Do smartphones really need 120-Hz screens?

[Redaktion]

New smartphones are constantly outbidding each other with ever faster displays. The newest example is the OnePlus 8T. But do 120-Hz panels really make sense in a smartphone?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Do-smartphones-really-need-120-Hz-screens.498954.0.html

[Te]

I anyway see choppy pictures and blurry text. on 120

[Mikeallo]

One mistake in the opinion piece - overwhelming majority of people got stuck at 60hz not 90hz.
And yes, the difference is like day and night.

As a proud owner of Razer Phone 2 (bought it for the front firing speakers and the 120hz display), it made me return any employer-provided smartphones (and locked me into looking for new phone that must have 120hz panel).

Premium flagship phones still didn't/don't have as premium feel when they're rocking "amoled" 60Hz display. Ultra new functionalities like AR, more cameras, 90% screen to body ratio - those don't help much for everyday use - since everyday use is looking at the display itself while scrolling through news and social feeds.

Crisper text here just helps a lot more than other functionalities.
That's it.

[_MT_]

Even in the early days of film, they knew that humans really need more than 24 frames per second. After all, Edison suggested, I believe, 46 as the absolute minimum to prevent eye strain. That's why some projectors in cinemas could drive at over 70 Hz to reduce flicker (they'd display the same frame multiple times). They probably stuck with such a low number because of film cost. Televisions used 50 Hz in Europe and 60 Hz in the US and interlacing to double frame rate (the difference comes down to grid frequency).

It's been also known for a long while that humans can perceive events even in the 600 Hz region. It might not be enough time to process the image in full, but it's enough for us to notice significant enough change. Try picking up a book and let pages slip from under your thumb. Or, have you ever ridden a bicycle or driven a car around a tall picket fence? Have you noticed how you can easily see through? But only when you move fast enough. Our brain is analog. I highly doubt it's sampling output of our eyes at discrete intervals like we do with cameras. We're just limited by laws of physics and the processing capacity of our brain. I imagine we perceive a stream of images as motion because they're coming in too fast and they blur together - the image changes before our brain can finish processing the previous image. Our brain has evolved to process a constantly changing picture. It stands to reason that the process is stream based and might focus on changes.

[Achim]

Back in the day some people argued that your eyes/brain cannot notice the difference from 30 FPS upwards in games.  ::)

I wonder what the difference in cost between 60 Hz, 90 Hz and 120 Hz for both IPS and OLED screens is for manufacturers.

I doubt they only pass on the difference when they charge consumers 400 EUR and more for 90 Hz devices and 600 and more for 120 Hz devices. I suspect they have a tacit agreement not to push for cheap 120 Hz OLED devices too soon in order to milk people as much as they can.

[LyntonB]

we scroll on our phones all day, of course we need 120hz, it's tiring at 60hz

[A]

120hz on a phone only matters if you do VR/AR on the phone. For any other application its really irrelevant, cause lets be honest if refresh rate of content matters that much, I wouldn't be using a phone in the first place.

Maybe it'll be more important as foldable phones become "tablets". But generally I run my phone in lowest mode possible to save on battery rather.

[_MT_]

Back in the day some people argued that your eyes/brain cannot notice the difference from 30 FPS upwards in games.  ::)
...
I doubt they only pass on the difference when they charge consumers 400 EUR and more for 90 Hz devices and 600 and more for 120 Hz devices. I suspect they have a tacit agreement not to push for cheap 120 Hz OLED devices too soon in order to milk people as much as they can.

Well, your brain is capable of filling in the gaps. So, it was debatable (although 30 was considered the lower limit for a game to be playable, not the upper limit of our ability). And there are diminishing returns. The difference between 60 and 90 Hz is more pronounced than the difference between 90 and 144 Hz. Of course, this is individual. Some people might be lucky in the sense that they can't tell and can save money. Also, there is a big difference between a moving scene in a game and moving text while scrolling. I guess it comes down to text being fine and you actually needing the detail to read it.

It's not like they're spending extra 200 on a screen. You can always expect things like this to appear first on the most expensive devices. Because they have the budget and they're desperate to convince people to blow that much money on something they don't need (they're trying to create the desire, that's the name of the game). If they're cheap and they prove to work (influence buyer's choice), they'll trickle down fast.

[MariusRo]

I have a phone with 120/60 Hz. Can't see the difference only by scrolling trough some text. Gaming FPS on a tower PC is another story. But for phones I don't see the need.