OnePlus 15’s Detail Max Engine Shines Bright in 91mobiles’ Photo Quest
We recently conducted the “91mobiles Photo Quest”, a blind camera comparison between the OnePlus 15, Samsung Galaxy S25, and the Apple iPhone 17. Thousands of readers came in to vote on photo samples shot across six different scenarios, without knowing which phones they were shot with. And now, it’s time to reveal the phones and break down the results.
Table of Contents
Portrait
Revisiting the four pillars of a portrait image: realistic skin tones, the quality of the background blur (bokeh), details in the subject, and edge detection.
The OnePlus 15 stands out as the clear winner because its colour accuracy is the closest to reality, and its subject isolation from the background is the best among the competitors. Comparatively, the iPhone 17’s image has an over-contrasty look, and edge detection around the subject isn’t clean. Whereas the one shot on Galaxy S25 has a cooler hue, more exposure, resulting in the noisiest image among the competitors.
Clear Burst
For this test, we captured an exploding water balloon in burst mode with all three phones.
In this test, the OnePlus 15 came out as the winner, as the frozen frame looks sharp, and the image is social media-ready, with good colour accuracy and minimal noise. In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S25’s image did a good job at freezing the water droplets, but the faster shutter resulted in a noisy image. The iPhone 17’s image couldn’t freeze the motion, but it has less noise and vibrant colours.
10x Zoom
In the long-range test, we tested the zooming capabilities at 10x focal length of these competing phones.
The iPhone 17’s image lacked detail and definition in the books, hence it couldn’t even reach double-digit votes. The Galaxy S25’s picture did a good job at detail retention in the book covers, but fell behind in terms of clear definition and colours. In comparison, the OnePlus 15 excelled, as it had the richest colour profile and sharp, defined details.
Low Light
To test the low-light performance on these phones, we chose this water fountain, as it has the perfect blend of colours, texture, and light.
Yet again, the OnePlus 15 did the best in terms of detail retention, the texture is the sharpest, with true-to-life colours. In comparison, the iPhone 17’s picture had a strange yellow light at the fountain’s top, with a white tone in the sky. The one from Samsung Galaxy S25 displayed a colour shift, especially in reds, and the overall image had slight noise.
4K Video
In our 4K video test, the test parameters were stability, detail capture, colour shift, and HDR processing.
The iPhone 17 (Phone B) won this round with a narrow margin against the OnePlus 15 (Phone A), as the iPhone did a better job at handling the dynamic range and stability.
4K Video Tone Mapping
When it comes to handling greens in video, even professional cameras start to struggle. In our test, the subject was moving with green foliage in the background.
In this test too, the OnePlus 15 (Phone A) came out as the winner, as it had better colour accuracy, both in the subject and the background. The greens were well saturated, and the white balance was also on point. In comparison, the iPhone 17 (Phone B) portrayed an evident colour inaccuracy and shift, both in the subject and the background. The sound capture was also better on the OnePlus 15.
Conclusion
After factoring in over 6,000 votes by our readers, the OnePlus 15 secured a dominating win in the “91mobiles Photo Quest” by winning five out of six rounds. It’s on-point colour accuracy, sharper details (both in daylight and low light scenarios), and instant shutter to freeze motion, without compromising on other pillars, are among the key aspects preferred by the voters.
The iPhone 17 came out as the first runner-up because of its marginally better 4K videos and better noise handling in pictures. The Galaxy S25’s performance was like “jack of all trades, master of none”, but it couldn’t match the others.
OnePlus is betting on its newly developed DetailMax Engine debuting with the top-of-the-line OnePlus 15. In our “Photo Quest” contest, the OnePlus 15’s camera results are well accepted by our readers, and these cameras look quite impressive. The OnePlus 15 will launch on November 13th, 2025. Stay tuned to 91mobiles for its launch coverage and detailed review.
