my phone has been running at 60hz for YEARS and I just now learned that I just had to enable a setting. Why wasn’t this enabled by default???
No. Battery is already too small.
The first thing I always do is turn 120Hz off. The difference just isn’t meaningful enough to justify the extra battery drain. On a PC monitor sure, but on a phone I really don’t care if my feed scrolls a bit smoother.
Thanks for the reminder. I was wondering why my phone was using extra battery for the last month. Looks like a recent software update toggled 120hz on. I did have it turned off. I just went in and turned it back off.
The recent Android update also re-enabled using my thumb print to unlock the phone, even though I’d had that disabled for at least a year.
Rip battery
Depends on your device and a bunch of other factors. If you are trying to maximize battery life you are generally better sticking to 60.
If you are consuming 120fps content or doing some kind of mobile gaming that actually supports it, you may benefit from 120.
Basic scrolling feels so much better. And I don’t think it really makes a huge difference for battery life, so I always leave if at 120.
If you’re not used to 120 Hz then with 60 Hz you don’t feel like you’re missing out
I haven’t daily driven a phone but I really like the idea of the screens that can go below 60hz. Such as if you are reading a static webpage or an ebook.
Maybe you will like e-ink phones
I messed around with the “display refresh rate” setting and it seems like it’s 120 when there’s any sort of animation or you touch the screen at all, but it goes to 60 if it’s just playing a video or you’re not touching it, and 30 for the “always on” display that shows the clock.
I expected it to be more like the SteamDeck which just goes 1fps if nothing is happening on the home menu and jumps up to 60 or 90 (depending on model and settings) when anything moves. 30fps for a clock seems wasteful, but then again I’m not a phone expert so 🤷♀️
pretty interesting!
I have to give credit to Apple for the variable motion, ranging from 1 fps to 120 fps. Sadly, the 1fps is only ever used on the lock screen. So much wasted potential.
You’re talking about different things. SteamDeck doesn’t set your display refresh frequency to 1hz. It’s just rendering frames at 1fps.
Or if competitive gaming has ruined you, why not let it ruin you battery life too?
You’re better off with 120hz if you like reading things on your phone at all.
How does higher frequency help with reading static text?
When reading on a smaller screen there is more scrolling, and on a phone with a lower frequency screen there’s significantly more blur to the text as you scroll.
But I don’t scroll while reading or read while I scroll. Also, my mind just cancels the scrolling, and I’m not even aware of it.
I read on my phone a lot and I’m a pretty fast reader so having to stop reading every time I have to scroll down a bit and find my place again is really irritating after anything more than a couple paragraphs.
With a higher frequency screen you can slow scroll as you read which is still faster than you can read so when reading content that isn’t heavily paginated you can just keep reading indefinitely without having to pause almost at all and it’s just a much nicer and fluid experience.
Well, to each their own. I’m also a fast reader, but it doesn’t bother me at all. I just give a quick scroll with my thumb from the bottom of the screen all the way up, in an instant, read everything and repeat, like paginated content. My mind ignores everything that happens between each new text to read. I care more for the content I read than about the device I use.
For me its not worth the hit on battery. Mind you my phone screen is 3088x1440 WQHD+ capable yet I set that to 720p. Sure, the image is a tiny bit better at higher res but for me I’d rather have a stronger battery life than a marginally better looking image on such a relatively small screen.
why would I want my phone to lose battery faster?
A bunch of manufacturers implement adaptive refresh rates. So your battery shouldn’t drain noticeably faster unless you are scrolling, but that’s where you’d want extra frames the most.
More frames, more smooth and it at least feels like I’m a bit quicker with navigation. It’s just nice.
It’s wayyyyy smoother and just makes everything feel much faster And it doesn’t have a huge impact on battery life
Personally I saw a very noticeable improvement in battery life after turning it off.
It’s different phone to phone personally I’ve never had a phone where it massively impacts it to the point where it actually makes a difference. I’m plugging in before I go to sleep anywyas
Because using a phone with a 60hz refresh rate is disgusting
I’ve never been over 60hz on a phone and my current “blissfully unaware of what I’m missing” state disagrees. Battery life over all. I think it still sucks we get Uber a days with of battery by default in phones still. I miss only having to charge like once a week.
I don’t even think about my phone for days at a time. Charge it about once a week.
The only time I’ve gone longer than two days was when I wasn’t seeing anybody and my good friends were out of town.
Well I suppose those driving a Ford model T never felt left out not having a Mustang. But my trusty Pixel 5 lives on 90hz and the battery lasts close to a week between charges. But if you’ve really want to squeeze a few extra minutes of battery life out of your phone and don’t care about usability you should also think about keeping your screen on the lowest brightness at all times, never take it out of extreme battery saver mode, and maybe even just sell it and buy a flip phone? The batteries on some of those will blow your mind.
I still need android otherwise i totally would be on one of those feature phones. I use a tiny unihertz jelly star at the moment in fact. And if course i would or the brightness in the lowest it needs to be to be able to see it. I don’t need to light a beacon for all to see
I turn the refresh rate down on phones, where battery matters. I turn it up on desktops, where it doesn’t matter.
Curious, on which phones is it called “Smooth Display”?
On my Sony Xperia 1 VI running Android 15, this option is called “High Refresh Rate” like a sane person would call it lol
Stock Android. Like Pixel/Lenovo
It’s nice that it’s optional (as opposed to someone else making decisions for you). Some people will appreciate the extra display smoothness while others will be fine with 60 Hz and the extra battery life.
In terms of running faster, saving power and preserving battery life, that reminds me that I turned off some stuff on my phone a couple years ago, and have been completely happy with the result.
Looking it up, I thiiink it went like this:
To disable animations on most Android phones, go to Settings > Accessibility > Color and motion (or Visibility enhancements) and enable the Remove animations option.
For more granular control, enable Developer options by tapping the Build Number in “About phone” five times, then find and adjust the “Window animation scale,” “Transition animation scale,” and “Animator duration scale” settings to their lowest values or off.
Before trying any of that, please do fact-check the above.
Sometimes turning off the animations can cause other issues with some apps and scrolling. I usually just split the difference and use 0.5 scale and speed. Things are snappier while not causing graphical issues.
Good to know! I haven’t noticed any issues over here, but I would expect that with certain apps on certain phones, it could indeed muck things up…
I don’t want over 60fps anywhere, ever, at any time. Rendering 120 or 144 frames per second is over twice as much to process, with no noticeable improvement.
If you can’t tell the difference between 60fps and 120fps, you need to see a doctor.
Now, not seeing the difference between 120fps and 144fps is understandable, and between 120fps and 240fps I can also understand. But having seen 60fps and 120fps side-by-side, there is just as much difference as between 30fps and 60fps.
I switched to 120Hz displays where possible years ago and haven’t really wanted to go back. Except for the two CRT TVs I have, but I have those because they are CRTs, not because of their refresh rate.
Unfortunate you can’t notice the buttery smoothness if 60+ fps.
Yeah for some reason it runs on adaptive mode. For example longer battery life. Just turn on refresh counter and see how it works for better understanding, its all optimisation.
Because manufacturers suck at software which is why they all use Android so they can do the minimum to get a product out.
