Flagship phones are the easiest targets for the critics. Believe it or not, the fame and vanity also packs the opportunity to draw exaggerated negative reviews. Phone makers often try to patch the shortcomings by a series of bugfix updates, but those initiatives are not always helpful.

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Samsung Galaxy S10e: The Sprint Galaxy S10 variants are known for LTE/data connection issues

OnePlus, as an offshoot of OPPO, started their journey in 2014 with the motto of releasing a single flagship grade phone per year. The stance was later revised, and they started to produce a half-yearly refresh (dubbed as the ‘T’ variant). However, all of their phones have been subjects to controversies.

OnePlus One, the first phone from the Shenzhen based OEM, was plugged with yellow tint issues on the display panel. Fast forward to 2016’s OnePlus 3 and 3T – both of them suffered from a serious glitch related to broken rear camera focus.

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OnePlus 3T: The OEM voluntarily replaced the faulty camera modules

The inverted display panel of OnePlus 5 (and related ‘jelly’ scrolling), the oil painting effect on photos taken by latter OnePlus phones – the list just continues.

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OnePlus 5 came with an inverted display panel

OnePlus tried hard to get rid of the negative reception by rolling out software patches as well as issuing multiple statements to justify the anomalies!

The newest addition in this list is the ghost touch event with the OnePlus 7 Pro. According to a significant number of 7 Pro users, they have noticed random phantom touches on the screen under different scenarios.

oneplus_7_pro_ghost_touch_artem_tweet

Later on, the affected users found a distinct way to reproduce the issue. Seems that CPU-Z, an apparently unharmful system information app, can instantly trigger the ghost touches.

Hi All,

Some of us are having this ghost touch issue, but it happens with certain apps only. I ask, for those who would like to confirm this, to test this out by:

Download and install CPU-Z.

Open the app and let your phone just sit there for 1 minute or so.

Do you see random inputs?

(Source)

Social media platforms are getting filled up with truckload of user reports, but most of these feedback lack a proper controlled test run. However, the community members identified the correlation between the NFC and ghost touches.

It could be possible that CPU-Z invokes the bug while trying to probe the NFC controller details. Turning on the NFC without using the app can allegedly trigger the phantom touches on the OnePlus 7 Pro display as well.

oneplus_7_pro_ghost_touch_nfc_tweet
Source

Users can visualize these ghost touches by turning on the ‘Show taps’ feature from Developer options.

Due to the widespread FUD around this touch issue of the current gen flagship offering from OnePlus, the company is onto damage controlling since a very early stage.

At first, they officially acknowledged the existence of the issue:

1. Ghost Touch Issue on 3rd party Applications

2. battery drain and Heating issue

3. selfie camera pops up while getting an incoming video call, the camera pops up even if the Device is the pocket

4. MMS messaging not working with Inland Cellular(carrier) on my One Plus 7 Pro.

5. An issue with Incoming calls for the users using Verizon Network: Unable to accept incoming calls from Verizon iPhones.

6. Ghost Touch Issue on CPU-Z Applications

OnePlus decided to use display panels from multiple vendors, thus we are not zeroed out the possibility of having a design level bug in a particular batch of assembly. Although it is impossible to detect the pattern without sufficient samples, the Bug Hunter team suggested to turn off NFC as a temporary workaround.

oneplus_7_pro_ghost_touch_workaround_abdul

Nonetheless, the disputation has brought an overall negative vibe towards the sells of the phone. Potential buyers become uncertain about the performance and hesitant to bite the bullet.

Im waiting.

My nexus 7 tablet had touch problems and i never want to deal with that again. I hated using it. And there the same types of post that are showing up for the op7p one post says something fixed another says it doesnt. In the end it was never fixed.

(Source)

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Source

Meanwhile, David Y., OnePlus Global Community Manager, has notified OnePlus forum users about the internal investigation conducted by the OEM. Rest assured, OnePlus is handling the matter with ample seriousness.

oneplus_7_pro_ghost_touch_david

Totally understand. We are investigating all the possibilities that may cause this issue, instead of rushing to give a conclusion. We believe this is the most responsible approach for all users who have bought or are about to buy the OnePlus 7 Pro.

We will keep everyone updated.

(Source)

Have you encountered the ghost touches on your OnePlus 7 Pro? Let us know by commenting below.

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Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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