What Is a High Refresh Rate? Explaining 120 Hz on Phones, TVs, and Monitors Leave a comment

A lot of our favourite TVs and screens characteristic shows with excessive refresh charges, promising smoother on-screen motion and a sharper image. The identical is true for the perfect Android telephones and all of Apple’s iPhone Professional fashions (because the 13 Professional and onward). At this time, each iPhone 17 mannequin can attain a 120-Hz refresh price. It has change into normal throughout the board.

Excessive refresh charges are often mentioned in gaming, the place quick reactions and immediate on-screen updates can imply the distinction between victory and defeat. That features gaming screens and even gaming telephones, which may often hit 144 Hz, 165 Hz, or larger. However what precisely does display screen refresh price imply? We break it down.

Up to date September 2025: We have added point out of the newest iPhones, updates to display screen expertise, new hyperlinks, and refreshed copy.

What Is a Refresh Price?

All content material in your show, whether or not it is a telephone or pc monitor, is made up of particular person nonetheless frames (photographs) proven in sequence at a really excessive pace. The refresh price is measured in hertz (Hz), and it dictates how usually the body can change. A refresh price of 120 Hz permits a brand new body to be displayed as much as 120 instances each second. A 60-Hz show can solely refresh the display screen 60 instances per second. And you may guess what number of instances a 90-Hz display screen can refresh.

What About Body Price?

The potential advantage of a excessive screen-refresh price is proscribed by the body price of what is enjoying on the display screen. With movies or online game graphics, that is expressed as frames per second (fps). Motion pictures usually run at 24 frames per second as a result of it is a theatrical normal, whereas many video games can run at 120 fps.

And Contact-Response Price?

To confuse you extra, producers generally checklist the touch-response price (or contact pattern price) for touchscreen shows, which can also be measured in hertz. This quantity pertains to how usually the touchscreen scans for a contact out of your finger. The upper the touch-response price, the quicker it responds to your contact.

How Refresh Charges Influence Your Telephone

The next refresh price permits a telephone’s show to maintain up with gaming motion and reduces movement blur on video, however it will probably additionally make navigating across the interface really feel extra responsive than it could on a show with a decrease refresh price. Video games look much less uneven throughout frenetic motion, video footage of fast-paced sports activities motion seems smoother, and any jerkiness when scrolling an extended net web page is diminished. To get the complete advantage of a excessive refresh price, you additionally want a excessive body price, and ideally, the 2 match.

The fee is commonly your battery life. Refreshing the picture on a show extra instances per second requires extra battery energy. Processing energy can also be wanted to run graphics at the next body price. Processors have improved enormously, however battery life continues to be restricted on smartphones. For that purpose, most telephones with excessive refresh charges don’t run on the highest price on a regular basis.

Larger refresh charges first got here to smartphones with the gaming-focused Razer Telephone in 2017, then producers like Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, and Google adopted them in flagship gadgets just like the iPhone vary, Galaxy collection, and the Pixel vary. Apple calls its model “ProMotion.”