Other Honestly, does 120 Hz even matter on iPhone displays?

[rijc99]

120 makes a difference once you’ve used it much in same way as OLED over LCD. Or decent 5G over LTE or 4K over 1080. Once you’ve seen it you adjust to it and then everything lower seems off.

The same people saying 60 is enough are the same ones that said OLED isn’t necessary when apple didn’t used OLED but changed their minds when the X came out.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

120 makes a difference once you’ve used it much in same way as OLED over LCD. Or decent 5G over LTE or 4K over 1080. Once you’ve seen it you adjust to it and then everything lower seems off.

The same people saying 60 is enough are the same ones that said OLED isn’t necessary when apple didn’t used OLED but changed their minds when the X came out.

I’m using my first OLED iPhone now and can’t say I can see a huge difference. The screen on my previous 8 Plus was excellent and the very slight differences of OLED for me are not as massive as many here lead me to believe. Apple have always had very good screens on iPhones to start with.

 

[FlyingTexan]

I mean, just go to Best Buy and play with a Note 20 Ultra. It’s literally night and day. Maybe 60hz is not “too slow” for most people as you said, but that bump in refresh rate makes a world of difference. You’d never be able to go back. Apple not releasing 120hz on at least the max phone this year would be an absolute joke. But sadly most won’t care

The second Apple did this you’d complain about battery life.

 

[PeterG727]

Yes, I have an ipad pro with pro motion display. It's great, and I wished the Iphones get it.

 

[ShogunofHarlem]

Feel like this is one of those things - sort of like once you have worn a proper fitting suit you didnt really know what you were missing and its hard to go back to OTR. Something that has to be experienced for a bit.

 

[Carlo Aguilar Castrat]

So 1 month ago i had an 11 pro max, couldnt resist and went out and bought an s20 plus. After 3 weeks with that, I got tired of the samsung UI and i just bought a pixel 5 today. Pixel 5 is inly 90hz but honestly theres no real difference between 90hz and 120hz. Nothing noticable unless you compare directly. 60hz on the other hand is lag city even if you dont compare directly. I could never go back to 60hz, its just so laggy, not only is it laggy, but it causes more eye strain. 90hz or higher is so fluid

 

[MartyvH]

It is nice and I think the LTPO with it will be genuinely beneficial. But not worth paying Pro prices for. I'm fine waiting until it's in non-Pro and I just bought a 12 mini non-Pro.

 

[bushman4]

120 hz is more valuable and noticeable on a larger screen like an iPad . Not that it wouldn’t be helpful on the iPhone but not to the extent your making it out to be

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

So 1 month ago i had an 11 pro max, couldnt resist and went out and bought an s20 plus. After 3 weeks with that, I got tired of the samsung UI and i just bought a pixel 5 today. Pixel 5 is inly 90hz but honestly theres no real difference between 90hz and 120hz. Nothing noticable unless you compare directly. 60hz on the other hand is lag city even if you dont compare directly. I could never go back to 60hz, its just so laggy, not only is it laggy, but it causes more eye strain. 90hz or higher is so fluid

I’ve not experienced lag on my iPhone personally but I define lag as stuttering or pausing when using applications. Nothing like that is present for me. I know when scrolling a 120Hz screen will appear less blurred than a 60Hz, but this sort of thing isn’t an issue for me. I’d find more of an issue with an overall operating system change than I would noticing a slightly different refresh rate.

 

[C. Robert]

If it means worse battery life, no. Any tech that makes using a product better is nice to have.

 

[The Game 161]

If it means worse battery life, no. Any tech that makes using a product better is nice to have.

LTPO will mean battery life should stay the same with 120hz than normal panels with 60hz which is likely why apple waited for LTPO and from all reports apple have ordered panels with LTPO included in these panels.

 

[richard371]

I do notice it makes a big difference on the iPad Pro vs standard iPad but comparing my iPhone 12 max to my iPad pr I dont see where it would make a big difference. Looks smooth enough to me.

 

[DanTSX]

It was definitely worth the extra coin to get to the 120hz pro motion display on my iPad Pro. I would love the phones to have it, but feel that if it taxes the batter more, then it is not worth it (not yet anyways). My iPad Pro battery consumption is terrible, and I attribute it mainly to the 120hz screen.

 

[Carlo Aguilar Castrat]

120 hz is more valuable and noticeable on a larger screen like an iPad . Not that it wouldn’t be helpful on the iPhone but not to the extent your making it out to be

in my opinion its quite the opposite. Ive tested this with my friend and he agreed. Try the 120hz on an iPad and then try the 120hz on a Galaxy S20. Its night and day difference, might be because one is amoled and one isn't, or because the iPad doesn't stay at 120hz, but the S20 one looks way smoother. I think it might just be more noticeable on smaller screens cause you're actually paying more attention to detail. Since the UI is smaller, you focus on certain parts while scrolling and you will notice the refresh rate a lot more.

 

[Kai Hawaii]

It won‘t matter much on regular size IPhone.
But on the IPhone Pro Max with the 6.7 Screen it definitely would make a big difference.
Especially when you scroll through websites and facebook. It is much more easy on the eyes too.

 

[Carlo Aguilar Castrat]

It won‘t matter much on regular size IPhone.
But on the IPhone Pro Max with the 6.7 Screen it definitely would make a big difference.
Especially when you scroll through websites and facebook. It is much more easy on the eyes too.

It matters just as much if not more on smaller screens because you lay more attention to detail. The more content is displayed at once on a screen the less you notice the difference in refresh rate. This is why 24fps movies don't seem Maggy when compared to 60fps ones. Because there's so much stuff that you look at the bigger picture instead of focusing on a single object. I have a pixel 5, it's 6.0 inch. I have my 6.7 inch S20 plus next to me. In no way is it more importante on a bigger screen. It's equally important in phones of any screen size

 

[Marlon DLTH :)]

I agree with you. I recently upgraded to the 2020 iPad Pro and noticed the increase in refresh rate. When using my 60hz laptop, I find scrolling and general use laggy. However, on my iPhone 8 I can’t really tell the difference. Maybe it’s the smaller display, or just the smoothness of iOS itself.

 

[Abazigal]

It matters when the iphone doesn’t have it, like 5g, because it gives them something to criticise Apple over.

Once the iphone gets such a feature, watch the critics do a 180-degree turn and start criticising the feature for being a power drain and how they don’t see any appreciable benefit.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Truth be told I'm running a Prototype of the iPhone36. It has a 920,000hz refresh screen but 4 seconds of battery life. I got nuthin.

 

[mlody]

I think the 60 vs. 120 Hz is a bit overblown and started with Android. It is another spec that Android people get to brag about, but it makes very little difference in reality. This reminds me of when Android was bragging about more CPU cores, more memory, and bigger batteries where those things were mostly irrelevant to the iPhone.
We all know that iPhone and iOS are very smooth and optimized. The 60hz smoothness and optimization do not compare to the 60 Hz experience that you get on most Android phones, which would explain the push for 90/120 Hz displays on Android - to achieve the similar smoothness you get with 60 Hz on iPhone.
And before someone attacks me for not knowing what I am saying, I have been using 120hz iPad Pro 10.5 for many years, and I can tell the difference between 60 vs. 120 Hz, and I do see benefits, especially when paired with the Apple Pencil which iPhone does not support. I honestly think that some people are spec trolls, and no matter what, they will complain regardless if the reasons are valid or not. Would I like to see a 120 Hz iPhone, sure, but with no Apple Pencil support, I don't see real reason to even have 120 Hz in the first place except to satifsy the spec trolls.

 

[Tsepz]

I came from Note 20 ultra to 12 pro max.. the 120hz is noticeable for me but it’s not a big deal on a phone compared to a 144hz gaming monitor. Would it be nice to have on the iPhone? Heck yeah. And I decided to change was due to battery life. The Note 20 ultra is definitely not an all day battery phone compared to the iPhone. Had to top off a charge by afternoon in order for it to last me all day/night. Also I tried changing the resolution on note 20 ultra from 1080p to QuadHD and I notice a lot of stutters compared to 120hz.

I love how iPhones can literally sip power while in standby, there were times with some of my Androids where you put it in your pocket at 90% and take it out some hours later e.g. walking out of a movie theatre and the thing has dropped to like 85%, where with an iPhone you’ve dropped to maybe 89 or maybe 88%.

 

[s66]

So you go to the cinema (pre-corona obviously) and depending on where you are you'll be looking at a huge screen running at a bit lower than 30 Hz or 25 Hz.
I can't ever remember anybody coming out of there mentioning anything that the picture was "choppy" due to the slow refresh rate.

To me it's just a marketing fad and it's probably blown out of all proportion by "youtubers" doing "reviews" and finding something to jump on that they "found" and want "improved". I honestly start to hate youtube just due to these morons into it for the clicks and revenue and their followers who gobble it all up as if it were the gospel.

Back at the end of CRT tubes there was a fad with TVs running at 100 Hz instead of the normal 50 Hz out here in Europe. I never saw the point of showing the same image twice on faster phosphor vs. showing it once and letting it glow a bit longer. Every single last one of the so-called advantages were completely gone once you set them side-by-side to the same brightness (their default brightness differed, that's all - but that is just a setting).

Personally: I'll pass. 60Hz is plenty and I know that there is no way that I could see any difference anyway. Smooth scrolling: it's plenty smooth, even on old iPhones.

As to android phones having it (or not having it): I could not care any less. Every android phone I've ever touched had one huge defect: it used android. They can't fix that. If I can't have an iPhone I'd rather use a dumb phone than an android one.

 

[now i see it]

Scrolling refresh rate and fps film rate are completely different.

 

[Rashy]

120 makes a difference once you’ve used it much in same way as OLED over LCD. Or decent 5G over LTE or 4K over 1080. Once you’ve seen it you adjust to it and then everything lower seems off.

The same people saying 60 is enough are the same ones that said OLED isn’t necessary when apple didn’t used OLED but changed their minds when the X came out.

Can't agree to this at all. Never hear of diminishing marginal benefit? According to your statement, we can never be satisfied, even with 6G, 7G, 8G... or 8K, 16K, 32K... which is nonsense. LTE is absolutely fast enough for standard smartphone and tablet use. There is no need to stream QHD or 4K material on such tiny screens. It just consumes server, streaming and power resources, while the additional benefit compared to 1080p is miniscule. 5G as substitute for a missing landline, or for IoT in general, yes, that's fine. But I would never waste extra money and battery for a 5G smartphone contract, if LTE coverage is more than good enough. Maybe in 3-4 years, as new de-facto standard but certainly not right now.

Same for image and video resolution. Good quality 1080p is still fine enough, even on larger screens, Game of Thrones is the perfect example for that. Together with 4K it's an ideal consumer standard. I don't get why first people are falling to the 8K marketing bs? The jump from SD to HD was massive, the jump from HD to 4K significant, but from 4K to 8K and even beyond? People know that their eyes have a limit somewhere? That the demand for resources, power and data consumption rises exponentially with every further increase of resolution, the additional benefit however decreases dramatically? I can certainly state that 1080p film material seems everything than "off".

And for the refresh rate - I have an iPad Pro 10.5" so I use 120Hz daily and I can compare. Do I miss it on my Macbook? Maybe a bit (not for gaming or movies though). On my tiny smartphone screen? Not at all. You don't scroll through texts and webpages on it for hours. I rather keep 60Hz but a solid battery life here. If they want to implement it (and they sure will on the iPhone 13), fine for me, but again, 60Hz still is enough for the huge majority of consumers, just like with FHD/4K and LTE.

 

[The Game 161]

I do try and use my iPad Pro as much as possible as I love the pro motion display. is It a massive deal my pro Max doesn't have it? no but I would love it if it did as it simply a better UI experience having it. when it arrives next year I'm sure many will love it and praise it.