With the Galaxy S23 Unpacked event on February 1 and the OnePlus 11 launch on February 7, the second month of 2023 is going to be a busy one for phones. While Samsung will certainly rule the roost, many are looking forward to the latest flagship from OnePlus (which is already available in China).
It’s no secret that OnePlus has chased Samsung for years at this point. I look at least to the OnePlus 8 series where the prices really started to rise, but also the build quality of the phones and the cameras. And yet, the mainline OnePlus phones still fall short of Samsung’s in many ways.
The OnePlus 10 Pro put up an admirable fight last year, as that phone offered a lot for $899. At the end of the day, though, the $799 Galaxy S22 proved to be a better buy in most respects the OnePlus wins our recommendation based on the 10 Pro’s excellent battery life.
OnePlus has another competitor in Google, with the Pixel line growing in popularity with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series. Google has also taken OnePlus’ old spot as the value king, offering its Pixel 7 for $599 and the Pixel 7 Pro for $899. (And don’t forget about the great Pixel 6a for $449, which rounds out the OnePlus Nord phone.)
Based on the rumors so far, OnePlus has a seriously uphill battle to climb in a theoretical Samsung Galaxy S23 vs OnePlus 11 face-off this year. The Galaxy S23 looks to be quite an impressive device, on par with the OnePlus 11 in many, if not all, ways. (We’ll have to wait to see how battery life fares on both devices.) With a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, a triple camera setup with telephoto lenses, and Samsung’s performance prowess, I fear the Galaxy S23 will be one of the OnePlus will leave behind. 11, no matter how nice the latter.
That is, until OnePlus gets the price right.
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)
The OnePlus 11 sports a 6.7-inch QHD+ AMOLED display, which is bigger than the alleged 6.1-inch screen size of the Galaxy S23. Plus, the resolution is higher, but at these measurements, the extra pixels aren’t worth much. I expect the biggest difference to be the refresh rate.
The OnePlus 11 has a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, which will outpace the Galaxy S23 unless Samsung changes things up. With the Galaxy S22, you only got a 48-120Hz range, which partly helped explain the disparity in battery life something that held true with the Galaxy S22 Plus (which had more of the same battery capacity as the OnePlus 10 Pro). If this year remains the same, OnePlus will have a significant advantage when it comes to power efficiency and smoothness.
And better yet if the OnePlus 11 undercuts the Galaxy S23 on price. We expect the latter to be priced at $799, similar to last year based on recent leaks. We don’t know what OnePlus plans to charge for the 11, but even just $100 less would be huge.
If OnePlus gets the price right, it could beat out Samsung in how we rank new devices in our lists of best phones and best Android phones. Even if nothing changed from the OnePlus 10 Pro, which we know isn’t true, the $699 OnePlus 11 would be a killer deal.
Of course, there’s nothing to be done but wait till February 7th to see what OnePlus has in store. And February 1st is not far away where we will know what Samsung has prepared. Keep an eye on both events with our reviews in the following days.
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