The first big phone battle of 2025 will soon be here in the form of a Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 showdown. The OnePlus 13 is already here, earning a spot on the best phones list. But does it have enough to hold off Samsung's new flagship?
Even though it hasn't appeared yet, you'd assume that the Galaxy S25 is the favorite, helped out by the fact that there will once again be three different models to choose from. In addition to the standard Galaxy S25, we're expecting to see a Plus model as well as the Galaxy S25 Ultra. And while all three phones figure to offer improved hardware over last year's Samsung flagships, the real star of the show figures to be new Galaxy AI capabilities debuting on board these new devices.
OnePlus flagships have evolved from intriguing upstarts to compelling alternatives for Android users looking for best possible device. Like Samsung's flagships, the top-of-the-line handset from OnePlus relies on premium silicon and a long-lasting battery to win over shoppers. As our OnePlus 13 review found, that's the case with this year's model, though significant camera improvements also help the new model stand out. And while its AI features aren't as established as Galaxy AI, you do find new capabilities on the OnePlus 13.
In this Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 comparison, we'll largely look at how Samsung's base model flagship figures to compare to the OnePlus 13 (though we'll bring up the Plus and Ultra models where relevant). For our preliminary face-off, we'll look at rumored features for the yet-to-be-announced S25 and how they compare with what we saw from the OnePlus 13 when we reviewed that phone.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 specs
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 price and availability
We're still awaiting more concrete pricing rumors about the Galaxy S25 — expect that to change on January 22, when Samsung launches its new flagship phone at the Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event. For now, we're hoping the latest model retains the Galaxy S24's $799 starting price, though rumors have hinted at price hikes for the S25.
There's no such mystery for the OnePlus 13. It costs $899 — and that is a price hike from the $799 starting price of the OnePlus 12. In fact, this is the second consecutive year that prices have gone up for OnePlus' flagship phone, though you could argue that given the OnePlus 13's size, a better comparison would be with Samsung's Plus model. And that phone currently starts at $999.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 design and display
Expect the Galaxy S25 and OnePlus 13 to look a lot like their predecessors. In the case of the S25, that means a phone with an armor aluminum frame — Samsung figures to once again reserve titanium for its Galaxy S25 Ultra model — with the rear cameras descending in a vertical row.
OnePlus goes with a different look, as the OnePlus 13 sports the same circular camera array found on recent flagships from the phone maker. That said, the sides of the OnePlus 13 are flatter than those on its predecessor, a Ceramic Guard material now protects the screen, and you get IP68/69 water resistance to protect against dunks and forceful sprays of water.
Samsung could increase the size of the Galaxy S25 display, expanding the S24's 6.2-inch panel to 6.36 inches. That might also make the new phone a little bit larger than its predecessor to accommodate the bigger screen. The OnePlus 13 still sports the larger display at 6.82 inches.
With Samsung rumored to be sticking with the same M13 OLED panel as before, we wouldn't anticipate any increase from the 2,600-nit maximum brightness listing of the Galaxy S24. Likewise, the OnePlus 13 has the same brightness ratings as its predecessor, though in this case, we're talking about a much brighter 4,500 nits. We had a hard time reaching that figure in testing with the OnePlus 13 topping out at 1,104 nits on our light meter, but we do find the screen visible in sunlight. A new RadiantView feature that adjusts color and contrast to maximize visibility helps with the OnePlus 13 screen.
Galaxy flagships usually come in a greater variety of colors than the OnePlus phones, and that should continue this time around. Galaxy S25 color rumors could include two different shades of blue along with silver and green options; we'd anticipate additional colors available exclusively through Samsung, too. The OnePlus 13 is available in black, blue and white.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 cameras
Traditionally, Samsung's phones have been the better choice than OnePlus handsets for people who want the best camera phone. But the gap is narrowing thanks to a partnership between OnePlus and lens specialist Hasselblad that has brought noticeable improvements to the quality of the phone maker's cameras.
That continues in a big way the OnePlus 13, as the phone will use the Hasselblad Master Imaging algorithm, which is also featured on the Oppo Find X8. In our OnePlus 13 camera testing, we were impressed with the telephoto and low-light performance of the new phone.
The OnePlus 13 features a triple 50MP rear camera array, with the main, ultrawide and telephoto lenses all featuring 50MP sensors. The zoom lens on the OnePlus 13 offers a 3x optical zoom.
When we pitted the OnePlus 13 against the Galaxy S24 Ultra in a 200-photo face-off, Samsung's premium phone won — but it was very, very close. And that's the first time we've said that in a Samsung/OnePlus camera phone comparison.
Samsung should be nervous, as rumors suggest that there's not much changing about the Galaxy S25's camera. Samsung is allegedly reserving its biggest camera improvements for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which is in line to see a boost to the resolution of its ultrawide camera and a variable aperture for enhanced zooming on its telephoto lens. In contrast, Samsung will reportedly go with a larger sensor on the S25 and S25 Plus, as a way of capturing more light when shooting with those two phones. That could give the vastly improved OnePlus 13 cameras a shot against Samsung's less expensive flagships.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 performance
Performance figures to be an intriguing point of comparison between the Galaxy S25 and the OnePlus 13, as both phones are tipped to feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite as their system-on-chip. That's already confirmed for the OnePlus 13, as we have benchmarks for that phone now. As you might expect, the OnePlus 13 outperforms the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered Galaxy S24 on most tests.
The Galaxy S25 could also benefit from a Snapdragon 8 Elite, as Samsung will reportedly use Qualcomm's chips in all its new phones, instead of turning to its own Exynos silicon for some models. The only other remaining question is whether Samsung will use an optimized version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite silicon as it has in the past with previous Qualcomm chips. In those instances, Samsung used an over-clocked version of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset, giving it a performance boost.
As for memory, the Galaxy S25 is tipped to feature 12GB of RAM, with Samsung potentially offering 16GB of RAM for the Galaxy S25 Ultra. OnePlus uses 12GB of RAM in the version of the phone we tested.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 battery life and charging
The implications of using the Snapdragon 8 Elite go beyond performance for both the Galaxy S25 and OnePlus 13. With Qualcomm promising more power efficient performance from its latest silicon, the new flagship phones also figure to see gains in battery life over their predecessors. Considering that the OnePlus 12, Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy S24 Ultra all enjoy spots on our best phone battery life list, even longer battery life for the new models would be quite an impressive feat.
Those phones have all been topped by the OnePlus 13, which posted a stunning time of 19 hours and 45 minutes, the second best time we've ever recorded. Part of that certainly comes down to the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, but OnePlus also packs a larger 6,000 mAh battery into its latest phone.
There have been fewer rumors about battery sizes for the different Galaxy S25 models, save for one that predicts the S25 Ultra will have the same 5,000 mAh battery used by the S24 Ultra. We'd expect the Galaxy S25 to also feature a 4,000 mAh battery like the S24, and considering last year's phone topped out at just under 13.5 hours, you'd imagine even better power management from a new chipset won't be enough to catch the OnePlus 13's time.
The OnePlus 13 is also likely enjoy an edge in charging speed, since OnePlus has made that one of the selling points of its flagships. The OnePlus 13 supports 100W wired charging in most of the world, which tops out at 80W in the U.S. Even so, in our testing, we got the OnePlus 13 to a 92% charge after 30 minutes.
The standard Galaxy S phone charges at 25W and we don't expect that to change with the Galaxy S25, though it's rumored that the new phones will support faster Qi2 wireless charging.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 AI and software
AI will be the big story for the Galaxy S25, as Samsung figures to make new Galaxy AI features a major focus of this phone release. Few details about Samsung's plans have emerged, but it seems pretty clear that a revamped Bixby assistant would be the centerpice of an update, as Bixby becomes more context-aware. That will allow for natural language-based queries and other features where the assistant will recognize what's on your screen when it makes suggestions. (Think of browsing the web for a night spot, and then having Bixby generate directions just by recognizing the address on the web page.)
AI features are a bigger part of the OnePlus 13 than they have been in previous models. That means OnePlus' take on translation, transcription, text generation and formatting and image editing and enhancement tools. An Intelligent Search feature is supposed to make it easier to find files on your phone, though we imagine the searching ease really doesn't shine through until you've had the phone for a while and have loaded up it with files. In non-AI additions, a BeaconLink walkie-talkie tool lets you make Bluetooth calls to other OnePlus 13 phones, though the range is rather limited.
OnePlus has improved its software support, with four years of Android updates, along with two additional years of software support. The Galaxy S24 provides seven years of support, and that's likely to continue with the Galaxy S25 series.
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. OnePlus 13 outlook
There's still more details about the Galaxy S25 that will emerge at Galaxy Unpacked, giving us a better idea of how it compares to the OnePlus 13. OnePlus has set a high bar for Android phones already this year, and we're interested to see how Samsung responds.
