What Is a Excessive Refresh Charge? Explaining 120 Hz on Telephones, TVs, and Screens

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 finest Android telephones and all of Apple’s iPhone Professional fashions (because the 13 Professional and onward). At present, each iPhone 17 mannequin can attain a 120-Hz refresh price. It has change into commonplace throughout the board.

Excessive refresh charges are ceaselessly 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 might often hit 144 Hz, 165 Hz, or increased. However what precisely does display refresh price imply? We break it down.

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

What Is a Refresh Charge?

All content material in your show, whether or not it is a telephone or pc monitor, is made up of particular person nonetheless frames (images) proven in sequence at a really excessive velocity. 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 60 instances per second. And you’ll guess what number of instances a 90-Hz display can refresh.

What About Body Charge?

The potential advantage of a excessive screen-refresh price is restricted by the body price of what is taking part in on the display. 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 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

Google through Simon Hill

The next refresh price permits a telephone’s show to maintain up with gaming motion and reduces movement blur on video, however it could actually additionally make navigating across the interface really feel extra responsive than it will 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 decreased. To get the total advantage of a excessive refresh price, you additionally want a excessive body price, 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 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 collection, and the Pixel vary. Apple calls its model “ProMotion.”