OnePlus 13 Review – Top Tier Mobile Gaming

In our previous article about the OnePlus 13 we took a look at the various specs of the phone and talked briefly about the included chipset in this phone. The ultimate conclusion was that you were getting great performance out of the phone both a) for the price; and b) compared to the competition. As a gaming site first and foremost, we are taking a look at how the OnePlus 13 performs in a handheld gaming situation!

I have a few games I try out on phones when I’m reviewing the quality of the gaming experience. In this case it was Genshin Impact, a game that played so well on the OnePlus Genshin phone we reviewed last year , as well as Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, and various iterations of the Asphalt series.

Across all the experiences, the performance was fantastic. I was curious mostly to see how Genshin Impact would perform, since the previous phone I reviewed – Genshin Impact OnePlus 12R – was built specifically to play that game. Everything about that device was created and designed to provide a fantastic Genshin Imapct experience – and it definitely delivered. On the OnePlus 13, I think that experience is at least as good, if not better. Spanning around and moving through the world is flawless, and when comparing on other devices, there is definitely a noticeable improvement in load times, world generation, and more when playing on the OnePlus 13.

I noticed improvements in both Harvest Moon and the Asphalt series as well, atthough it is worth noting that Harvest Moon is hardly the most demanding game you can play on an Android device. I’ve always used Asphalt as my benchmark for reviewing video games on phones, but when reading Toms Guide review of the OnePlus 13, they were playing a different game and noted a few issues.

Based on what they wrote, I decided to take one of the most demanding mobile games for a spin, Ex Astris. After a quick purchase on the Google Play Store – well worth the investment, by the way – it was time to see if the Toms Guide reviewer was accurate in his description of his experience. And after a long time slogging through tutorials and such to get to the game proper, I found similar issues. When settings are maxed, there are noticeable issues when playing on the OnePlus 13, the same issues I found when booting it up on my latest Pixeld devices as well, albeit worse there.

So what’s the conclusion here? On full settings, the OnePlus 13 is going to play ALMOST everything on the Google Play Store with relative ease. There are moments in some games – Genshin Impact included I would assume – where so much is happening on screen at one time that there is going to be a hiccup of some kind. It was noticeable in EX Astris, but not a common problem by any means. And with settings tailored a bit for the device, everything ran well.

There is a lot of power under the hood of the OnePlus 13, and if you are looking for something you can play a ton of demanding mobile games on, then this is probably going to do almost everything you need it to. From a gaming standpoint, I have no complaints with the OnePlus 13, and would consider it top tier from a personal use view.