iPhone 13 Pro iPhone 13 Pro 80Hz refresh rate cap in system apps.

[Mastiff Li]

I'm a user of the iPhone 13 Pro Max for a week and the ProMotion display worked perfectly before.
However, last night, I rebooted my phone and surprisingly discovered that the refresh rate is locked to 80Hz ('cause the ProMotion display only has 120 and 80Hz levels above 60Hz) in most system apps (including the Home Screen, Settings, Photos, nearly all).
I just find it so ridiculous, as they just advertised the display as a 120Hz one, while locking system, first-party apps to 80Hz.
(I understand that the ProMotion display can adapt to your finger movement, and adjust its refresh rate. But no matter how fast or slow I scroll, it just keeps 80Hz at most.)
It feels awful, especially when you are going back to Home Screen from a third-party app running at 120Hz.
Maybe that's a bug, or maybe they just meant to do it for the battery life. I don't think this could save a lot of battery, 'cause the time we spend on system apps is much less than third-party apps. But by doing this, the overall user experience is badly ruined, as you have to put up with the laggy 80Hz app when your eyes have adapted to 120Hz. And by the way, 80 is closer to 60 than to 120.
What do you think of it? This was driving me crazy last night.

 

[aue123]

sorry i didn’t read your wall of text.. but did you see the video that showed the Hz ? it depends on swipe speed and other factors but yes it does go to 120

 

[Mastiff Li]

sorry i didn’t read your wall of text.. but did you see the video that showed the Hz ? it depends on swipe speed and other factors but yes it does go to 120

Yes, it does depend on the swipe speed, but 80Hz at most now.
It was 120Hz at most on my device, but after I rebooted my device last night, it just can't get any higher than 80Hz in system apps, including Home Screen.

 

[EastHillWill]

How can you check your refresh rate?

 

[Mastiff Li]

How can you check your refresh rate?

That's obvious. 'Cause the screen only has 80Hz and 120Hz levels above 60Hz. And you can distinguish the two easily.

 

[KimM08]

I agree.. i have the same experience, i noticed that the moment i open my 13 pro max out of the box after updating to ios 15.1.1,.. i noticed it right away cos i was using ipad pro 2020 and samsung s21 ultra and it was really an eyesore 😤😤😤

It was not a big deal for some users specially who have been using 60hz for the longest time, but for me, i decided to go back on using iphone cos apple finally brought 120hz to iphone but this experience is really disappointing.. we paid for what they advertised so hopefully apple fix this soon.. loving the 13 pro max but this issue really annoys me…

And by the way, i just found someone on youtube proved that most of the time it was running on around 80 hz or something, but very rarely on 120hz.. i was most annoyed with the home screen scrolling, cos it was really that noticeable on my naked eye..

this is the video.. feel free to check it out… at first i thought it was just my unit, cos i remember trying it on a gadget store and it really do feel 120hz most of the time, but it was when the 13 pro max was on pre order and not physically available, so when i finally got it on my hand, i felt like my unit has a problem, but no.. it was really the case after watching this video..

 

[The Game 161]

I'm a user of the iPhone 13 Pro Max for a week and the ProMotion display worked perfectly before.
However, last night, I rebooted my phone and surprisingly discovered that the refresh rate is locked to 80Hz ('cause the ProMotion display only has 120 and 80Hz levels above 60Hz) in most system apps (including the Home Screen, Settings, Photos, nearly all).
I just find it so ridiculous, as they just advertised the display as a 120Hz one, while locking system, first-party apps to 80Hz.
(I understand that the ProMotion display can adapt to your finger movement, and adjust its refresh rate. But no matter how fast or slow I scroll, it just keeps 80Hz at most.)
It feels awful, especially when you are going back to Home Screen from a third-party app running at 120Hz.
Maybe that's a bug, or maybe they just meant to do it for the battery life. I don't think this could save a lot of battery, 'cause the time we spend on system apps is much less than third-party apps. But by doing this, the overall user experience is badly ruined, as you have to put up with the laggy 80Hz app when your eyes have adapted to 120Hz. And by the way, 80 is closer to 60 than to 120.
What do you think of it? This was driving me crazy last night.

What app are you using to test this?

 

[The Game 161]

I agree.. i have the same experience, i noticed that the moment i open my 13 pro max out of the box after updating to ios 15.1.1,.. i noticed it right away cos i was using ipad pro 2020 and samsung s21 ultra and it was really an eyesore 😤😤😤

It was not a big deal for some users specially who have been using 60hz for the longest time, but for me, i decided to go back on using iphone cos apple finally brought 120hz to iphone but this experience is really disappointing.. we paid for what they advertised so hopefully apple fix this soon.. loving the 13 pro max but this issue really annoys me…

And by the way, i just found someone on youtube proved that most of the time it was running on around 80 hz or something, but very rarely on 120hz.. i was most annoyed with the home screen scrolling, cos it was really that noticeable on my naked eye..

this is the video.. feel free to check it out… at first i thought it was just my unit, cos i remember trying it on a gadget store and it really do feel 120hz most of the time, but it was when the 13 pro max was on pre order and not physically available, so when i finally got it on my hand, i felt like my unit has a problem, but no.. it was really the case after watching this video..

While true this was also before all the updates which were said to improve 120hz in 3rd party apps. Not sure if this has changed or not though.

i do agree though when you compare 120hz on the iPad Pro and with other Samsung devices it’s not as good.

 

[FILIPSN007]

I agree.. i have the same experience, i noticed that the moment i open my 13 pro max out of the box after updating to ios 15.1.1,.. i noticed it right away cos i was using ipad pro 2020 and samsung s21 ultra and it was really an eyesore 😤😤😤

It was not a big deal for some users specially who have been using 60hz for the longest time, but for me, i decided to go back on using iphone cos apple finally brought 120hz to iphone but this experience is really disappointing.. we paid for what they advertised so hopefully apple fix this soon.. loving the 13 pro max but this issue really annoys me…

And by the way, i just found someone on youtube proved that most of the time it was running on around 80 hz or something, but very rarely on 120hz.. i was most annoyed with the home screen scrolling, cos it was really that noticeable on my naked eye..

this is the video.. feel free to check it out… at first i thought it was just my unit, cos i remember trying it on a gadget store and it really do feel 120hz most of the time, but it was when the 13 pro max was on pre order and not physically available, so when i finally got it on my hand, i felt like my unit has a problem, but no.. it was really the case after watching this video..

I have same problem with my iPhone 12 Pro. Homescreen is laggy and apps like Youtube are fluid. I think that there is really bad implementation of variable refresh rate or animations for ProMotion. It's even affecting old devices.