OnePlus 15 Showcases LUMO Camera Samples Before Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Debut

The OnePlus 15 hasn’t even been officially launched yet, but the company is already setting the stage for a major showdown in the flagship market by showcasing camera samples powered by its new in-house technologies.

Instead of focusing on dry specification sheets or battery numbers, OnePlus has chosen to spark attention with photography – a strategy that seems to work well in a world where visuals often sell better than technical jargon.

At the heart of the upcoming device is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a chipset expected to be revealed later this month. This powerful processor will likely give the OnePlus 15 the muscle it needs to compete with Samsung’s Galaxy S25 and Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro, but the real highlight is clearly the camera system. OnePlus is moving away from its four-year collaboration with Hasselblad, marking a turning point in the brand’s imaging journey. While the Hasselblad partnership gave the company credibility in color science and fine-tuned mobile photography, the OnePlus 15 will debut the DetailMax Imaging Engine – a homegrown solution that merges lessons learned from Hasselblad with OnePlus’s own computational photography tricks.

But that’s not all. The camera samples shared by the company also reference OPPO’s LUMO Condensed Light Imaging System, first introduced on the Find X8s earlier this year. LUMO isn’t just a buzzword; it’s designed to refine bokeh quality, capture smoother motion, and extend telephoto clarity, areas where smartphone photography still struggles. When combined with upgraded hardware – such as an F/2.8 aperture lens paired with an 85mm focal length – and enhanced shutter controls, the result is images that show exceptional crispness and depth. These samples suggest that OnePlus is attempting to push beyond typical smartphone limits, blending strong optics with advanced computational processing.

Of course, skeptics are already questioning how much editing has been done on the samples. In the smartphone industry, camera teasers often undergo post-processing to appear flawless, which sometimes sets unrealistic expectations. Still, with the official launch around the corner, it won’t be long before side-by-side comparisons against rival flagships reveal the real story. Whether the DetailMax + LUMO combination can truly outperform Samsung’s advanced zoom or Google’s computational wizardry remains to be seen, but for now, the hype around the OnePlus 15 feels justified. If the final product lives up to these early previews, it may well redefine how we talk about smartphone photography in 2025.