OnePlus 5’s Display Is Inverted, Causes “Jelly Scrolling”

Megalith

Megalith

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For some reason, OnePlus decided to mount the display panel upside-down on the OnePlus 5. The company insists that this was intentional and not an oversight, yet it is resulting in an annoyance dubbed “jelly scrolling”: this effect causes text to bunch up together and then stretch out when the user is swiping in the opposite direction. There will be no OTA update or RMA to resolve the issue.

...the company claims that this issue is not the result of a manufacturing defect, Quality Assurance mishap, or software bug. Instead, the company implies this is an issue only seen by a small number of users (according to their feedback), but that it’s “natural” and not a result of different users having different screens. Indeed, this scrolling behavior does not seem to be noticed by every owner of the OnePlus 5, but for those that do pick up on it – the effect can be quite jarring. To some, it is a deal-breaker. 9to5Google’s Stephen Hall and AndroidPolice’s Ryne Hager are just two out of many users I have seen express the desire to return their phone over the issue.
 
Yuck, stick to my LG phones I guess, was thinking this was perfect but, nope.jpeg to that, I'd throw it across the room.
 
...the company claims that this issue is not the result of a manufacturing defect, Quality Assurance mishap, or software bug.
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Right... its an engineering design mishap. The lcd connector wont fit at the top so lets rotate it and it'll be at the bottom, some might experience a jelly effect but who cares.
 
Thats pretty dumb, I like my 3T a lot. My first non-Nexus device in years after Google went full retard on the Pixel pricing and aside from being a little late (a month or two at most) from the official Nexus updates, it's been pretty fantastic. I removed the few OnePlus replacement apps and installed the Googles ones back in it's place (the launcher and stuff). Not good to see them slip up on subsequent devices... Hopefully the next Nexus goes back to more 5x pricing and a little better build quality.

The video clearly shows the issue, not sure if it's software or what the causes it, I would assume the buffers have to get written out in the opposite order as they normally would, perhaps adding latency. I'm not really sure, seems like a pretty big oversight though.
 
I got a OnePlus 5 a couple of days ago and I don't have this issue. If it really was because of the upside down screen, everyone would have the issue. I don't see how it's a hardware problem. If it was because of the screen being upside down, then why doesn't everyone have this issue? After looking on the OnePlus forums, most people's phones seem to be okay.

I came from a 3T and wasn't really interested in the OnePlus 5, but the wifey made me buy it. It's a very good phone. The touch latency is much better but it wasn't really a problem for me in the past. Overall so far I'm loving this phone but still deciding if I want to keep it or return it. I definitely don't have any issues with it at all.
 
I ordered a OnePlus 5 the day it launched and haven't noticed this at all. So far its been a great phone.
 
I have the OnePlus 5 and I do not have this issue, or if it is happening I haven't noticed it. So far I am really liking the phone, but it could be the effect of moving up from the Samsung Note 3 and the fact I didn't have to spend 700USD to get a phone with these kinds of specs.

Also I am not sure if this happened to anyone else, but when placing my order I selected the free shipping option, but got bumped up to priority option at no cost.
 
Still using my OnePlus One and loving it. For the money, its the best phone I've owned.

My next phone will likely come from them as well, unless something unexpected happens.
 
Got a OnePlus 5 and it's the best phone. Miles better the Galaxy S7 edge it's replacing. No jelly-scrolling here.
 
Watched the video, don't know how a display being inverted would cause that, especially seeing as how most phones/tablets let you rotate the device/display at will, the orientation is just relative. It just looked like laggy UI scrolling to me.
 
Brian_B said:
Watched the video, don't know how a display being inverted would cause that, especially seeing as how most phones/tablets let you rotate the device/display at will, the orientation is just relative. It just looked like laggy UI scrolling to me.
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It's not the display orientation causing it; it's your brain not noticing it in the normal orientation.

Your brain expects things to stretch when you pull them and squish when you push them, so it just ignores it if it sees a little of that on your phone/tablet. Rotate the display 180 degrees and suddenly the image is doing the opposite of what your brain expects, triggering a something is wrong here response.

Normally it's only just noticeable on a 5" display, so I don't know why it's so blatant on the OnePlus 5. Maybe it's running a reduced refresh rate for battery life reasons? It's possible they could push out a new firmware for the display controller to switch it from a just-in-time display write strategy to a hurry-up-and-wait strategy, or brute-force it by offering a "high performance" 60fps-at-all-times mode for the easily annoyed.

But yeah, this is normal. Unless display manufacturers implement some form of programmable addressing, or buffered panel refresh, or they just jack mobile device framerates way up as Apple seems to be doing.
 
off topic: know three people from three very different backgrounds with the S8. All of them have a broken screen already. its a piece of trash. Bezel-less is a terrible design and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. also see my sig.
 
XenIneX said:
It's not the display orientation causing it; it's your brain not noticing it in the normal orientation.

Your brain expects things to stretch when you pull them and squish when you push them, so it just ignores it if it sees a little of that on your phone/tablet. Rotate the display 180 degrees and suddenly the image is doing the opposite of what your brain expects, triggering a something is wrong here response.

Normally it's only just noticeable on a 5" display, so I don't know why it's so blatant on the OnePlus 5. Maybe it's running a reduced refresh rate for battery life reasons? It's possible they could push out a new firmware for the display controller to switch it from a just-in-time display write strategy to a hurry-up-and-wait strategy, or brute-force it by offering a "high performance" 60fps-at-all-times mode for the easily annoyed.

But yeah, this is normal. Unless display manufacturers implement some form of programmable addressing, or buffered panel refresh, or they just jack mobile device framerates way up as Apple seems to be doing.
Click to expand...

I don't see it in the video, but your explanation makes more sense to me - thank you.

Seems if that is the issue it wouldn't be that hard to correct via software, assuming you admit it's a problem in the first place.

If I were OnePlus, I'd start putting stickers of various fruits on there and market them as the "Jelly" edition - it's a cute feature, not a bug.
 
illram said:
Why does flipping a screen upside down cause this effect?
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Exactly. It looks more like the display isn't rendering the whole thing at a time; it's more sort of like the tearing that vsync fixes.
 
RogueKitsune said:
I have the OnePlus 5 and I do not have this issue, or if it is happening I haven't noticed it. So far I am really liking the phone, but it could be the effect of moving up from the Samsung Note 3 and the fact I didn't have to spend 700USD to get a phone with these kinds of specs.

Also I am not sure if this happened to anyone else, but when placing my order I selected the free shipping option, but got bumped up to priority option at no cost.
Click to expand...

Not sure if I was upgraded to priority, but my phone arrived in less than 48 hours. Nice surprise. Still waiting for my DBrand Skin.
 
Brian_B said:
Seems if that is the issue it wouldn't be that hard to correct via software, assuming you admit it's a problem in the first place.
Click to expand...
Maybe; maybe not. It's a display controller thing, not a GPU thing, so it's actually a chip embedded in the display assembly which is at issue here -- and only Samsung knows what the hell's actually going on inside that silicon. Considering the price OnePlus sells their phones at, I doubt they've got much leverage to lean on Samsung for bespoke firmware fixes for what are probably castoff displays.

1_rick said:
It looks more like the display isn't rendering the whole thing at a time; it's more sort of like the tearing that vsync fixes.
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That's because no display does.

It's for the same reason that your cellphone's camera has a rolling shutter -- bandwidth is expensive (in both $$$ and power consumption). And the obvious solution of "increase bandwidth without a huge battery hit" just puts you 90% of the way to 120fps mobile displays, so you might as well just do that instead. I expect to see that in most of the flagships next year.
 
i would return the phone immediately if it was doing what it did in that video.
 
XenIneX said:
It's not the display orientation causing it; it's your brain not noticing it in the normal orientation.

Your brain expects things to stretch when you pull them and squish when you push them, so it just ignores it if it sees a little of that on your phone/tablet. Rotate the display 180 degrees and suddenly the image is doing the opposite of what your brain expects, triggering a something is wrong here response.

Normally it's only just noticeable on a 5" display, so I don't know why it's so blatant on the OnePlus 5. Maybe it's running a reduced refresh rate for battery life reasons? It's possible they could push out a new firmware for the display controller to switch it from a just-in-time display write strategy to a hurry-up-and-wait strategy, or brute-force it by offering a "high performance" 60fps-at-all-times mode for the easily annoyed.

But yeah, this is normal. Unless display manufacturers implement some form of programmable addressing, or buffered panel refresh, or they just jack mobile device framerates way up as Apple seems to be doing.
Click to expand...

Did you just make this up? this is bullshit.
 
I've never given this much thought.

Figured I would see what happens if I use my phone fully upside down... and then had a facepalm moment. I had never realized it won't orient that way. Right side up, or on either side, but it won't rotate to upside down.

So... they defeated the software side that normally woudln't allow the image to display with the screen upside down. But they are hinting that there is no way in software or firmware at this time to fix the stretch effect which is hard coded to the PHYSICAL orientation of the screen.

I saw it immediately in the video. If my phone did that I'd take it back. That made me ill on about the 3rd swipe.
 
They're taking a page out of the Apple book of "it's a feature".
 
Sounds to me like they cant afford to RMA all of the broken devices so theyre basically telling their users to screw off. No chance I'll be buying a OnePlus anything with this kind of attitude.
 
Dont see the big deal to be honest.
I do think it more tearing (as sometimes it looks blocky and jelly), and the brain making it look like 'jelly' as the other poster said.
The brain does things like this, it could very well be true.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Of course, patented mandatory Jelly scroll mode.
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Soon it will be all the rage and everyone will want it. Then Hipsters can be like "I had it back with the Op5, but I'm so over it now"
 
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Advil said:
I've never given this much thought.

Figured I would see what happens if I use my phone fully upside down... and then had a facepalm moment. I had never realized it won't orient that way. Right side up, or on either side, but it won't rotate to upside down.

So... they defeated the software side that normally woudln't allow the image to display with the screen upside down. But they are hinting that there is no way in software or firmware at this time to fix the stretch effect which is hard coded to the PHYSICAL orientation of the screen.

I saw it immediately in the video. If my phone did that I'd take it back. That made me ill on about the 3rd swipe.
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Interestingly, 180 rotation used to be an available option prior to Kitkat. You can still give upside down it a try if you download an app like Set Orientation.
 
This just looks like a video glitch caused by the display being upside down and it being recorded with a right side up camera with a rolling shutter.
 
SonyEricsson did the same thing on the Xperia X1, unless the HW is capable of handling this (without performance impact) it means that the UI pipeline will have to invert and flip the UI each frame. In normal operations this isnt really a big thing but anything thats performance critical takes a hit (as does power). It would be interesting to see benchmark comparison between normal held mode and holding it upside down.
 
Advil said:
I've never given this much thought.

Figured I would see what happens if I use my phone fully upside down... and then had a facepalm moment. I had never realized it won't orient that way. Right side up, or on either side, but it won't rotate to upside down.

So... they defeated the software side that normally woudln't allow the image to display with the screen upside down. But they are hinting that there is no way in software or firmware at this time to fix the stretch effect which is hard coded to the PHYSICAL orientation of the screen.

I saw it immediately in the video. If my phone did that I'd take it back. That made me ill on about the 3rd swipe.
Click to expand...

My nvidia shield tablet with Cyanogen rom it flips upside down completely.
No jelly scrolling. And a much bigger display.
 
I tried the OP 5, but returned it after a couple days because, aside from the camera, it really isn't much of an upgrade from my excellent 3T. I didn't notice that jelly effect on my 5, at all.
 
We've got bits of the reason why in this thread, but not the whole story:

Most* OLED panels utilise a rolling update, usually 5 segments in sequence. Conventionally this will be top-to-bottom in their intended orientation, vertical for phones. Some will be side-to-side if they were originally designed for one orientation and then used in another (e.g. holding a phone in landscape view). Because of this known behaviour, Android's display pipeline and compositor compensate for this rolling update by offsetting the segments during 'whole screen' scroll events, to hide the separation in update times. This updates with orientation, which is why the screen doesn't go jelly-like when you turn your phone around.
It sounds like OnePlus are either not using this tool at all, or have it set up backwards, with top-to-bottom compensate and bottom-to-top updating combining to enhance the timing difference between screen segments rather than hide it.
In theory, this could be fixed in software, but in theory this should also have been caught and fixed long before release as soon as the first functional prototypes were created with the inverted panel.


*There are a handful of global-update OLED panels, mainly those used in the most recent crop of VR HMDs (Rift CV1, Vive, PSVR), that also utilise low-persistence driving mode rather than being illuminated for the full refresh interval. These may filter their way out to GearVR and Daydream-compatible phones.
Incidentally, due to the rolling update, both the Rift DK2 and the GearVR all utilise a 'stepped timewarp', with each segment of the display being warped differently to compensate for the physical display illuminating at different times.
 
Was thinking of getting one, but not now. Couldn't risk getting one that shows this effect
it would drive me mad
 
I got my 1+5 2 days ago and I gotta say coming from the 5x,This thing is super fast opening apps is like night and day. It just opens no lag and the screen is excellent and I do not have this issue.
 
I suddenly have this feeling that the Jelly scrolling is the actual intended feature and those phones without jelly scrolling are actually the defective units.

Makes sense if they are not RMA'ing jelly scrolling phones.
 
I played Quake II with Jelly Models.

I think the effect in the video looks kinda cool, it wouldn't bother me much.
 
That being said if you have a penchant for BBW porn, this could be a nice effect. Like those "live" photos smart phones take.

 
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