Your shiny new OnePlus 5T can't stream HD videos

Our phones are capable of more than ever before nowadays, and because of this, there are some things we no longer have to think about as we just expect it to work. Pretty much every phone from the past few years has been able to stream HD videos without a hitch, but for whatever reason, the all-new OnePlus 5T is currently unable to do this.

In order to stream videos in HD from the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, etc., phones need to support something called Widevine Level 1 DRM. As some users on OnePlus's forums have noted, the 5T only supports Widevine Level 3 which is capable of just SD video streams.

What's even more peculiar is that The Verge has tested and confirmed that this is an issue that also plagues the original OnePlus 5 that was released this past summer.

OnePlus says that a software update will be available in the future for the 5T that'll enable support for Widevine Level 1, but the company has failed to state why in the world this is something that wasn't supported out of the box.

We wouldn't necessarily deem this as a reason return or not purchase a 5T seeing as how it's a fix is on the way, but it's just mind-boggling as to why this is an issue in the first place.

Joe Maring

Joe Maring was a Senior Editor for Android Central between 2017 and 2021. You can reach him on Twitter at @JoeMaring1.