OnePlus 13S is a smaller, cheaper top-end smartphone - but there's a catch

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OnePlus has debuted another version of the OnePlus 13 flagship smartphone to follow up the main handset as well as the upper mid-range OnePlus 13R. The new version is the OnePlus 13S but it comes with a pretty big caveat – you can only get it in India at the moment. That’s great news if you live there, but it won’t be launching in the US or Europe at present.

Although it’s smaller, I think this latest OnePlus phone still can hardly be called ‘compact’, with a 6.32in Full HD+ LTPO AMOLED screen and it should be super-bright, with peak output of 1600nits. But at a time when many top-end phones are pushing 7in, it is smaller than many.

OnePlus 13S comes in Green Silk, Black Velvet, and Pink Satin finishes. The standard model is ₹54,999 but initial deals will get it down to ₹49,999. The 512GB version is ₹59,999. You also get Nord Buds 3 free if you pre-order.

It’s also available from Amazon India, too.

The 13S has top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite hardware, fast-charging 12GB memory and 256GB of storage as standard, though you can get a 512GB variant. As such I’d consider that it sits in between the 13 and 13R hardware-wise, so is best thought of as a smaller version of the OnePlus 13 rather than the 13R. Battery life should be pretty tasty, with a large 5850mAh battery paired with 80W wired charging. There’s no wireless charging present.

Cameras should be excellent, too, with a 50MP Sony LYT-700 wide main lens with optical image stabilisation (OIS) as well as autofocus. The second is a a 50MP telephoto sensor with 2x optical zoom – some reports suggest this has come from Samsung. The selfie camera is 32MP.

Here’s how robots and dummies make OnePlus’ phone photos better

As I reported last week, the phone’s new AI features will come to future OnePlus phones in the US and Europe including the new Plus Key (a multipurpose button you can configure) to replace the classic OnePlus alert slider. Plus Mind collates anything important you want to retain, such as a flight confirmation or webpage and you can use OnePlus AI to recall or share it. The new feaures (part of Android 15-based OxygenOS 15) will also roll out to the OnePlus 13.

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Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website. Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.