the iPhone. The Adreno GPUs in Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon chips can easily compete head-to-head with Apple’s A-series silicon, but you can’t find the same quality of games in the Play Store to prove it.

That matters if you’re a hardcore mobile gamer, the iPhone 16 Pro wins, not because it has more capable specs, but because it has better developer support. That’s been Apple’s advantage for years, so it’s not too surprising.

Winner: iPhone 16 Pro

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: battery

For non-gamers, the more significant advantage to this year’s chips comes not from raw performance, but from power efficiency. The new 3-nanometer (3nm) manufacturing process used by both Qualcomm and Apple should translate to longer run times between charges.

We’ll have to wait and see what this means for the OnePlus 13, but the iPhone 16 Pro disappointed us by barely getting through a day of use. We expect the OnePlus 13 to do much better thanks to its 6,000mAh cell, and it’s probably more fair to compare it to the larger iPhone 16 Pro Max, which we found has fantastic battery life, in this one area. Battery life is still the biggest price one pays for having a smaller phone.

Unsurprisingly, OnePlus continues to run circles around Apple — and nearly everyone else — when it comes to charging speeds. The OnePlus 13 supports wired charging speeds up to 100 watts and wireless charging up to 50W. You’ll need to buy OnePlus’ proprietary chargers to take advantage of these speeds, and if past trends continue, we’ll probably “only” get 80W charging in the North American models, but that’s several times faster than what the iPhone 16 Pro officially offers.

Apple’s specs say you can recharge an iPhone 16 Pro to 50% in about 30 minutes using a 20W charger. Tests have revealed that a 30W charger shaves about five minutes off that. However, if last year’s OnePlus 12 is anything to go by, 80W charging speeds should get you to 50% in 12 minutes and leave you fully charged in half an hour. Again, you need to use the SuperVOOC charger, but OnePlus includes one in the box.

For wireless charging, OnePlus supports standard 15W Qi charging or 50W charging if you opt for its AirVOOC charger. Those speeds are twice as fast as the iPhone 16 Pro, which can reach only 25W with Apple’s proprietary MagSafe charger. You’re stuck at 7.5W with a standard Qi charger, although the iPhone 16 Pro also supports Qi2 for magnetic attachment and 15W charging speeds — something that most Android devices have sadly failed to embrace.

While it would have been nice to see Qi2 in the OnePlus 13, even for nothing more than the magnetic attachment features, that’s a minor omission for a phone we can charge up in the time it takes to make a good coffee.

Winner: OnePlus 13

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: cameras

Thanks to its partnership with Hasselblad, OnePlus has delivered impressive cameras on its flagship phones over the past few years. The OnePlus 11 and OnePlus 12 take great photos, and there’s no reason to believe the OnePlus 13 will be any different.

If anything, this year’s model should see some improvements in the image pipeline thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Elite and its AI-powered image signal processor. OnePlus hasn’t leaned into AI and computational photography the way its rivals have, but that doesn’t mean it can’t use what’s already there. We’ll have to wait and see what kind of photos the OnePlus 13 produces, but between the hardware and Hasselblad’s color-tuning algorithms, we’re very optimistic.

In terms of raw specs, you’re getting a trio of 50-megapixel (MP) shooters, and while the telephoto lens drops from the 64MP of its predecessor, we think the new sensors OnePlus is using this year will make up for that. The telephoto camera has the same 3x optical zoom, although the ultrawide lens gains an increased 120-degree field of view. We expect the new sensors, combined with Qualcomm’s latest ISP, to deliver better lowlight performance. OnePlus also seems to be taking advantage of the new 480 frames-per-second (fps) slow-motion video capabilities of the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The iPhone 16 Pro is a much more known quantity. It follows Apple’s typical playbook of providing three lenses with year-over-year sensor improvements. However, this time around, the ultrawide camera gets a boost to 48MP, and the iPhone 16 Pro gains the 5x optical zoom that was exclusive to the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max last year. While the ultrawide lens is the one you’ll likely use the least often to take actual photos, Apple’s computational photography engine collects data from that sensor, and more megapixels means more data for it to work with. The ultrawide lens also kicks in for macro shots, and there’s a noticeable improvement there.

The iPhone 16 Pro also has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Apple’s new Photographic Styles let you apply a broad collection of advanced filters to your photos, but the best part is that these are entirely nondestructive. In other words, you can switch them up later or remove them entirely if you don’t like them. You can also shoot images in the Apple ProRAW format for advanced editing controls, and the built-in lidar Sensor lets you take depth-mapped night mode portraits. On the video side, the iPhone 16 Pro can also handle 4K Dolby Vision recording at 120 fps, which produces Cinematic Slow Motion playback when pulled down to 24 fps. Lossless ProRes, Log, and the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) formats support professional work, and there’s a four-mic studio array that powers a new AI-powered Audio Mix feature that can separate background and foreground audio (think of it as a portrait mode for sound).

Winner: iPhone 16 Pro

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: software and updates

The OnePlus 13 will ship globally with Android 15 and OxygenOS 15 layered on top (the China version uses Oppo’s ColorOS). OxygenOS has been somewhat controversial over the years, but it’s been steadily improving, and we’ve been pleasantly surprised by OxygenOS 15. It’s turned out to be less of an iOS clone than Oppo’s ColorOS 15, although it still veers closer to Apple’s side of the fence. It still doesn’t feel as smooth as other platforms, but it’s definitely gotten better.

The iPhone 16 Pro comes with iOS 18 out of the box, which will be readily familiar to anyone who has used an iPhone in the past few years. As usual, iOS 18 refines the experience rather than rewriting it. This year’s most significant addition is Apple Intelligence — Apple’s suite of AI tools. While these are rolling out gradually over the course of the iOS 18 life cycle, as of the most recent December iOS 18.2 update, there’s built-in support for AI writing tools, image generation, and even direct integration with ChatGPT to help Siri answer questions it can’t handle on its own.

As for updates, OnePlus is now committing to four major Android updates and five years of security updates, which should keep the OnePlus 13 current until at least 2028 or when Android 19 ships. Apple doesn’t make such promises, but it’s never really needed to as it has a proven track record; iPhones were getting four or even five years of software updates in the days when it was rare for most Android phones to see one or two. This makes it a safe bet that the iPhone 16 Pro will make it to at least iOS 22, and possibly even one or two releases beyond that.

Winner: Tie

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: special features

After holding out longer than most other big players, Apple and OnePlus are delving more into AI features this year. However, Apple is going all-in with Apple Intelligence while OnePlus is still taking a more measured approach focused predominantly on photography.

In OxygenOS 15, the OnePlus 13 gains a suite of AI photo-editing tools, including an AI Eraser, AI Detail Boost, AI Reflection Erase, and AI Unblur. These work much like you’d expect, although they have some work to do before they catch up with Google’s Magic Eraser and Magic Editor. However, these aren’t exclusively OnePlus 13 features; they’re also coming to the OnePlus 12 in the OxygenOS 15 update. On the other hand, Google Gemini support and a new Intelligence Search feature will be limited to the OnePlus 13.

Apple Intelligence is a much bolder AI initiative overall. While the photo features are limited to a Magic Eraser-like Clean Up tool, the broader AI features include tools to help you compose and refine text, reply to emails, summarize audio recordings and call transcripts, generate images, and even create custom “Genmoji.” Apple has also partnered with ChatGPT to integrate it into iOS. This includes letting you call it up to help you write emails and other blocks of text to making voice requests via Siri.

This also ties into the iPhone 16 Pro’s marquee feature: the Camera Control. As the name suggests, this new button on the lower-right side of the iPhone can be used to call up the camera app, but it also doubles as a sophisticated control system thanks to a two-stage capacitive sensor. A light press will lock autofocus and autoexposure, similar to a DSLR; you then press all the way down to take the picture. You can also slide your finger along the control to adjust parameters such as zoom, exposure, shooting mode, and more.

Apple Intelligence comes into the picture through a new Visual Intelligence feature that lets you quickly perform Google Lens-like searches on real-world objects. Hold down the Camera Control and point your iPhone 16 Pro at something like an animal, a plant, a movie poster, a landmark, or even a product, and you can send it off to Google or ChatGPT to get more information about it. The concept isn’t exactly novel, as there have been apps doing this for this for years, but having it built in and only a button press away makes it much more useful.

Winner: iPhone 16 Pro

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: price and availability

Following a typical first launch in China on October 31, the OnePlus 13 will be released globally on January 7, 2025. OnePlus has confirmed that we’ll get the same three colors as the China version with different names: Midnight Ocean, Black Eclipse, and Arctic Dawn. There’s no official word on pricing or storage capacities, but there’s a good chance they’ll be close to last year’s OnePlus 12, which started at $800. The OnePlus 13 sells in three capacities in China: 256GB storage with 12GB of RAM, 512GB with 16GB, and 1TB with 24GB, but a November leak suggests we may not see the largest 1TB/24GB version stateside.

That would be in line with the OnePlus 12, which was sold in the same three capacities in China, with only the lower two available internationally. However, OnePlus could surprise us this year as it did with the color options. OnePlus’ white finishes, such as the Glacial White OnePlus 12, have been primarily exclusive to China. Seeing a global launch of Arctic Dawn is a pretty big deal, which means the 1TB/24GB model may not be far behind.

The iPhone 16 Pro launched globally in September. Apple’s smaller Pro model didn’t get the storage bump many were hoping for; it still starts at $999 for 128GB, with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB versions available for $1,099, $1,299, and $1,499, respectively. RAM is standard at 8GB across all capacities, and it’s available in Desert Titanium, Natural Titanium, White Titanium, and Black Titanium.

OnePlus 13 vs. iPhone 16 Pro: verdict

Like many smartphone comparisons involving Apple, measuring the OnePlus 13 directly against the iPhone 16 Pro is tough. The two phones live in fundamentally different worlds, so it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison (no pun intended).

For many folks, the decision between the OnePlus 13 and iPhone 16 Pro was made long ago based on the platform they’ve already invested in. However, if you’re on the fence or looking for a change, these phones each offer something that might tempt you to see how the other side lives.

The iPhone 16 Pro is ahead of the pack with a more mature platform and an app ecosystem that takes full advantage of its gaming capabilities. The cameras take excellent pictures, the 5x zoom lets you get up close and personal, and the videography features are unrivaled. Apple’s AI features aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but they’re well ahead of what OnePlus offers. Apple Intelligence is also complemented by the general fit and finish and smooth performance of iOS.

Nevertheless, the OnePlus 13 offers a gorgeous and elegant design that’s even more refined than before, plus fun colors with unique finishes. If previous models are anything to go on, the Hasselblad-tuned camera system is sure to be excellent. The Snapdragon 8 Elite chip offers performance to spare with new photographic capabilities, and few smartphones can charge up as quickly as anything that OnePlus makes. OxygenOS 15 may not be quite as refined as we’d like yet, but there’s a lot to like here and it’s more ready for prime time than ever before.