Unable to use YouTube at 120Hz on your OnePlus 8T? Try these workarounds

The smartphone industry is pretty mature at this point and moving on, we’re only going to see small iterations and gradual enhancements to an already stable form.

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of interest and development towards smartphone displays with higher refresh rates. This has become a spec that users look out for when making purchases.

90Hz and 120Hz displays have become common-place in the market today with others spotting displays with up to 144Hz refresh rates.

This is nice and all as it all adds up to a smoother user experience for these device owners. But then, this is only useful when it actually works.

The OnePlus 8T, released back in 2020, has a big, beautiful AMOLED panel with an admirable 120Hz refresh rate. This has made the device a pretty enticing package for many Android purists.

Unfortunately, these users report that they’re unable to make use of the 120Hz refresh rate that their devices are capable of when using the YouTube app.

Hi,
Wrote to your support regarding the youtube app on my oneplus 8T not supporting 120hz displays, max 60 hz, (the interface, not the videos). They told me to forward this issue to the oneplus forum, so hope you can pass this on to the developers so they can fix it.
I have also contacted Google about this, they clearly said that the issue was a Oneplus problem.
Source

This issue might not exactly be exclusive to the OnePlus 8T. This, as there are reports from users of other devices such as the OnePlus 8 Pro regarding this 120Hz issue.

According to some users on the community forums (1,2), this issue is almost exclusive to OnePlus devices as users with Samsung Galaxy devices don’t seem to be afflicted.

Despite these reports of other Android OEMs not facing this issue, a OnePlus Community expert has still been quoted throwing the blame back to Google.

The Youtube app comes from Google, Google need to update the app.

All this back and forth isn’t helping anyone. So what can affected users do to alleviate this problem from their devices until these two companies can fix it? Well, two methods.

A few users have noted that this problem isn’t present on the popular modified YouTube app, YouTube Vanced. It might be worth a try for users that aren’t afraid to do a little tinkering on their devices.

However, this being an unofficial app whose developers cannot be vetted, we cannot speak to the safety of such apps on your device so try this at your own risk.

Another suggested workaround involves the use of a third-party app, AutoHz, that offers users a more granular control of their higher refresh rate display.

At the time of writing, this is the best workaround we could find for this issue. We can only hope for a more long-term solution from OnePlus on this issue.

We shall continue to keep an eye on this and many more OnePlus OxygenOS 11 issues and you can check out our tracker for more.

NOTE: We have these and many more OnePlus stories in our dedicated OnePlus section.

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