OnePlus 16 · 185 Hz gaming, 9,000 mAh and a 200 MP camera

All figures below come from OnePlus's own China spec pages for both phones.

Is it worth the upgrade? From a OnePlus 15, if you play: the faster screen, the new chip and the bigger battery are a real step. If you mostly take pictures it is a trade, more resolution for less reach, and charging got slower, not faster.

OnePlus is unusually direct about who this phone is for: it calls the OnePlus 16 its peak-performance flagship and builds the launch around shooters. The headline is a screen that refreshes 185 times a second in games that support it; the big shooters render natively at 185 fps rather than being interpolated up to it. For everything outside games the panel runs 1 to 165 Hz, so scrolling and animations get most of that smoothness too; only the camera app and some demanding apps run lower.

Three chips of OnePlus's own design sit beside the processor to keep that frame rate useful. The T3 touch chip shortens the delay between your finger and the game, the P4 display chip keeps fast-moving targets sharp, and the G3 network chip is aimed at latency on Wi-Fi and mobile data alike, including on a busy network or through walls. OnePlus also writes what it calls its Fengchi game kernel into the chip at the factory: it schedules the processor and memory together and gives games first claim on both, and it adds frame generation on the new GPU.

The processor is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, built on a 2 nm process with eight cores reaching 5.01 GHz and an Adreno 850 GPU. Keeping it at full speed is the job of a new Glacier cooling system: OnePlus quotes 40% more performance from the new vapour chamber and 50% more from the new thermal gel, so the phone should hold its frame rate for longer before heat forces it down.

The battery is two cells of 4,500 mAh in series, which OnePlus rates as equivalent to 9,000 mAh (8,780 mAh rated). That is the largest battery of any phone in our catalog, and it fits in a body 8.45 to 8.55 mm thick. OnePlus calls it the Glacier battery and says it keeps at least 80% of its capacity after five years; it does not publish the cell chemistry, silicon content or energy density.

Charging is 100 W wired, 1 to 100% in 52 minutes by OnePlus's figure, and 50 W wireless. In China the charger, a USB-C cable and a case are in the box; the wireless charger is sold separately. Reverse charging is wired: at up to 27 W over USB-C the phone tops up earbuds or a watch, and OnePlus lists no reverse wireless charging. Plugged in, bypass charging powers the phone straight from the charger, so long gaming sessions do not heat the battery.

OnePlus pitches the main camera as a landscape tool: 200 MP on a 1/1.4-inch sensor at 23 mm and f/1.6, with autofocus and optical stabilisation. Those pixels are mostly about cropping – a distant ridge or building can be cut out of a wide shot and still hold detail.

The periscope telephoto is 50 MP at 73 mm and f/2.6, stabilised, with 3× optical zoom and up to 120× digital. That is enough for faces across a room or a stage from the middle of a hall. The ultrawide is 50 MP at 16 mm with a 116° view, and the selfie camera is 50 MP at 18 mm with autofocus.

The rear cameras film up to 8K at 30 fps and 4K at 120 fps, also in Dolby Vision; the front camera records 4K at 60 fps.

The 6.78-inch flat OLED screen has 1.15 mm bezels on all four sides and a resolution of 2772 × 1272 at 450 ppi. It reaches 1,000 nits by default and 2,000 nits at peak across the whole screen; OnePlus does not publish a small-area HDR figure. Below 70 nits it dims with 3,840 Hz PWM and above that with DC-like dimming, so at low brightness it does flicker, but at a very high frequency; it goes down to 1 nit for reading in the dark.

The frame and the camera surround are metal. Dark Forest and Tomorrow's Starlight have Crystal Shield glass backs with a silk finish; Mars Masterpiece uses a matte fiberglass back, which makes it the thinnest and lightest of the three. Starlight also gets a light effect on the back that can flash for calls, messages and in-game moments, and can be switched off. A shortcut key opens the camera or other tools in one press.

Water resistance covers every common rating: IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69K, from immersion to high-pressure, high-temperature jets. The ultrasonic fingerprint reader works with wet fingers. The camera module sits in the top-left corner of the back, so the phone wobbles on a desk when you type on it.

The OnePlus 16 ships with ColorOS 17. OnePlus promises monthly updates but publishes no commitment on how many years of Android versions or security patches it will get.

OnePlus's own store lists four configurations, each with a list price and a lower first-sale price:

• 12 GB + 256 GB – ¥5,999, roughly €800 or $895; ¥5,699 at first sale
• 12 GB + 512 GB – ¥6,799, roughly €910; ¥6,499 at first sale
• 16 GB + 512 GB – ¥7,499, roughly €1,000; ¥7,199 at first sale
• 16 GB + 1 TB – ¥8,499, roughly €1,135; ¥8,199 at first sale

The phone went on sale in China on 13 October, in Tomorrow's Starlight, Mars Masterpiece and Dark Forest. China's national phone subsidy takes a further ¥500 off the entry model.

For now this is a China-only launch. OnePlus's UK and German sites list the OnePlus 15, but there is no global OnePlus 16 page and no announcement yet. Imported into a market where the brand does not officially sell it, the price gains customs duty and local VAT on top, so the real cost outside China is noticeably higher than the conversions above.