13 pro max 120hz certainly not as good as the 120hz on my s22 ultra and fold 3 but I think it’s All battery related and why the battery is so much better on the iPhone
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 13 Pro ProMotion too aggressive with variable refresh rate?
- Thread starter no0nefamous
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I will say the iPhone 13 pro’s promotion implementation seems an order of magnitude better than my M1 max MacBook Pro at least. it’s disappointing that their top tier notebook is a absolute stuttering mess compared to their phone for basic things like scrolling.
Honestly in regards to my samsung devices and android devices, 120hz actually feels like 120hz. Most of the time when I'm on my iphone, it doesn't even act like it's even on.
iOS 15.4 fixed the core animation bug that has affected the ProMotion on the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. Going see 15.4 released in March.
Well, the battery isn't really that much better. The issue seems to be that the 13 Pro/Pro Max are way too quick to throttle down the framerate/refresh rate. Obviously I don't need 120hz for non-movement. But for any movement on the screen, I paid for 120hz, I want to see 120 frames.
At least give us the option while acknowledging the potential reduced battery life.
Though not Promotion, my M1 iMac is also pretty stuttery as well. Comparatively, my 5 year old Windows 10 laptop is way smoother, despite the iMac being about 3 times faster.
Is this fix already implemented in the beta releases?
I was tempted to try the beta but we're probably getting 15.4 in the next few days so I'll just wait for it. I hope this finally makes the phone feel like a proper 120hz phone. I've tried the S21 Ultra and the Google 6 Pro and both are so much more consistently smooth than the 13 Pro.
It does kind of bother me that:
1. this issue persisted for half of the first year of the 13 Pro's life, and
2. A fix has probably been ready for a while but they waited for 15.4 to release it.
It does kind of bother me that:
1. this issue persisted for half of the first year of the 13 Pro's life, and
2. A fix has probably been ready for a while but they waited for 15.4 to release it.
Well, I dove in and tried the 15.4 beta and, it could be a placebo effect, but everything does seem significantly smoother. It's a bit early to tell, but this might just be the fix I was looking for.
Last edited:
Would this video not need to be shot and playing in 120hz for us to see that? ?
I believe YouTube caps all videos to 60FPS.
It would, yes. Also the S22 just came out, the 13 Pro is now 6 months old and has had time for tweaks.
Nope, you can clearly see that the iPhone has smoother animations and scrolling in the video.
I’ve played with a pixel 6 pro and S22U in store, both had 120hz turned on in settings, it wasn’t a smooth experience, very hit and miss.
iOS 15.4 literally patches a bug(?) that was causing much of what we were seeing to still be in 60FPS, and installing the beta I'm seeing a very obvious visual improvement, so there is something to what we're saying here.
This is what I thought. One would need to use them side by side to truly see it.
That being said iOS in my experience does typically have smoother animations but I guess the issue here is are they running at 120hz consistently or 60Hz, versus what’s going on in android.
I know in some apps on both iOS and Android there is incredibly poor refresh rate optimization, there are days when I open YouTube or Twitter on my iPad Pro and it is an absolute stutter fest.
It clearly needs an overhaul, they keep adding features to a beat up old app and platform. Twitter Spaces being the latest mess of a feature.
I've been using the 15.4 beta for a few days now and this is the fix I was looking for. It's crazy how much smoother the phone is now. I also now know I wasn't crazy and I'm surprised more people didn't notice this. Prior to this update it literally seems like about half of what I was seeing on screen was not at 120FPS/hz.
Last edited:
So this issue has improved quite a bit with iOS 15.4 and 15.5, but I've come to realize that it's still not quite right. I would wager that still somewhere around 1/4th of all movement on the screen is still not at 120fps/hz.
Dunno I think its where it should be now. App scrolling Certainly feels like 120hz
Update with iOS 15.6 - this continues to improve, but overall the 13 Pro remains significantly less smooth than what I have seem from new Samsung Galaxy phones.
Update with iOS 15.6 13 Pro Max 256GB Silver:
Scrolling is smooth with 120hz but I noticed one thing that isn’t fixed now. Try scrolling slowly in settings and let the animation stop. The last second before the scrolling animation stops there is a short frame skip / minimal lag. You have to look closely to see it.
But this happens not anytime only sometimes. This is strange …
Can anyone confirm?
Scrolling is smooth with 120hz but I noticed one thing that isn’t fixed now. Try scrolling slowly in settings and let the animation stop. The last second before the scrolling animation stops there is a short frame skip / minimal lag. You have to look closely to see it.
But this happens not anytime only sometimes. This is strange …
Can anyone confirm?
Last edited:
Unfortunately this issue got significantly worse again with iOS 16 and hasn't become satisfactory yet. It's a real shame how ultra smooth my phone was just before iOS 16. But now I am constantly seeing the phone throttle down the framerate for no reason. (I have performed restore operations and ran diagnostics - nothing is wrong with my phone).
It's getting really frustrating TBH. I paid for 120hz, I want 120 frames. (I realize it's not possible to always see 120 frames given videos and games are locked at 24/30/60, etc, but the OS's animations, scrolling, and simple stuff should always be 120 frames.
It's getting really frustrating TBH. I paid for 120hz, I want 120 frames. (I realize it's not possible to always see 120 frames given videos and games are locked at 24/30/60, etc, but the OS's animations, scrolling, and simple stuff should always be 120 frames.