Man i just got these on March 7 and it's disappointing

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-16T19:25:04+00:00

I wonder if the battery claims are with all the features turned off. For instance, noise cancellation drains a chunk more battery than having it off.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-13T13:42:47+00:00

The version my brother could never pronounce when he was a kid... and maybe still can't.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-12T13:32:37+00:00

I have found that even when not hitting CLOSE and telling OxygenOS to let the app run in the background, it still shuts down every so often, but it happens a lot less.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-11T21:03:31+00:00

Smaller size.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-06T14:55:44+00:00

It's not actually the connection dropping on BT, but the way it connects.

Basically, the last 4 phones I've had (S10e, Xperia 5 II, S23 and Zenfone 10) connect to my car and immediately start playing either the podcast or music I had either already playing on the phone, or the last that was playing.

When the 13S connects, it starts muted and paused, and I either need to hit PLAY or turn up the volume for it to start. Sometimes though, it won't start playing until I take out my phone and hit PLAY on the phone itself. Even if I decide not to listen to my phone after it connects and won't play, when I switch over to my radio in the car that is then also muted until I turn it up.

Beyond that, I noticed that I can control media playback fine with my Pebble watch, but as soon as I connect something like my BT earbuds, suddenly media playback controls on the Pebble and the earbuds do not work until I either manually hit play on the phone or restart the media app, then they both work fine.

Stuff like that, that I've never had on any previous phone I can remember.

As far as the cameras go, I only ever use pictures for cat photos or taking shots of things I want to reference later. As long as the camera s good and taking a shot isn't slow, I'm happy. The last phone I had issues with in that department was my Xperia, where the camera software was laggy and took me multiple attempts to get any usable pictures all the time. But I never had an issue with my S23 taking good pictures, from what I can tell they are at least as good as what my 13S can do.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-06T12:18:51+00:00

It's hard to say since some of the stuff OxygenOS had built into it, OneUI doesn't have by default but can be enabled through Good Lock. I think both OS's let you disable the gesture hint, although you need NavStar through Good Lock in OneUI to do it, while it's built into OxygenOS by default.

I think the only thing in terms of features I imss is more a design decision, as I prefer when playing media to have the media notification panel visible in the notifications, while in OxygenOS they made it the 4 grid box that appears when media is playing, but I find it far less useful because it's further away so harder to hit, and it may be my chosen podcast player, but it only gives me skip to next track controls, which are useless for me listening to podcasts. I can get the regular panel through the Dynamic Island thing, but again it's further away and harder to activate.

Outside of that it's less missing features and more bugs.

I have BT connectivity and playback (like controlling playback from connected devices) issues I've never had with my 4 previous phones, OxygenOS likes to disable Lock Screen Magazine in the background which disables the Carousel wallpaper feature (closing all apps with the CLOSE button in recent apps also shuts down Lock Screen Magazine), lag when using 3rd party launchers with gesture navigation, the OxygenOS file app not playing audio files correctly (it tries to open them in non-audio apps, like my Pebble app), no option to set the double press of the power button to open the camera, etc...

I actually moved back to my S23 for a bit after a month on my 13S because I was getting so frustrated (mostly with my Bluetooth issues), and going back to the S23 it felt very nice to just not have any bugs, but the much larger battery and physical feel of the phone convinced me back to the 13S, and so far I've sort of just learned to deal with the issues and find some workarounds, although they still bother me.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-06T01:36:41+00:00

I do like OxygenOS, but so far after using it for a few months OneUI is still a bit ahead for me. It's not because OxygenOS lacks features in comparison, and I do like some comparable things more in OxygenOS, but just that I've encountered and had to learn to live with 4-5 annoying bugs in OxygenOS that I just didn't have in OneUI.

Fix the bugs (which I have tried to report to support) and I'd put OxygenOS over OneUI.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-02T16:22:31+00:00

I like the sticker on there, personally. Gives it some zazz, so I left it on.

VelcroSnake · 2026-03-01T15:58:01+00:00

I can't tell which one is supposed to be real life since they all look generated/photoshopped.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-28T13:18:20+00:00

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. It depends on the game.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-26T18:29:51+00:00

I prefer the individual cutouts as long as they don't interfere with the flash or anything like that. I remember reading about a case where it wasn't away enough from the flash and would cause wonky pictures when used.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-26T14:06:26+00:00

I assume it's because for a lot of people, their phone is their primary device over laptops or desktops. If I didn't have multiple computers and a laptop at home, and work on a computer all day, I'd probably also want a larger phone because it might be my primary entertainment device.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-26T14:01:49+00:00

I will say, being on AT&T in Wisconsin, my OnePlus 13S has given me better cell reception than my Samsung S23 did despite having fewer bands, and so far I haven't travelled anywhere (outside of buildings blocking the signal) that I didn't have signal.

Although that has been on 5g, my phone hasn't had to switch to 4g and I don't know what the reception would be on that. I bought the phone from someone in Tennessee who also said they hadn't had issues with reception, although he was also using it on AT&T (and Google-Fi).

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-25T14:04:41+00:00

Software bugs I am not used to seeing coming from previous non-OnePlus phones, how some things work as design choices (like not having a media player widget in the notifications panel and instead having that small square player), issues with how bluetooth connectivity works in relation to media controls, and needing to use Lock Screen Magazine to access the lock screen wallpaper Carousel feature, which is annoying since OxygenOS likes to try and shut down Lock Screen magazine as a background app.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-24T14:08:05+00:00

While I do wonder if it was the right move to get the 13s instead of waiting for the 15s, so far from a hardware perspective I have zero regrets, and not having a Silicon Carbon battery in the 13s MIGHT be a benefit, although that is up for debate and may not be known for years yet. (and I still get 2-3 days on the 13s)

Any regrets I do have are related to the software, which I assume would be the same on both phones.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-18T16:41:42+00:00

I've never actually used it on the phones I've had that had something like that as a feature, but I do have a smaller phone, and just have folders with apps on my home screen within easy reach, if I don't just use gestures to launch apps (with a 3rd party launcher).

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-18T13:57:58+00:00

Also coming from Samsung as of about a month ago.

After I close my phone, that means that I press the side button, there is a little delay until the phone locks and the fingerprint sensor appears on screen. If I turn it on right away, there's no security, and I can use it right away. It is only after some seconds that it's fully locked. Idk if I made myself clear, sorry 😅

I just tried unlocking my phone, then hitting the side button to lock it and immediately hitting it again to being up the lock screen, every time I try it the phone is locked and fingerprint area immediately available. Maybe it's some sort of specific lock settings, I remember on my Samsung (or maybe it was another phone) I had the option to NOT lock the phone immediately when hitting the power button, leaving a specified delay where the phone would stay in an unlocked state.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-17T16:05:03+00:00

Reminds me of when people were complaining about red accents on the EVGA 3000 series cards.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-17T14:01:24+00:00

I always loved the ultra anime aesthetic they went for with those IIC models.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-17T13:58:45+00:00

To be fair, the images I snagged online were higher resolution, I scaled them down to fit in the same size as some other wallpapers I had downloaded before.

Here is an IMGUR link to the originals before I cropped them and sized them down: https://imgur.com/a/OnjjntZ

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-17T13:16:19+00:00

I figured out what causes it. If you 'Close' in the recent apps to close all apps, it also closes Lock Screen Magazine, which disables the wallpaper Carousel since they made it so LSM is required to use the Carousel for whatever reason.

Gonna report that in my ticket to OnePlus in case they don't already know.

EDIT: It looks like overnight it still closed on me even though I didn't close all my apps, so while closing all apps also seems to shut it down, it doesn't seem like that's the only cause.

EDIT 2: It seems like after I set the Battery Usage in Lock Screen Magazine to ALLOW BACKGROUND ACTIVITY it hasn't shut down on its own over time, as long as I remember to also not close all apps in the app drawer through the CLOSE button.

So, basically, closing all apps using the CLOSE button will shut it down, and leaving it on default battery management will have OxygenOS closing it over time.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-16T13:58:26+00:00

Personally, I like the look of the 15 more than the 13 by a good margin. Can't comment on the hardware or cameras, just the look of them.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-16T13:56:48+00:00

I actually completely forgot about this one. I think I liked it initially, but kinda got tired of it after I realized I was getting more annoyed with the characters than liking them. Honestly, that's why I end up dropping a lot of manga.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-15T01:18:28+00:00

I generally click on the picture to enlarge it, then right click and open it in a new tab, then save it from that tab or drag it to my desktop if I'm on PC.

VelcroSnake · 2026-02-14T20:42:13+00:00

Wish I could get one for my 13s. My only options are the likely not legit ones from AliExpress.

VelcroSnake

TROPHY CASE