Android

Nah, some people just notice it more, some less. I always upset my friends when they show me their 165Hz monitors or their 4k screens and I'm like "Oh is it? I wouldn't have noticed." 🤷 Happens. In return I always notice immediately if an icon is badly or lazily made.

You're blessed, I can't use a 60hz phone anymore after having one with 90hz.

If you don't think high refresh rate makes a difference, turn it to 60hz to save some battery and to not get used to it and end up with the same problem as me.

I can easily tell when a phone is at 120Hz, but the difference in actual use is minor, and I keep it on 60Hz to conserver battery

If you're not seeing it, you're not paying attention to the right things. I'm never going back to anything below 120.

for me it's painfully obvious when a phone is 60hz vs 120hz, i run mine at 120 and my wife doesn't care and runs at 60.. so yeah obviously some people just do not care or can't see it, others like me need it to be high refresh haha

The difference is massive to me but my parents struggle to notice, so it certainly varies person to person

My current phone Pixel 7 supports 60/90, my previous phone had 60/120 Xiaomi Mi11.

Both run at 60, why? Because I'm absolutely buggered if I can tell the difference other than higher rate drains the battery quicker.

I went from 30fps to 120fps and I can't tell the difference

Edit: Now that I've experimented a bit more there definitely is a difference and 120fps feels nicer to eyes. It's nothing huge but noticeable

You'll only really notice it when things are moving and only when it's about 60+ frames per second. Otherwise, your display is just refreshing static objects more frequently. It will not have anything to do with quality of images. You might notice an increase in responsiveness since the screen refreshed sooner, but that is generally minimal.

There's a massive difference in smoothness between 60 and 120hz for me, even just scrolling you can tell straight away how deliciously smooth 120 is.

I think in most cases it won't matter, and many people cannot perceive the difference.

But from my own experience I did the csgo sniper test map (where you look down to the doors and shoot the random npc players that will jump across).

While I didn't think it felt different I could consistently hit at more than twice the rate on 144hz vs 60.

After using 144hz for a while there is a more visible juddering when switching to 60. But it's not jarring or annoying.

So I'd say for most cases it doesn't matter. If you play fps games, there's a definite advantage to a higher frame rate. Unconsciously I guess you're able to use that extra info.

This isn't new either. I used to play Cs1.6 on crt. We'd often play on a lower resolution to get higher screen refresh. My screen would for example show 800x600 at 120hz.

Please note as you go higher up in the framerate, the gains will be less noticeable.

There's some term for this phenomenon, but I forgot it right when I wanted to type it. (please tell me again!😭)

That's not unusual, imo high refresh rates on phones are a bit of a marketing tactic bc they don't really have the computation power to support it when it counts (no one really cares if a static GUI is shown at 120 Hz but it is a waste of battery, you want it for gaming, videos, etc)

60 to 120 Hz is definitely noticeable to me; when scrolling, it makes a big difference. When my phone auto-switches to low battery mode and to lower refresh rates I can usually tell the difference very quickly.

After reading all the comments I'm thinking it really comes to what you're able to see. If you see no difference between 60 and 120, good for you, set it to 60 and save some battery. If you're able to see the difference, like I do, you'll just enjoy the extra smoothness. I've always seen the difference between 60 and 90/120. I think it also comes to the content. For me it's like this:

• For videos, whatever refresh rate is ok as long as that was the intent of whoever created it.
• For games 30 is playable, 60 is good, 120 is beautifully smooth. The type of game will also play a role here. An fps will benefit more from higher refresh rates.
• For moving UI elements 30 is unusable, 60 is ok, 120 is really comfortable.

TL;DR Some people will see it, some people won't. Do whatever works best for you.

I still can't really tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps, so I run everything at 30 with higher settings. I feel like I'm winning.

Always makes me laugh when YouTubers such as MKBHD say 60Hz is unusable in 2023. 60Hz is absolutely fine. I had 90Hz on my Pixel 4XL and never once noticed the difference.

I have an OG Nord and turned the refresh rate from 90Hz to 60Hz because it makes no difference to anything but battery life.

Are you viewing dynamic or static content? For me, the difference is huge with games, etc but harder to tell with static images.

I use mine at 90HZ and i can clearly see the difference

120 is about latency more than anything else. When you play a game in 120 you notice how fast the reaction to your controller presses are making gameplay super smooth. On a phone, I can't imagine that being as noticeable for day to day use.

I remember on crt's there was a massive difference between 60hz and 85 hertz, but my laptop has a 120 hertz screen and I really don't see much of a difference between it and 60 hertz and it at 120 hertz, there is some work out there by some people that suggest that it's because the CRT is just structured in such a way that you're going to notice improved frame rates better and it's going to look less blurry to your eyes.

on a phone for me its not a useful feature. i notice it mainly when scrolling. meh. its fine on 60hz imho. maybe if i did more gaming on me phone or whatever id care more but just watching videos and browsing the web its fine.

After awhile at 120hz, use someone's 60hz phone, you'll notice it.

It's harder to notice the difference at first. When I first got my 144Hz monitor I had trouble distinguishing between the two, but now I can immediately tell (and it's made going back to gaming at 60fps really difficult lol).

If you keep using 120Hz mode, then after a while you'll definitely feel the difference between the two.
That said unless you game on your phone a lot, I don't know how useful it is to have it set to 120, especially if it drains more battery.

In some cases I think it's actually worse. When scrolling through my code on 60hz, I can still read some words, because it's in the same place long enough. On 120hz, it's just a blur whilst scrolling, my eye can't focus on any words to read them.

For gaming it's nice because it reduces input lag, but when playing a game where the timing isn't that tight, it doesn't matter much.

Did to test it with some 4k movies or games with a refresh rate above 60hz?

With lower res movies, games, photos and static UI, you can't spot it anyway.