Last updated : 31/3/2026 (Assembled, reviewed, awaiting further tests)
Introduction
Welp, it's the OnePlus 5T. The shitphone I've seen mentioned on some notable internet fellows (like rainheaven before his disappearance & cadence).
As for how I obtained this... well, I got a 5T board somewhere around 2023, with basically zero resource (maybe a bit of spare cash, but no spare time) to see if it worked, so that was shelved for longer than I cared to remember. And it was in February 2026 (following an excess of parts from some parts order and me being selected as the Dorms' lord for the year) that I finally got to find out if it worked (which, to my pleasure, it did... except for the lost IMEI, but without a SIM card I cannot even have that as an issue). And so the research begins...
Physical features
The OP5T felt barely any larger than the 3T, perhaps thanks to its curvier back (compared to the 3(T)) making it feel thinner than it actually is.
- On the top section, there's nothing but metal as far as the eye can see. Not even a microphone hole.
- USB‐C charging port, speaker, headphone jack, & primary mic on the bottom corner. The jack is positioned on the bottom-right, which is somewhat ideal, though at the cost of the speaker being easier to block with the right hand while in landscape position. The USB‐C port is flanked by 2 T2 torx screws, meant to be taken off in repairs.
- Left section contains the alert slider & volume buttons.
- Right section is home to the power button & the dual SIM tray. Having the power & volume button on the opposite of each other is ideal for faster (yet more likely accidental) screenshots.
- Front side is reserved for the 6.01' 18:9 OLED, front camera, and earpiece. And a multicolored notification light dot, something I tend to not mention.
- The back holds NFC tag (surrounding the rear camera), flash diffuser, rear cameras, & secondary mic. The camera bump is and is on the top‐left corner so you can expect the device to wiggle if you tap it while it lies on its back.
- For materials, Gorilla Glass 5 covers the front display, with aluminium for the back, sides, the buttons, & the alert slider. Rear camera lens should be the usual tempered glass but I didn't bother researching that one.
- The OP5's haptics are serviceable with 57ms on Simple Keyboard being my sweet spot. That said, I felt the vibration wasn't exactly even as I can somewhat feel certain parts of the device (particularly the tops) don't vibrate as hard.
- Regarding the buttons, they feel fine (for a phone with simple button mechanism, complete with some wobble) if & ONLY IF both button flex cable & the triggers were attached correctly (which can be a challenge on itself). The fingerprint scanner is reasonably accurate & fast, but it refuses to register known fingers twice ‐ something I've noticed on the OP6 but not the OP3T (and every other device I've owned).
- JerryRigEverything durability test video for the OnePlus 5T.
Audio Quality
The OP5 has most of its audio modules (mono loudspeaker & headphone jack) at the bottom of the device, flanking the USB‐C port. The earpiece can also double as a second speaker by either modifying mixer_paths_tasha or downloading & applying pre-tuned file (or Magisk module?) from Go-ogle Drive.
The loudspeaker is as mediocre as it could be, with the device needing to be laid on some flat & hard surface to have any chance at sounding acceptable. And it is positioned to be very easily blocked in landscape grip. As for the earpiece, I am yet to have it be a second speaker. That said, I did have mixer_paths_tasha applied so either my earpiece was not working (therefore I forgot to find a working one) or it just isn't meant to be a second speaker. Or I needed to do further research on this.
The headphone jack quality is average, but at least its positioning won't get in the way of landscape gaming as much as the X3(N/P) would & only "costs" 1 hand in combination with the USB‐C.
Display
Not much to say, the 6.01' 18:9 OLED is about as noteworthy as it was not. Decently acceptable colors (and yes, those inky off blacks), standard refresh rate, and nonzero chance of image retention (or random super bright green/pink lines) after years of usage. And unlike its successor OP6 the whites feel more acceptable to the eye right out of the box.
Bootloader unlocking
The bootloader unlocking process is foolproof & simple : plug phone to PC, enable OEM unlocking & USB debugging in stock OS' developer options, boot to fastboot & fastboot oem unlock in fastboot. No connecting to internet unless you're missing the adb tools (and maybe the custom recovery & ROM files).
Repairability
In terms of repairability, the OP5T is almost similar for the 3(T) if it wasn't for the back shell and display cable positionings.
- Back shell requires removing the SIM tray & 2 T2 torx screws flanking the USB‐C port. Prying off back shell doesn't require any heat whatsoever & the clips are quite tight (at least on original back shell & midframe, knockoffs tend to be looser). The shell houses the alert slider, buttons' clickers, fingerprint scanner, flash diffuser, NFC pad, and the USB‐C and headphone jack, with the last 2 on the same flexible cable.
- More on the buttons' triggers : First off, they're held on by glued up plastic brackets (or doctor up some 0.3mm plate if you lost said bracket). Next up, while the triggers themselves are metal, the part that interact with the buttons' switches are plastic, so care needs to be taken when reattaching back shell to make sure they're as out of the way as possible so they don't snap. And if that plastic breaks (which it will eventually do), that clicker will need replacing. Keep some spares for this one.
- More on the stuff housed on the back shell : Both I/O modules (headphone jack & USB‐C) & fingerprint scanner connect to the motherboard with those Lego‐like BTBs, but the former /I/O) are secured under a latched bracket on the motherboard side and 4 screws in the back shell. No such bracketry business for the fingerprint scanner, as it adheres to back shell.
- As previously mentioned, the I/O modules (headphone jack & USB‐C) are on the same cable so if either fails you're either microsoldering a working replacement or replacing the entire module.
- Motherboard doesn't have any covering pieces, but are held by 9 Philips screws and 3 latches (with the rear camera latch held by a screw), while daughterboard & bottom speaker's held by 6 Philips screws (and some adhesive under daughterboard). Most of the screws (aside from the 2 loudspeaker screws, though I had success using the regular screws) are similar in size & length so you can probably not sort them out.
- SIM reader's soldered on the motherboard, though that's common for most devices I know (with the exception of Poco F3 & ZS630KL). It's mounted on the back side of the motherboard, but you don't need to worry about it since the tray is removed before the back shell.
- Battery (normally) features a static pull tab meant to ease removal, and for first removal, the battery is lightly adhered to the frame.
- Every removable component except for alert slider, bottom speaker, buttons, earpiece, NFC, & vibration motor (which uses contact pins). Those BTBs have black silicone seals surrounding the BTB's sockets instead of random capacitors underneath it (except for the connector between display & extension cable where the display's cable has the seal instead), making disconnecting those cables somewhat safer.
- The power & volume buttons are adhered to the midframe & are on different ribbon cables. However, it's easier to damage the buttons' triggers than the buttons' switches when prying and/or reattaching back shell.
- Display is adhered to the midframe. Earpiece grille adheres below display glass. And replacing display requires getting the display extension cable out of the way as it is stuck to some metallic plate, which gets in the way of inserting the display cable.
Teardown references :
Custom ROM & Kernel Availability (as of 13/3)2026)
First off, custom ROMs on the 5T is... whatever. Sticking with 4.4 kernel, we get A10 RR by SirRGB (May 2023 SPL), A11 crDroid (Jan 2024 SPL), and official LineageOS, archived by timschumi (A11, May 2022 / A12L, December 2022). Of course, going by the ≥A13, we have official LineageOS (A15)... and that's about that.
As for custom kernels... nope, at least for ≤A11. Some Telegram user apparently made an allegedly KSU‐compatible 4.4 kernel, but it didn't work for me (internal issues & no KSU on ≤A11). And with APatch not patching the ≤A11 boot images and Magisk Delta being generally unreliable, I am forced to stick with Magisk ≤25.2 for any kind of root access.
Other issues
Let's start out with the bad ones:
- No microSD, forcing the USB‐C port to double up as external storage plug for any kind of external storage business.
- OnePlus' firmware being averse to background music playing.
- Fast charging limited to Dash Charging (or USB‐C VOOC?) brick & cable: no USB PD or Qualcomm Quick Charge whatsoever. As such, you will be left waiting if you don't have BBK's proprietary fast charger.
For the debatable nitpicks :
- The 5T initially is a 4.4 device, but certain developers took them to 4.14 on >A13. Not all does though, official LineageOS stayed with 4.4 at the moment of writing (13/3/2026). This doesn't mean much to me as one of the very few ≤A12L user (though in case of 5T it's ≤A11), except for the fact we don't get any custom kernels, and those who do will have to research on which kernel fits which ROM.
- Pointless second rear camera in lieu of optically stabilized main camera from the previous generation.
And, finally, the nice to have ones:
- Alert slider
While this is not something I use regularly (considering it can't be configured for anything unrelated to notification volumes), there's plenty of people who consider this an essential feature. And it is no longer with the vibration motor (but still glued & screwed into back shell) so replacing it is less stressful.
Conclusion
The 5T... is not noteworthy. Sure, it is overall a better hardware compared to the OP3(T), but the available ROMs are notably less reliable. And... well... I ran out of stuff to say by the intro. Most of what I've wrote (aside from the ROM/kernel) on the 5T was mostly recycled from the 3T with a bit of adaptation. As such I can only conclude that the 5T is a boring upgrade over the 3T (maybe with the reliability put on the question mark, but the OP6(T) is the one to fuck that up).
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