OnePlus is set to expand its flagship portfolio with the launch of OnePlus 15R in India. The phone will join the OnePlus 15, which was launched earlier this month, as one of the company’s premium offerings. While OnePlus has officially confirmed that the OnePlus 15R will launch in India on December 17, Digit got an exclusive hands-on experience of the phone earlier this week during a conversation with OnePlus India CEO Robin Liu.
Robin confirmed that the phone will come in a new Mint colour while retaining the same design language as the OnePlus 13s. This would maintain a clear differentiation between the OnePlus 15 and 15R.
“You can see it’s a really new design language and a new colour. We got a lot of feedback from our users that they want better performance and experience. So, we started working with the Qualcomm team nearly 24 months back and optimised the chipset performance for our phones,” Robin told Digit, while confirming that the OnePlus 15R will be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset.
“We are excited to announce that the phone will be launched with Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, which is another premium chipset supported by Qualcomm. This is the first year when we are launching two flagship devices together and this chipset is especially different for us,” he added.
Robin revealed that OnePlus and Qualcomm have done optimisation on the chipset itself starting 24 months back to ensure that the phone delivers the desired performance.
The OnePlus 15R will be the company’s most durable phone with an IP68, IP69 and IP69K rating. Along with this Mint colour, the OnePlus 15R will also be launched in a more classic Charcoal Black colour.
While Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has already made its way to this year’s flagship phones, notably starting with the OnePlus 15 and later on with the Realme GT 8 Pro and iQOO 15, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 will power a more affordable set of phones, starting with the OnePlus 15R.
Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 brings 36 per cent performance improvements on the previous generation chipset, along with 76 per cent better browser responsiveness.
The chipset will improve improvements and enhancements across all categories, Saurabh Arora, Head of Mobile, Compute and XR at Qualcomm India told Digit, while confirming that it will power a bunch of devices from other OEMs in the near future.
“It brings 11 per cent enhancements on gaming and graphics and 46 per cent improvements on AI performance. The CPU is 42 per cent better in terms of power efficiency, GPU is 28 per cent power efficient as well, which makes the SoC 13 per cent more power efficient in total. This will enable a lot of flagship level features on the OnePlus 15R,” Saurabh said.
With the chipset, Qualcomm is not just focusing on performance but also efficiency.
Apart from the OnePlus 15R, the company will also launch its new tablet on the same date. Robin confirmed that the OnePlus Pad Go 2 will be launched on December 17. This will come with an integrated stylus, designed to enhance productivity and precision for note-taking and creative work.
More information on both these devices will be available in the coming days.
