The whole truth behind smartphone screen refresh rates

 

The high Refresh Rate feature of smartphone screens is not a novelty today or last year, but we saw it for the first time in the Razer Phone launched in 2017. But it was 2020 when we began to notice that high refresh rates were no longer limited to gaming phone screens.

Other phone manufacturers began to crave this screen: OnePlus, Oppo, Samsung and Xiaomi, and soon the feature was included with their flagship phones. In fact, you can now ask what companies have not used the feature of high refresh rates in their phones so far, and you will find that LG was one of those one step behind. But, if you're looking for a high refresh rate feature in your next phone, you should know a very important set of points, which we'll review with you today in this article.

In 2020, we are starting to see high refresh rates in the screens of middle-class phones as well, which cost only 3 300$ . And you will not find one or two phones, but Realme, Oppo, Xiaomi and OnePlus will find phones with the same technology aimed at the middle class.

At first glance, you might feel that your phone's support for such a feature is great, but what we're not surprised about is that the high refresh rates feature is just part of the phone's specifications. High refresh rates will require more battery power, and will put more effort on the phone's graphics processing features, especially during gaming. Therefore, looking at it from a different perspective, you will discover that having a phone with a screen with high refresh rates but with modest processing characteristics would be self-contradictory and very frustrating.

Some foreign websites are starting to use performance power metrics based on phones with high refresh rates, and these results may give you an initial idea of what you can expect with some graphics-intensive games, and you will eventually notice that there is a marked disparity in results.

For example, a phone like the ROG Phone 3 has a 144Hz refresh rate screen, while another phone like the Nord1100 comes with a 90Hz refresh rate, and these results will give you a very important idea, which suggests that the display, however different its refresh rates, is constrained by the type and power of the processing chip inside. There is a very large variation in performance when comparing results between top-tier and middle-tier phones with high refresh rates.

Phones like the Google Pixel 5 and OnePlus Nord-backed parliament chip Snapdragon 765G were not able to achieve 60 frames per second criteria tests GFXBench, the situation was similar with the telephone Nord N10 owner of the Snapdragon processor 690 has failed Nord N100, which inside contains a chip Snapdragon 460 in the production of 40 frame. Ironically, these phones have a 90Hz refresh rate display, but on the ground none of them have managed to achieve 90 frames within heavy graphics.

A phone like the POCO X3 was able to skip 60 frames per second, but it had a 120Hz refresh rate screen, and in theory any phone should achieve the number of frames parallel to the refresh rate speed to take advantage of the high refresh rate feature.

Another fact about smartphones in general and Chinese phones in particular is that the capabilities of the system and phones are manipulated to show high results in the results of third-party review tests, ensuring that they achieve higher results and gain the satisfaction of a greater proportion of consumers. Maybe this explains miss POCO X3 on Google Pixel, although it has a less powerful processor.

So where exactly is the problem?

We have to admit one fact that there is a very large gap between top class phones and middle or economic phones. This is not to say that Qualcomm has not made any progress over the past years in favor of the processing chips of mid-range phones, but what is clear is that the performance of the graphics processing properties in particular is very low in mid-range phones compared to higher-end phones, but even higher-end phones suffer in results based on the performance.

This was probably the motivation behind Qualcomm's announcement of the Snapdragon 888 Lite chip last late December. This chip will address the significant lag and slowdown in top-tier phones, but for us as consumers, we hope that careful consideration will be given to the Snapdragon 700 chipset series in which mid-tier phones are being developed, the only chipset that is actually worth upgrading from where it is now, The graphics between them and the leading phones class.

What about daily use ?

Overall, high refresh rates mean you'll benefit from a quick user experience and navigate between pages more quickly, but when it comes to gaming, which is the right place to give our opinion about 90Hz displays, we'll find that some mid-range phones like the Nord N100 that contained Qualcomm's Snapdragon 460 chip are actually "struggling" to reach even 60 frames. It is precisely for this reason that most companies state the phrase: "update rates will vary according to the Settings, Applications used and processing restrictions".

This means that companies self-trained to processing chips are what cause the bottleneck. But if we look at it more positively, like looking at light 2D and 3D games, then you are sure to enjoy a great gaming experience. So, it really depends on the type of applications and the form of uses. But in the end, any user will be very disappointed as long as his luck was to have a mid-class phone with high refresh rates.