Cheeky Google: The Pixel 4 throttles the display refresh rate based on brightness setting and you wouldn't even know it

[Redaktion]

The Google Pixel 4's 90 Hz Smooth Display feature seems to be dependent on the display brightness setting and not on the 'content' as was originally claimed by Google. This was first discovered by a Redditor and subsequently confirmed by other reviewers as well. Although there is a way to force 90 Hz in the Developer settings, by default, the Pixel 4's screen can refresh at 90 Hz only if the brightness slider is set above the 75% mark.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Cheeky-Google-The-Pixel-4-throttles-the-display-refresh-rate-based-on-brightness-setting-and-you-wouldn-t-even-know-it.439984.0.html

[Thomas M]

Why Google has done it? Pretty obvious to me - battery life.
You've mentioned oneplus and rog phone - these phones have big batteries, rog 2 almost twice the size at 5Ah compared to pixels 4 tiny 2.8Ah. Battery life on pixel 4 is a joke as is, if you force 90Hz it will make it a total disaster. People who decided to use this tiny battery really shot themselves in the foot. Why would you buy this over competition? Even Iphones have bigger batteries than this this year.

[Vaidyanathan]

Why Google has done it? Pretty obvious to me - battery life.
You've mentioned oneplus and rog phone - these phones have big batteries, rog 2 almost twice the size at 5Ah compared to pixels 4 tiny 2.8Ah. Battery life on pixel 4 is a joke as is, if you force 90Hz it will make it a total disaster. People who decided to use this tiny battery really shot themselves in the foot. Why would you buy this over competition? Even Iphones have bigger batteries than this this year.

The battery life part is understandable. But who would use their phone's display above 75% unless you're in the outdoors on a bright sunny day? It's a double whammy on the already poor battery.

[S.Yu]

No big deal, just that even fewer people will be paying attention to this device until it's 40% off.