OnePlus Acknowledges 'Jelly Scrolling' Effect On OnePlus 5, Says It Is Perfectly Normal

OnePlus chose the tagline "Never Settle" for its newly minted OnePlus 5 smartphone, though it is not without irony. That is because OnePlus is trying to sweep an annoying issue under the rug, thereby basically telling its customers to settle for a quirk that is not present on other smartphones, including previous OnePlus device. The issue in question has to do with scrolling.

Users are complaining of a sort of flicker effect when scrolling through webpages. What ends up happening is that part of the display appears to not refresh at the same rate as the rest of the panel. As a result, text and images end up getting bunched together and stretched out. Affected users have dubbed this phenomenon the "jelly scrolling effect," a not-so-affectionate descriptor for the display's malleable behavior.

The effect is subtle, though once you notice it, you will have a hard time unseeing each time thereafter. And though subtle, it has drawn complaints from OnePlus 5 owners on several different forums, including XDA, Reddit, and the official OnePlus forums.


"Scrolling is like wobbly jelly, like you're scrolling under water, like Vsync is disabled, which is awful. Also stutters a lot and screen latency isn't 100 percent responsive," a OnePlus forum member complained. Other users chimed in with similar complaints, further noting that an OS update did not resolve the issue.

OnePlus is aware of the complaints, but is taking an Apple-like approach by insisting everything is normal.

"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," OnePlus said in a statement to The Verge.

This explanation is not sitting well with OnePlus 5 owners. Not only does the effect seem to be anything but normal, the stance OnePlus is taking essentially prevents users from requesting a warranty repair or replacement.

We suspect that OnePlus will eventually come around, either with a fix via firmware, or by offering to replace faulty devices without admitting there is a problem. It all depends on how much noise the OnePlus community makes going forward and to what extent OnePlus values its reputation.