The OnePlus 15 arrived with a loud promise: a 165Hz display meant to make every swipe and scroll look almost unreal. On paper it beats plenty of rivals that still stop at 120Hz, and the spec sheet quickly became a headline selling point. 
In daily use however, owners realised that the panel almost never reached that impressive figure. Outside a short list of supported games, most popular apps were capped at 120Hz or below, turning that 165Hz logo into something you saw in marketing more than on the screen itself.
A new software update, version 16.0.1.305, finally nudges that reality a bit closer to the promise. After installing it, OnePlus 15 users can push WhatsApp, Instagram and X, the rebranded Twitter, all the way up to the full 165Hz the panel can deliver. These are apps where many people spend hours every day, so suddenly the ultra fast display is not just a demo in a couple of games. It is a clear nod to power users who have been asking why their expensive flagship could not show off its party trick where they actually live online.
The way OnePlus chose to implement this change, though, is anything but straightforward. There is no simple toggle in the usual screen refresh section under display and brightness. Instead, the option lives in Developer Options, the hidden corner of Android that the system itself warns casual users to avoid. To get there you first have to tap the build number repeatedly to unlock developer mode, then dig through the menus to find the switch that pins supported apps at 165Hz. None of this is particularly hard, but it is clearly designed for enthusiasts who know what they are doing, not for someone who just took their new phone out of the box.
Enabling developer mode is not inherently dangerous, yet it does come with awkward side effects that the glossy promo slides never mention. Some banking and payment apps see developer options as a red flag and simply refuse to run if they detect it is turned on. For the average OnePlus 15 owner that means chasing smoother scrolling in WhatsApp, only to be greeted by security warnings or blank screens from their bank until they switch everything back off. When a feature has been used as a major marketing bullet point, hiding it behind a choice that can quietly break financial apps feels like a poor compromise.
The refresh logic itself also changes once you flip the 165Hz switch. Under normal conditions the OnePlus 15 panel can drop as low as 1Hz when nothing is moving on screen, then ramp up as needed. That adaptive behaviour saves battery and keeps heat in check. With the new mode active for WhatsApp, Instagram and X, the phone simply pins those apps at 165Hz regardless of what you are doing. Madly scrolling through timelines and stories looks buttery, but even when you are staring at a static message or a single photo, the panel keeps refreshing at full speed. That can mean higher power consumption, warmer glass and, in some cases, visual oddities or ghosting in apps that were never designed for such high refresh.
Even more puzzling is how limited the rollout of 165Hz support remains. Titles that were already whitelisted as high refresh games continue to enjoy the full treatment, and this firmware adds only three social apps on top. Everyday tools such as the browser, gallery, camera interface, email client or even the system launcher still top out at 120Hz. Meanwhile other brands ship phones that happily run their 144Hz panels across the whole interface by default. Motorola’s ThinkPhone, for example, lets you enjoy 144Hz everywhere with no hidden menus or secret handshakes, while Sony’s 4K flagships famously flirt with resolution limits that users only occasionally see in real life. The OnePlus approach, by contrast, feels oddly hesitant.
That leads to the obvious question many users are asking in comment sections: is 165Hz even worth all this effort? The jump from 60Hz to 90 or 120Hz is dramatic; most people notice it immediately, even if they do not care about numbers. Once you go beyond 120Hz, the gains become subtler and harder to spot without a side by side comparison. Several OnePlus 15 owners openly admit they struggle to tell the difference between 90 and 120Hz, let alone 120 and 165Hz, especially in chat apps where much of the screen is static text. For them, this update looks less like meaningful progress and more like chasing a bigger number for the spec sheet.
Not everyone agrees. A vocal slice of the community argues that if a phone is sold as a 165Hz device, it should run at 165Hz wherever technically possible. To them, it is less about counting animation frames and more about getting the full value of the hardware they paid for. Some joke that the best use for 165Hz in WhatsApp is calling your friends just to brag that your OnePlus scrolls faster than their iPhone or Galaxy. Beneath the jokes, however, there is genuine frustration. A flagship feature that only works in a handful of apps and hides behind an arcane menu starts to look, in their eyes, uncomfortably close to false advertising.
The debate has even spilled over into how people view smartphone reviews in general. In long comment threads, a few readers accuse certain reviewers of having it in for OnePlus, complaining that the same quirks draw harsher criticism here than on competing phones from brands like Vivo. Others say they have followed big tech sites for almost twenty years and still appreciate the original camera samples, but they no longer treat any single review as absolute truth after regretting purchases that were made purely on those opinions. The messy story of 165Hz on the OnePlus 15 simply gives more ammunition to both camps, fuelling arguments about expectations, bias and consistency across brands.
Price only magnifies those feelings. In many European markets the OnePlus 15 5G with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is listed around 949 euro, while the 16GB and 512GB configuration stretches close to 999 euro. At that level buyers expect headline features to work out of the box and to be easy to find. Nobody wants to pay near four figures for a device just to spend their weekend counting taps on a build number and worrying whether their banking app will still open. If a 165Hz panel is going to be used on the retail box, it should feel like a daily quality of life upgrade, not a secret side quest reserved for the nerdiest fans.
Of course, the new firmware is not only about refresh rates. Version 16.0.1.305, which is rolling out first in India before expanding to other regions, also carries the usual vague promises of system stability improvements, performance tuning and bug fixes. Most of those tweaks will fade into the background and never be noticed individually. Ironically, that makes the clumsy handling of the one stand out feature even more visible. OnePlus clearly wants to give enthusiasts a way to unleash the panel, yet it also seems worried about what a full, system wide 165Hz option would do to battery figures, thermals and app compatibility.
Right now the result feels like a compromise that satisfies almost no one. Frame rate chasers are annoyed that only three social apps benefit and that adaptive refresh is sacrificed in the process. More casual owners either will never discover the option or will decide, quite sensibly, that risking banking apps and battery life for a barely noticeable change in smoothness is not worth it. The obvious solution still sits in front of everyone: add a clear 165Hz toggle to the standard display settings, keep adaptive behaviour wherever possible, and attach a blunt warning about power draw and potential glitches.
Until OnePlus takes that step, the story of 165Hz on the OnePlus 15 will remain oddly messy. The hardware is genuinely impressive and the screen can look spectacular in the right conditions, yet software decisions keep that potential locked away for most owners. This latest update is a welcome move towards letting people actually feel what they were promised at launch, but it also underlines a simple truth of modern phones: big numbers on a spec sheet mean very little if you have to dig through developer menus and accept compromises just to see them in action.