OnePlus 5T thankfully doesn’t have the ‘jelly scrolling’ problem of its predecessor

I’m a stickler when it comes to certain small smartphone details, like the minutiae of display quality and vibration motors. I’m also outspoken when a company makes a design decision that causes a recurring annoyance that can’t be fixed with software, like the jelly scrolling problem with the OnePlus 5. Thankfully, it looks like that won’t be a problem with the newly-announced OnePlus 5T.

Long story short: the OnPlus 5 had a weird problem with laggy and jelly-like scrolling, and it wasn’t something that could be remedied with a software update. A developer by the handle of Sultanxda over at XDA discovered in the OnePlus 5’s firmware that the display was mounted upside-down, which was largely blamed for the issue.

Now, thankfully, it appears OnePlus has moved back to mounting the OnePlus 5T’s gorgeous Samsung OLED display in the traditional fashion, at least as evidenced by a bit of code digging at XDA-Developers. AP’s David Ruddock also says he heard straight from the horse’s mouth that those who noticed this with the 5 likely won’t notice it with the 5T, supporting the conclusion that OnePlus made the new display fit without flipping it around.

https://twitter.com/hallstephenj/status/931207594252914688

As I wrote in June, the OnePlus 5’s jelly scrolling was annoying enough to keep me from using it as my daily phone. I realize this might seem like a ridiculously minor thing to constitute a deal breaker, but as someone who has access to lots of phones, it just wasn’t worth the constant annoyance to me. I realize, though, that plenty of people were absolutely fine with the trade off considering the traditionally wild value (although lessening it seems) that OnePlus offers with their flagships.

But I mean, OnePlus can’t blame me for not settling, can they?

The OnePlus 5T, without this problem, looks really compelling. And while it might not be able to get me to switch from the Pixel 2 and 2 XL, it at least looks like I could. My early conclusion on the OnePlus 5T is this: If you aren’t like me and you actually have to be smart about which phone you buy, the OnePlus 5T looks like one of the best bangs-for-your-buck out there. And with Pixel-like software that is thoughtful and doesn’t compromise the user experience, I’m at least intrigued.