OnePlus 13R battery review: solid battery backup, slow charging

• By Sanket Vijayasarathy
Published On: 15 January 2025 | 09:35 IST

The OnePlus 13R has several upgrades under the hood over its predecessor, the OnePlus 12R. Chief among them is a bigger battery capacity. While the 12R has a 5,500mAh unit, the new OnePlus phone gets a 6,000mAh battery, which translates to better day-long battery life and standby time, among other things. We tested the durability of the OnePlus 13R’s battery against the Realme GT 6, Xiaomi 14 Civi and Vivo V40 Pro to find out where it stands.

Verdict

Much like its performance, the OnePlus 13R excels in the battery department. This affordable flagship performs exceptionally well against its competition, offering impressive battery life in both benchmarks and real-world tests. The only downside is the reduced charging speed from 100W to 80W, making it slower to charge than some rivals.

Pros:

• OnePlus 13R offers a respectable PCMark score, almost identical to Realme GT 6.
• The phone also lost the least amount of battery in both streaming and gaming tests.
• In real-world usage, the OnePlus 13R should offer a full-day battery life on normal to high usage.

Cons:

• Charging speeds have been dropped from 100W to 80W, making it slower to charge

OnePlus 13R battery review at a glance:

We conducted a range of tests, including the PC Mark battery benchmark and real-world charging and usage assessments, to evaluate each phone’s battery life and charging capabilities. Keep reading to see how the OnePlus 13R compares to its competitors.

PCMark Battery test

Winner: Realme GT 6/OnePlus 13R

The OnePlus 13R and Realme GT 6 delivered nearly identical PCMark scores, with both phones lasting around 14 hours and 40 minutes, differing by just one minute. These scores are quite respectable and indicate that the phones can easily last a full day and beyond in ideal conditions, such as flight mode enabled, low brightness, and so on.

Real-world context: In real-world usage that involves some social media browsing, a few hours of streaming or gaming, the OnePlus 13R can go through a full day and still have enough battery in the tank for the next morning.

YouTube video streaming test

30-minute YouTube streaming test to check battery drain (lower is better)

Winner: OnePlus 13R/Vivo V40 Pro/Xiaomi 14 Civi

Our 30-minute video streaming test on YouTube saw a tie between the OnePlus 13R, Vivo V40 Pro, and Xiaomi 14 Civi. All three phones consumed only 3 percent of the battery after 30 minutes of streaming. The Realme GT 6 lost 4 percent battery and the most in terms of absolute mAh.

Real-world context: The test highlights that the OnePlus 13R offers a solid battery backup for streaming content. It also offers a vibrant display with ample brightness along with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision certifications, which make it a great phone to stream content on.

Gaming test

90-minute gaming test to check for battery drain (lower is better)

Winner: OnePlus 13R

The OnePlus 13R consumed the least amount of battery percentage after playing BGMI, Real Racing 3 and Call of Duty: Mobile for 30 minutes each. The Realme GT 6 was close behind, losing a total of 17 percent battery. The Xiaomi 14 Civi performed the worst as it lost over 20 percent battery after 90 minutes of gaming. This isn’t surprising since the Xiaomi 14 Civi isn’t particularly tuned for gaming. For our test, we played all the games with similar settings and brightness and audio levels for a fair contest.

Real-world context: The OnePlus 13R is just as much a gaming smartphone as the Realme GT 6, and our testing shows that. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has been tuned well to deliver consistent gaming performance while ensuring minimal battery drain.

Charging test

Charging test to see time taken to charge from 20 to 100 percent (lower is better)

Winner: Realme GT 6

The OnePlus 13R was the slowest to charge among the lot in our charging test, taking close to 50 minutes to charge from 20 to 100 percent using the bundled 80W charger. This is a downgrade from the OnePlus 12R, which supports 100W charging speeds and can charge its 5500mAh battery in under 30 minutes. The Realme GT 6 was the fastest to charge as it supports 120W charging speeds. At least the good part is that all these smartphones still offer a charger with the said output in the box.

Real-world context: OnePlus has downgraded the charging speeds on the OnePlus 13R, which means it charges slower than its predecessor. The reason behind this is likely to protect the battery health of its single-cell 6,000mAh battery. Yes, OnePlus is using a single-cell battery instead of a dual-cell split. Slower charging speeds mean a longer waiting time to get a full charge, which could be off-putting.

Final verdict

The OnePlus 13R delivers a solid battery backup compared to rivals like the Realme GT 6, Vivo V40 Pro, and Xiaomi 14 Civi. It is definitely one of the better battery-life phones in the sub-Rs 50,000 segment right now. The phone performs well in both streaming and gaming, ensuring low battery drain after prolonged usage. That said, the phone is the slowest to charge among its rivals, which puts it at a disadvantage.

• If you’re looking for a phone with a solid battery life for gaming and streaming content, the OnePlus 13R and Realme GT 6 should be your pick in this price range.
• The Realme GT 6 gets the added benefit of supporting 120W charging speeds, which means it also charges faster than most phones in this segment.
• The Xiaomi 14 Civi has a smaller battery compared to the rest, but it shines in the design and camera departments.
• The Vivo V40 Pro is a good all-rounder as it not only offers a respectable performance and battery life, but really good cameras as well.

Meanwhile, our detailed analysis of the OnePlus 13R is up on YouTube, and you can subscribe to our channel for more in-depth content.