When the OnePlus 3 was released in 2016, OnePlus received considerable backlash for shipping the phone with a wildly inaccurate “Optic AMOLED” display (with respect to the industry standard sRGB color gamut) and provided no option for a more accurate display calibration. Even though most consumers were satisfied with the phone’s default color profile, many photographers and designers wanted a display profile that was accurate to the sRGB color gamut, which is necessary for standardized color reproduction between displays. OnePlus was quick to address the issue, and released a software update which allowed users to enable an option that adjusted the display to target the sRGB color gamut. Although needing to toggle an option to apply the sRGB color profile defeats the purpose of color standardization, OnePlus did an impressive job calibrating the profile to the sRGB color gamut, as pointed out by Anandtech. We expect an even-superior calibration and display performance with the OnePlus 5T.

The 5T is OnePlus’ debut to the recent trend of smaller bezels and taller display aspect ratios with its 6.01-inch AMOLED display manufactured by Samsung. The screen holds a resolution of 2160×1080 PenTile Diamond Pixels (but losing a few due to its slightly-rounded corners), resulting in an 18:9 screen aspect ratio and a pixel density of approximately 401 pixels per inch.

The PenTile Diamond Pixel array provides intrinsic subpixel smoothing by its diamond pixel shape and lengthens panel longevity by including fewer blue subpixels, which deteriorate more quickly than red and green subpixels. Consequently, displays with the PenTile subpixel layout have one-third fewer total subpixels than displays with the conventional striped RGB pixel pattern found on most LCDs. However, the PenTile subpixel arrangement exploits the human eyes’ greater color sensitivity for green, which appears more luminous than red and blue, and greater sensitivity for luminance than for color, by maintaining a one-to-one green subpixel-to-pixel ratio. This results in the PenTile display having approximately the same luma resolution as the more commonly used striped RGB displays, but potentially introducing color fringe as a tradeoff.

While the 5T’s display has a lower pixel resolution than most other OLED PenTile displays in its generation, the screen appears mostly sharp at typical viewing distances (about one foot or 0.3 meters), but it could still definitely benefit from having a higher pixel density. We calculated that, for 20/20 vision, the achromatic image of the display is unresolvable past 8.6 inches, which is usually sharp enough for most people. However, color fringing may still be visible upon keen inspection (depending on the viewer’s visual acuity) due to fewer red and blue subpixels and their placement in the PenTile Diamond Pixel arrangement. For full color images, the pixels are completely unresolvable past 12.1 inches for 20/20 vision, which is within range of the typical viewing distance for most smartphone users. Note that 20/20 vision is considered just normal, and many users are likely to have even finer visual acuity.