120 hz smartphone displays?

Zodiark1593

Platinum Member
Oct 21, 2012
2,230
4
81
Instead of pushing rediculous display resolutions, can we get some 120 hz displays in the mobile realm? Perhaps Apple can market such a display as Smoothview Retina or some other term like that. There should be more than enough gpu power to run the ui at such refresh rates with reasonable resolutions, and perhaps even break even on power use as the backlight need not be as strong as when higher resolutions are used.

Odds are, my words fall on blind eyes, but I can wish.
 

Graze

Senior member
Nov 27, 2012
468
1
0
Instead of pushing rediculous display resolutions, can we get some 120 hz displays in the mobile realm? Perhaps Apple can market such a display as Smoothview Retina or some other term like that. There should be more than enough gpu power to run the ui at such refresh rates with reasonable resolutions, and perhaps even break even on power use as the backlight need not be as strong as when higher resolutions are used.

Odds are, my words fall on blind eyes, but I can wish.

...and I hope it does. That 120hz thing is absolutely unnatural to me!
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,444
5,850
146
For mobile I don't think its a good idea, although I'd like them to work on granular refresh rate (adaptive sync like they're starting to do on discrete GPU). This way it could kick to a low refresh rate to conserve battery life (I'd love if it had a power miser mode where it disables animations and kicks the refresh low).

Honestly I'd rather they go minimalist. I don't need fancy animations, and most apps don't even need a quick refresh rate for anything (really quite a few apps could set it to refresh only when getting new data), it's just for frivolous animations and other junk that adds nothing to the actual experience (at least for me). But it would be nice to have options, which is why I'd like them to work on granular refresh control.

And going for higher refresh rates has benefits as well, like for VR headsets (which I think Oculus has said something like 85Hz is what the minimum for good VR with them aiming for I think 90 or so, but I believe they also use black frame insertion so the actual framerate of the content doesn't have to be that fast). Plus I would like them be able to offer fixed multiples of whatever content you're watching (so for 24fps stuff it'd have to be able to do 48 or 72).

Plus some devices I'd love where when you're on battery you could have it drop to a low refresh, but then when plugged in it'd go to a higher one (although again, I'd like to have some control).

Actually they've already done some with low refresh rates, that's part of why the LG G2 had such good battery life. But I'd like it to be more common and give the user and apps more control.

Also, right now part of the problem is the displays. With LCD they have to overdrive it quite a bit (would be curious about power figures, don't think I've ever seen that tested). And I think IPS still has issues just being overdriven that much, but pushing it up to 72 shouldn't be that much of a problem. I think OLED has more range (although not sure how far, but Oculus is pushing around 90 or so if I remember correctly). For desktop displays it shouldn't be a problem, but I doubt it's something they want to implement on most mobile displays, at least LCDs. Not sure if OLED has any power issues.

...and I hope it does. That 120hz thing is absolutely unnatural to me!

What 120Hz thing? I'm guessing you're talking about the TV functions? That's not quite the same thing. Also, it looks unnatural because you're used to low framerates for content.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
We might see 120hz displays if Google's plan for smartphone based VR systems pans out.

For day-to-day use, a higher frame rate won't make a huge impact. Especially on a display that small. The only reason 120hz TVs exist was due to Bluray. It allows films to be shown at their native frame rate rather than using 3:2 pulldown.
 

core2slow

Senior member
Mar 7, 2008
774
20
81
i hear ya bro, but battery technology takes precedence right now. We don't need no stinkin' 120hz display when we can't even last a whole day without the battery taking a crap.
 

Zodiark1593

Platinum Member
Oct 21, 2012
2,230
4
81
For mobile I don't think its a good idea, although I'd like them to work on granular refresh rate (adaptive sync like they're starting to do on discrete GPU). This way it could kick to a low refresh rate to conserve battery life (I'd love if it had a power miser mode where it disables animations and kicks the refresh low).

Honestly I'd rather they go minimalist. I don't need fancy animations, and most apps don't even need a quick refresh rate for anything (really quite a few apps could set it to refresh only when getting new data), it's just for frivolous animations and other junk that adds nothing to the actual experience (at least for me). But it would be nice to have options, which is why I'd like them to work on granular refresh control.

And going for higher refresh rates has benefits as well, like for VR headsets (which I think Oculus has said something like 85Hz is what the minimum for good VR with them aiming for I think 90 or so, but I believe they also use black frame insertion so the actual framerate of the content doesn't have to be that fast). Plus I would like them be able to offer fixed multiples of whatever content you're watching (so for 24fps stuff it'd have to be able to do 48 or 72).

Plus some devices I'd love where when you're on battery you could have it drop to a low refresh, but then when plugged in it'd go to a higher one (although again, I'd like to have some control).

Actually they've already done some with low refresh rates, that's part of why the LG G2 had such good battery life. But I'd like it to be more common and give the user and apps more control.

Also, right now part of the problem is the displays. With LCD they have to overdrive it quite a bit (would be curious about power figures, don't think I've ever seen that tested). And I think IPS still has issues just being overdriven that much, but pushing it up to 72 shouldn't be that much of a problem. I think OLED has more range (although not sure how far, but Oculus is pushing around 90 or so if I remember correctly). For desktop displays it shouldn't be a problem, but I doubt it's something they want to implement on most mobile displays, at least LCDs. Not sure if OLED has any power issues.



What 120Hz thing? I'm guessing you're talking about the TV functions? That's not quite the same thing. Also, it looks unnatural because you're used to low framerates for content.
My thoughts exactly. It would scale better for battery life as opposed to the high res displays we're getting nowadays for sure.
 

JeffMD

Platinum Member
Feb 15, 2002
2,026
19
81
60hz ips displays, never had a problem with them. I think you may need your eyes looked at if it does.

As far as phones go we are kind of set. as soon as budget handsets get 1080p ips displays everyone will be happy. Well mainly be pushing higher resolution panels for the sake of VR gear only.
 

sweenish

Diamond Member
May 21, 2013
3,656
60
91
120 Hz doesn't look unnatural because of being accustomed to lower frame rates. It looks unnatural because it's not a natural 120 Hz. Duplicating the 24 Hz frames 5 times leads to weird movement.

240+ Hz always look great to me, but 120 Hz is a weird puppet show of movements. At least when it comes to frame duplicating high Hz displays.

I've never thought that 60 Hz looked weird on PC. Because a game running at a native 60 fps is pretty fantastic. I can only imagine that a higher natural refresh would also look pretty great.

But on a 120 Hz TV that just does frame duplication, I'm firmly in the "looks unnatural" camp.