Last week, some owners of the new OnePlus 5 began reporting issues with the device’s display whereby text became bunched up when scrolling.
The resulting effect led to the problem being dubbed the ‘jelly scrolling’ effect, as the display on some models of the phone appeared to be refreshing at different rates in different areas.
At the time, there was no explanation for the issue, with OnePlus responding to the complaints with a statement claiming the effect was a “natural” occurence.
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And while the response wasn’t quite what many users had been hoping for, it seems OnePlus was at least being somewhat honest, as the ‘jelly scrolling’ effect appears to be a natural result of the Chinese manufacturer’s design process.
An investigation carried out by XDA Developers, who first reported on the problem following complaints on numerous forums, seemingly revealed the display on the new OnePlus flagship was inverted.
Why? Well, one possible explanation is that the firm could have been forced to mount the display in an inverted position due to the new dual-camera setup on the rear – an increasingly popular feature on premium smartphones.
At this point, the site claims it’s not certain the inverting of the display is what’s the blame for the jelly scrolling issue, but there does seem to be “correlation”.
XDA’s investigation discovered code in the phone’s kernel source code that effectively tells the phone to compensate for the upside-down display by rotating the on-screen image 180 degrees.
Reddit user Tasssadar then compared teardowns on the OnePlus 5 and last year’s OnePlus 3T and found images that seemed to show an inverted display on the former.
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9to5Google points out the new camera sensor is positioned where the older OnePlus 3’s display hookup was, suggesting the new camera sensor could be the reason for the inverted screen.
Though OnePlus is yet to confirm the dual camera is to blame for the inverting of the screen, or that the new display orientation causes the ‘jelly scrolling’ effect, the company has confirmed the screen is inverted on its new model.
Note that OnePlus offers a 15-day return policy, if the jelly scroll effect is too much for you to deal with, and it seems at this point there’ll be no fix from the company, as it considers it ‘natural’.
Regarding the ‘jelly scrolling’ complaint, OnePlus issued TrustedReviews with the following expanded statement:
“The OnePlus 5 uses the same level of high-quality components as all OnePlus devices, including the AMOLED display. We’ve received feedback from a small number of users saying that at times they notice a subtle visual effect when scrolling. This is natural and there’s no variance in screens between devices.”
Let us know if you’re experiencing display issues with the OnePlus 5 in the comments.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
