Lots of our favourite TVs and displays function shows with excessive refresh charges, promising smoother on-screen motion and a sharper image. The identical is true for the finest Android telephones and all of Apple’s iPhone Professional fashions (because the 13 Professional and onward). Immediately, each iPhone 17 mannequin can attain a 120-Hz refresh charge. It has turn out to be customary throughout the board.
Excessive refresh charges are incessantly mentioned in gaming, the place quick reactions and prompt on-screen updates can imply the distinction between victory and defeat. That features gaming displays and even gaming telephones, which may normally hit 144 Hz, 165 Hz, or greater. However what precisely does display screen refresh charge imply? We break it down.
Up to date September 2025: We have added point out of the most recent iPhones, updates to display screen know-how, new hyperlinks, and refreshed copy.
Desk of Contents
What Is a Refresh Fee?
All content material in your show, whether or not it is a cellphone or laptop monitor, is made up of particular person nonetheless frames (images) proven in sequence at a really excessive velocity. The refresh charge is measured in hertz (Hz), and it dictates how typically the body can change. A refresh charge of 120 Hz permits a brand new body to be displayed as much as 120 occasions each second. A 60-Hz show can solely refresh the display screen 60 occasions per second. And you may guess what number of occasions a 90-Hz display screen can refresh.
What About Body Fee?
The potential advantage of a excessive screen-refresh charge is proscribed by the body charge 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 customary, whereas many video games can run at 120 fps.
And Contact-Response Fee?
To confuse you extra, producers generally record the touch-response charge (or contact pattern charge) for touchscreen shows, which can be measured in hertz. This quantity pertains to how typically the touchscreen scans for a contact out of your finger. The upper the touch-response charge, the sooner it responds to your contact.
How Refresh Charges Impression Your Telephone
Google by way of Simon Hill
A better refresh charge permits a cellphone’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 might on a show with a decrease refresh charge. 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 internet web page is lowered. To get the total advantage of a excessive refresh charge, you additionally want a excessive body charge, and ideally, the 2 match.
The price is usually your battery life. Refreshing the picture on a show extra occasions per second requires extra battery energy. Processing energy can be wanted to run graphics at the next body charge. Processors have improved enormously, however battery life remains to be restricted on smartphones. For that cause, most telephones with excessive refresh charges don’t run on the highest charge 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 units just like the iPhone vary, Galaxy sequence, and the Pixel vary. Apple calls its model “ProMotion.”