A lot of our favourite TVs and screens function 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). In the present day, each iPhone 17 mannequin can attain a 120-Hz refresh price. It has turn out to be commonplace throughout the board.
Excessive refresh charges are regularly mentioned in gaming, the place quick reactions and prompt 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 increased. 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 know-how, new hyperlinks, and refreshed copy.
Desk of Contents
What Is a Refresh Charge?
All content material in your show, whether or not it is a telephone or laptop 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 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 Charge?
The potential good thing about a excessive screen-refresh price is restricted by the body price of what is taking part in on the display screen. With movies or online game graphics, that is expressed as frames per second (fps). Motion pictures sometimes run at 24 frames per second as a result of it is a theatrical commonplace, whereas many video games can run at 120 fps.
And Contact-Response Charge?
To confuse you extra, producers typically listing the touch-response price (or contact pattern price) for touchscreen shows, which can 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 Impression Your Telephone
Google through Simon Hill
A better refresh price permits a telephone’s show to maintain up with gaming motion and reduces movement blur on video, however it might 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 a protracted net web page is lowered. To get the complete good thing about a excessive refresh price, you additionally want a excessive body price, and ideally, the 2 match.
The price is commonly 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 a better body price. 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 price on a regular basis.
Increased 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 sequence, and the Pixel vary. Apple calls its model “ProMotion.”
