There is a serious scrolling issue with the OnePlus 10 Pro, which renders the phone almost useless.
There are major stutters and lags while browsing through specific applications on the phone. According to what I’ve read, this is caused by the way OnePlus set up the display’s dynamic refresh rate technology.
In order to better understand how this works, let us first see an example. First, let’s take a look at a typical Instagram timeline, which has become more video-centric over the last several years. The relevance of this will be described in more detail later.
Here’s what it looks like in Flamingo, a Twitter client developed by a third party. Though the Play Store no longer carries Flamingo, it is still being updated.
However, the scrolling in both applications is notable in its own right. The top left corner of the phone’s screen has a little refresh rate counter.
You need to know how the display is set up in order to grasp what is going on. In order to maintain the maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, the display may clock down to a variety of various numbers, depending on what is occuring on the screen. 90 Hz, 60 Hz, 30 Hz, 10 Hz, 5 Hz, and even 1 Hz are among the frequencies I measured. To conserve electricity, the refresh rate is being slowed down.
Refresh rates on the OnePlus 10 Pro have been drastically reduced compared to prior models. The problem is that it does this even when it isn’t meant to.
Apple Music’s lyrics scroll automatically while you have the app open, as we demonstrated in our review. You aren’t engaging with the screen, thus the refresh rate never reaches its maximum 120 Hz. The auto-scrolling lyrics are obviously choppy since the phone slows down to an aggressive 30Hz. A 60Hz scrolling speed may be possible, but it doesn’t happen all the time, and even if it does 60Hz still looks much worse than 120Hz, which is what the phone seems to be able to handle.
When it comes to the worst offenders, it’s those programmes that you use often. Static photographs and video components coexist in equal measure on Instagram, possibly the most famous example of this. A frame rate reduction to 30Hz or 60Hz is planned when a video is detected on screen (OnePlus is ignorant of 24/48fps and 25/50fps video, but that is a topic for another day).
There’s an immediate dip in frame rate whenever a video is shown on the timeline. Previously, this would only happen when the timeline was scrolled through. As a result, the scrolling experience is rendered laughably terrible while you are still engaging with the device.
However, the 60fps video above should give you a sense of that, but it can’t exactly portray what it feels like to be whiplashed back and forth between 120fps, 60fps and even 30fps within just one scroll of your finger. While 60Hz itself isn’t ideal, a constant 60Hz is completely functional. The toggling, however, is the biggest problematic. Instead of a smooth scrolling experience, you’re forced to experience a ping-ponging between 60Hz and 120Hz.
Flamingo is a particularly heinous case study. There aren’t any moving images to be seen here. But while scrolling, the phone exhibits an odd rubber band effect, which causes it to snap back and forth with a delayed reaction. Even in a 30fps video, you can clearly see this. Instead of recognising the user’s movement and quickly returning to normal speed, the screen is in a rush to reach 1Hz and loses track of their actions.
In spite of the fact that Instagram and Flamingo are among the worst offenders, scrolling is a problem across the board. When scrolling through applications, the display will randomly switch to 60Hz mode for long periods of time, only to switch back after a few more scrolls. A lot of the time, it is difficult to determine what caused a display to reduce its refresh rate in the middle of a session.
Because the two movies linked above cover all you need to know, I won’t go into detail here. After two software upgrades, the phone still suffers from this problem that we’ve experienced when we initially got our hands on it before its release (the phone is currently on A.13). The second update really made things worse, particularly in Flamingo, which was previously usable. The problem with OnePlus has been brought up in the past, and we even covered it in our day one review.
We paid a lot of money for this phone, therefore we’re expecting a lot more. There’s no excuse for ignoring this problem on a high-end gadget any more than we would on a low-end one.
A public service announcement (PSA) and recommendation that consumers avoid purchasing the phone until this problem is addressed are the only options we have right now. This is to guarantee that the organisation notices and works on a solution. We’ll let you know as soon as it occurs. Until then, beware of what you put into your mouth.