Lots 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 one of the best Android telephones and all of Apple’s iPhone Professional fashions (for the reason that 13 Professional and onward). Right now, each iPhone 17 mannequin can attain a 120-Hz refresh fee. It has grow to be normal throughout the board.
Excessive refresh charges are often 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 fee 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.
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 velocity. The refresh fee is measured in hertz (Hz), and it dictates how typically the body can change. A refresh fee 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’ll guess what number of instances a 90-Hz display screen can refresh.
What About Body Charge?
The potential good thing about a excessive screen-refresh fee is restricted by the body fee 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 Charge?
To confuse you extra, producers typically record the touch-response fee (or contact pattern fee) for touchscreen shows, which can also 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 fee, the quicker it responds to your contact.
How Refresh Charges Affect Your Cellphone
Google by way of Simon Hill
A better refresh fee permits a telephone’s show to maintain up with gaming motion and reduces movement blur on video, however it might additionally make navigating across the interface really feel extra responsive than it will on a show with a decrease refresh fee. 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 internet web page is lowered. To get the total good thing about a excessive refresh fee, you additionally want a excessive body fee, and ideally, the 2 match.
The fee is usually 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 fee. Processors have improved enormously, however battery life remains to be restricted on smartphones. For that motive, most telephones with excessive refresh charges don’t run on the highest fee on a regular basis.
Larger refresh charges first got here to smartphones with the gaming-focused Razer Cellphone in 2017, then producers like Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, and Google adopted them in flagship units just like the iPhone vary, Galaxy collection, and the Pixel vary. Apple calls its model “ProMotion.”
