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points by mtoner23 3 days ago | 0 comments

Has any non pro consumer ever noticed a display greater than 60 hz. I can barely get the regular people in my life to nice anything above 30 hz or turning off motion smoothing. I really don't see how any of this stuff matters for most people

[–] benley 3 days ago

I'm sure there is a point of diminishing returns for display refresh rates, but I can tell you from experience that it is definitely higher than 60hz. 90hz feels meaningfully smoother (on a Steam deck), and 120/144hz (on a desktop monitor in my case) feels smoother than that. Even mouse input latency is perceptibly lower. I've never used a display faster than 144hz but I honestly would not be surprised to discover that one can still tell the difference well past 144hz.

60fps is basically fine as long as you are unaware that it can be any better, but once you find out you are forever spoiled by the knowledge.

[–] thesuitonym 3 days ago

I'm sure mouse latency is a big issue for iPad Mini users.

I know there's a sizable contingent of people who just think a bigger number is better, but realistically this is a device for passively consuming text and video content that is typically around 30 fps anyway. Why waste the battery power on faster refresh?

[–] close04 3 days ago

The ProMotion screens have variable refresh rate depending on the content displayed. 10Hz to 120Hz for iPhones and 24Hz to 120Hz for iPads. So in theory the power consumption should be even better than a regular screen for static content like reading text.

[–] jrmg 3 days ago

I know you’re being sarcastic with that first line, but touch latency is even more noticeable than mouse latency.

Does the page look and feel glued to your finger as you scroll?

[–] Maxion 3 days ago

> Does the page look and feel glued to your finger as you scroll?

Yes, for me issues with apps have mainly been in poorly optimized code causing lag, slow loading and the like. The 60hz/120hz thing has never really been a practical issue.

[–] jen20 3 days ago

Yes? That was true even of the first iPad.

[–] jrmg 2 days ago

It’s definitely not true even now. Even a moderately fast finger drag will lag noticeably - usually by at least a frame in even very carefully tuned situations. It’s just physics. If you aren’t noticing it, you’re just used to it.

Try rapidly dragging up and down to scroll a web page.

For some people, it’s motion sickness inducing of it gets too laggy

[–] eptcyka 3 days ago

Not sure about iPads, but going from a pixel 3 to a pixel 5 made me feel like my pixel 3 was broken. Xr to 16 pro was similar, but that is because Xr was legit broken.

[–] lilbigdoot 3 days ago

Yup. For me up until 90/100ish it's a pretty significant improvement all the way up and after that I don't know if I could notice outside of a fast game or wiggling the cursor over a contrasting color

I'm sure a lot of people now would feel odd if you gave them a 60Hz phone after high refresh has become so common, even if they don't pay conscious attention to that kind of stuff

[–] dontlaugh 3 days ago

Having seen faster screens, I find 120 is where the diminishing returns ramp up for me. I wouldn’t bother with more.

[–] mahboi 3 days ago

Someone was complaining to me that Apple took a long time to add 120 Hz displays to phones. I didn't even know what my iPhone had, turns out it's 60 Hz cause it's a 12 mini. I've used 120 Hz displays before. Cannot tell the difference.

[–] blehn 3 days ago

If you use a 120 Hz iPhone for 6 months and then switch back to your 12 mini, you'll notice immediately.

[–] freehorse 3 days ago

What you definitely notice between 60Hz vs 120Hz on a phone is the battery drain.

Depends a lot on the usage I guess. In a tablet where you may draw etc you can notice the difference definitely. Or if you play games on the phone. But otherwise I don't think the difference is that important as it is sometimes claimed.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

Yeah, first thing I'd do is check if it can be disabled

[–] thaeli 2 days ago

Not for me. I tried out the high refresh rate thing, switched back to 60.. can't tell any difference at all. Same for high DPI vs "regular" DPI screens.

Screen flicker on CRTs with low refresh rates was terrible for me, but with modern flat panels.. nope, can't really tell the difference.

[–] foldr 3 days ago

I used to switch between a MacBook Pro with a 120Hz display and a MacBook Air with a 60Hz display and never noticed any difference. I think I could probably have noticed if I'd put them side by side and compared the feel of the scrolling, but why would I do that?

There's a minority of people who really do notice stuff like this, which is fine. The problem is that for some reason, they sometimes have difficulty accepting that they're a minority.

[–] swiftcoder 3 days ago

I think this varies a lot from person to person. I find the effect to be incredibly subtle - one of my monitors reset it self to 60hz a while back, and I didn't catch the problem for days.

[–] andriesm 3 days ago

Scrolling text, I notice IMMEDIATELY

[–] matwood 3 days ago

Sure, and maybe I'm odd, but I don't read text while scrolling. I stop scrolling and then read. So yes, if I just scroll up and down quickly I can see the refresh is different, but otherwise I don't notice it in my regular usage.

[–] swiftcoder 3 days ago

Plus we all grew up reading the 24fps text scroll in the Star Wars intro just fine. Until we convince a new generation of cinematographers to shoot in 120fps, it all seems a bit moot - even most digitally-authored content doesn't exceed 60fps (and tech people are the first to complain about things like the soap opera effect...)

[–] oceanplexian 2 days ago

The way frame rate work on conventional film vs. an LCD are completely different. It’s like trying to ask the bitrate of a Vinyl record.

Conventional film projectors don’t show each frame continuously, they transition the shutter blade smoothly between frames, and projectors often flash each one a couple of times (48 or 72hz). A cinema projector is going to demolish a LCD in smoothness and motion quality even if it technically has a higher refresh rate on paper.

[–] pipodeclown 2 days ago

There is a big difference between watxhing a movie and operating a device where your input makes things move on the screen, you notice the depay way more.

[–] oceanplexian 2 days ago

Can you not literally see the frames skip as you move the mouse cursor across the screen? To me it’s OBVIOUS and excruciating and I’m only a light/casual gamer and use all my computers for work.

[–] swiftcoder 2 days ago

If I move my cursor slowly I can see the difference, I guess? But I don't habitually do that - I run with mouse/trackpad dialled to maximum acceleration, even at 120Hz there's a skip when you flick the cursor halfway across the screen. And I'm rarely scrolling a line at a time, I'm going page at a time.

I don't really get the obsession with smooth movement for desktop use (as opposed to gaming). Possibly this is a generational thing? Why is anyone intentionally using a computer primarily via slow analogue inputs?

[–] apparent 3 days ago

If something is not noticeable when it gets "better", but it leads people to notice other stuff is "worse" over time, then I'd argue it's not actually a good thing to get.

Imagine if someone said "this food won't really taste better to you when you first eat it, but after 6 months you'll find other food tastes worse". To me, this would not be a selling point.

[–] olyjohn 3 days ago

I didn't know how bad TV looked in the 90s. We watched a low res 19 inch TV from across the room. Did moving to HD make any real difference in our lives? Do we really enjoy TV that much more? Once the excitement wears off about 20 minutes into watching it, its still the same thing. If the story is good, you get into it either way and forget what you're watching it on.

[–] biggc 3 days ago

Watching older TV shows I notice a lot more close ups of actors faces. I’m convinced it’s because the shows were produced with small screens in mind.

[–] me-vs-cat 2 days ago

Sounds very similar to old glass panes being thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom. Did the glass flow over the years, or did we lose what was common knowledge at the time, for installers to orient each pane a certain way?

[–] MonkeyClub 1 day ago

That one’s down to gravity, glass flows down very slowly over long periods.

[–] zeppelin101 3 days ago

Depends on the content. When people are talking in a nondescript (thing the "12 Angry Men" movie), SD is quite fine. Now compare it to Blade Runner or Scarface. Those movies absolutely benefit from more detail and colors.

[–] dwb 3 days ago

I watched TV and used computers in the 90s and the whole time I was desperate for display technology to improve. Mainly CRT refresh rates, which often gave me a headache, but yeah I noticed the crappy pixel density all the time too. The nice Apple display I have now is one of my fave things I’ve ever bought and could only be improved by being >60Hz (which I do notice, but it’s not a big deal).

[–] kome 3 days ago

CRT refresh rates is super high, usually starting at 120hz... and now we are trying to do the same? you want to feel headache again?

[–] spider-mario 3 days ago

> CRT refresh rates is super high, usually starting at 120hz...

That’s not my memory of it at all. They were often set to 60Hz by default, and increasing the setting to 75Hz would make it noticeably less flickery.

> and now we are trying to do the same? you want to feel headache again?

The headaches were from when it was too low.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

HD matters a lot for sports. Big screens and nice sound help with movies, which DVD quality is usually good enough for, but certain movies deserve to be a theater or IMAX. It doesn't matter for most other things. I still watch stuff in 360p or 240p.

[–] libria 2 days ago

Big of you to assume I only watch "if the story is good".

The kids make me watch Transformers - completely devoid of suspense or consistency. That 4k 120Hz OLED is the only thing getting me through that gauntlet.

[–] apparent 3 days ago

Yes, I definitely remember noticing how much better TV was when we moved from 20" sets from last century to HD LCDs (and then much larger/higher-res LCDs) over the last 25 years.

And I would disagree that only the story matters. If that were the case, people wouldn't go to the theater (a trend that has started happening in the last 15 years as people have been able to rig their living rooms to give an experience that is nearly theater quality, especially when considering cost and convenience. When we had 20" TVs, they were no substitute for going to the movies.

[–] alexgoodhart 3 days ago

People had giant TV’s in the past as well. They are cheaper now.

Either way, a larger screen is not the same improvement as higher resolution. And more importantly, the reason people may not go to the movies when they have a home theater system is partly due to justifying the cost of the theater system.

[–] comboy 3 days ago

It's the same dynamic as with how we optimize for web pages speed. People don't immediately think that website responding 200ms faster is better. But they enjoy the experience more anyway (even if at some subconscious level) and they end up liking it more and spending more time with it.

With food also you could be incrementally getting better and better food and when you then try v1 it would taste bad.

It seems that we might also be noticing slight degradation more than slight improvement in general? No idea if that's true.

[–] koyote 3 days ago

I don't think that's a good comparison.

I've often had new phones that are 'faster' but I barely notice the fastness until I go back to my old phone and realise that my finger-memory needs adapting because things take just a bit longer to load.

I'd assume it's similar for screen refresh rates.

[–] apparent 3 days ago

That's not been my experience with the refresh rates, and it's not what GP and GGP said either. I have a 13 mini and have bought both 16 and Air. I kept them for 2 weeks and then returned.

When I got the phones, I did not notice any benefit related to screen refresh. I also did not notice any detriment when I went back to my 13 mini after two weeks on a 120 Hz screen.

But if it was as GP said, and it's only something you notice when you go back to a "lesser" screen, then that would not be a selling point in my book.

[–] alsetmusic 3 days ago

I always wondered why Windows users didn't notice the jagged text in 2001 and see a Mac as obviously better. You don't know what you aren't missing until it's gone.

[–] 100percentjake 2 days ago

This was exactly my experience when I stopped eating fast food regularly.

[–] bluescrn 2 days ago

The difference is extremely noticable on a PC when you're dragging windows around with a mouse (or gaming of course). Especially if you have a dual-monitor setup and only one of them does the high refresh rate.

Not sure I'd notice it much on a phone.

And for decades we've had people claiming that 30fps is just fine for gaming...

[–] foobarian 2 days ago

There was an immense step up from 30 to 60.. I guess it stands to reason there would be more improvement past 60

[–] 7e 3 days ago

Some people are born with nervous systems which aren’t capable of noticing the difference, just like there are people who can’t see better than 20/20 no matter how good their optical acuity is.

[–] mahboi 3 days ago

Maybe I'd be able to tell in a blind test if I'm looking for it. Just meant it's not something I'd passively notice.

[–] wlesieutre 3 days ago

If you have any devices with a faster screen, you can see them side-by-side on https://testufo.com/

Not a blind test, but the smoothness when tracking a moving object is very obvious

[–] sersi 3 days ago

Thanks for the link, checked it and well even side by side on my mbp, the difference is not that super obvious. 30 to 60 fps is very obvious and night and day. 60 fps and 120 fps, I only notice the difference side by side if I pay attention...

But maybe it's because I'm 40+ with relatively bad eye vision and 20 years earlier I'd be noticing the difference much more.. But I'd say going from 1080p to 4k was a lot more obvious than that...

[–] Maxion 3 days ago

I've never understood the 120hz hype. Sure it looks a tiny bit better, but I'd trade that in a heartbeat for more battery.

[–] wlesieutre 2 days ago

I doubt there's much difference because of the adaptive refresh rate, it runs at a lower rate most of the time and only uses 120 when it decides that would be useful.

But if you really don't want it, Settings > Accessibility > Motion > Limit Frame Rate will cap it at 60.

There's also an option to prefer page rendering updates near 60 hz buried in Safari's feature flags settings. This one defaults to on, presumably to protect the battery life from asshole web developers and advertisers.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

If only they had an option to disable HDR to protect your eyes from advertisers

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

Yeah, I can tell if looking at the UFO but not the stars. It doesn't really look choppy at 60, just blurry.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

Forgot to say... This test proves that my eyes/brain are capable of seeing the difference. But this is a test deliberately meant to show the difference, and even then I have to focus on it. I'm not going to notice in regular usage.

[–] bluescrn 2 days ago

Some people can't even be convinced that 60fps is significantly better than 30fps for gaming.

Convincing them they need more than 60hz is going to be a hard sell.

[–] zamadatix 3 days ago

I think Apple has held off 120 Hz for so long precisely because the average person gets a bit of a jolt of "this device is fast, it runs so smooth compared to..." they can't quite immediately place until someone explains it's the refresh rate.

Without this, it'd be very hard for an average user to "feel" a performance difference between an A18 Pro in the Neo and say as far as the M5 Max in a MacBook Pro unless they had a "special" use case which really needed the extra CPU/GPU cores.

Of course, they can't stay forever on that. E.g. with the iPhone 17 they finally flipped the non-Pro over. Probably because it was starting to make the iPhone seem sluggish/stuttery compared to other phones more than it was making the iPhone 18 seem fast. Tablets have never seemed to be as fierce a market in terms of your average Joe comparing them, but I'd expect the same switch to being a liability instead of a tool will happen there as well (if they aren't already late to the game).

[–] pvab3 3 days ago

I think they made iOS run slower for 60Hz devices. Like 2-3 version ago they changed all the animations and it makes it unbearable to use my iPHone 17 on 60Hz when I used to prefer running my old Samsungs on 60Hz several years ago.

[–] simjnd 3 days ago

For doomscrolling or watching videos it makes little difference. For an iPad that advertises drawing with the pencil, the latency of the brushstroke is a massive difference between the two. The more immediate feedback unlocks more confidence and reduces a lot of friction.

[–] scotty79 3 days ago

You don't have to know what Hz is to see that scrolling on some devices is smooth and on other (coug..Apple) devices is choppy. 60Hz feels like a decade old phone.

[–] smallerize 3 days ago

If your phone is choppy when scrolling a list on a 60 Hz display, it's not going to scroll smoothly on a 120Hz display.

[–] sheepscreek 3 days ago

> it's not going to scroll smoothly on a 120Hz display

It will be buttery smooth between the chops.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

It's hilarious because the 120hz display is probably contributing to the lag

[–] ezst 3 days ago

My pixel lets me pick between 60 or 120Hz refresh rate, the bump in perceived smoothness is substantial, to the point that 60Hz does appear choppy in comparison.

[–] pvab3 3 days ago

iOS at 60Hz is so much worse than Android at 60Hz, I don't know why. maybe Apple did it intentionally to sell more iphones

[–] kalleboo 3 days ago

I just tried it on my iPhone right now, and yeah, something seems wrong. Switching from 120Hz to 60Hz on my Mac, I can barely tell. On the iPhone, 60Hz feels more like 30Hz.

[–] mrheosuper 3 days ago

Really, my case it's opposite. I was quite happy with the 60hz on my ip13mini, even if my main phone is Android 120hz phone.

[–] mahboi 3 days ago

I got a Pixel 7 Pro for work, and it's so laggy. Idk what a 120hz display is for when stock apps like Google Maps are running at like 30fps. I thought maybe some corp security stuff was slowing it down, but I showed it to people at work who have only ever used Android, and they thought it was normal.

Outdated comparison now that Liquid Glass is lagging my phone.

[–] petu 3 days ago

For whatever map rendering in Google Maps is capped at 30fps, yes. Google doesn't seem to care.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

I mean the entire UI lags, not just the map. Not a steady 30fps, but it looks like something close to that on average. It seems like they started with weaker hardware and then threw Java onto it.

[–] blehn 3 days ago

Yeah the Android is capable of 120 but often lower than 60 in practice

[–] scotty79 3 days ago

Phones today have plenty of power to generate 120 screens per seconds. Capping them with a screen is a terrible idea. Smooth form a decade ago isn't the same as smooth of today.

20 years ago I was gaming at 30fps and called it smooth. Now 120Hz feels like bare minimum.

[–] addandsubtract 3 days ago

I still game at 30 fps and don't really notice it, but scrolling at 30 fps gives me a headache.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

Real pro gamers do 29.97 fps

[–] ckx 3 days ago

As someone who occasionally browses Hacker News on a Kindle e-Reader, having a low refresh rate really doesn't matter.

[–] scotty79 3 days ago

I'd love to have eInk at 90-120Hz. But I agree that 60Hz or 5Hz is pretty much similar expeirience when it comes to scrolling.

[–] adamsmark 3 days ago

E ink is at 60hz now. Look up Bigme B7 (it's wild!)

[–] qlte 3 days ago

Yeah I wanted to love the form factor of the Mini and thought the 60 he wouldn't be an issue but was reminded any time I used the device.

Actually surprised to learn Apple did the OLED swap and didn't use the opportunity to bump it up at least to 90 hz like the OLED Steam Deck.

[–] rustystump 2 days ago

Yes? 30-60 is night and day so i have a hard time believing this.

There is an argument to be made on battery life 60-120 but my god i can instantly tell between 60-120. The key part is the input responsiveness more than anything else. If you tell someone to look at “frame rate” few will notice the dif but have them grab a window and wiggle it around, obv dif with responsiveness

[–] lynndotpy 3 days ago

I would be surprised if >10% of people didn't notice a difference between 60Hz and 120Hz.

Whether the hardware can keep up with Liquid Glass and push 120 frames a second is a different story, of course.

[–] peesem 3 days ago

notice, maybe, but care, definitely not. there's a reason TV manufacturers get away with leaving on that awful AI smoothing by default.

[–] mort96 3 days ago

That argument goes the other way though? The only reason TV manufacturers would leave frame interpolation on by default is that a decent chunk of people notice, those people care, and most of the people who notice are "normal people" who aren't repulsed by it.

If only "pro consumers" noticed or cared... well, those "pro consumers" are the ones who think it looks like shit and would rather have a TV without it.

[–] culopatin 2 days ago

Scroll text in 60 and 120Hz. Can’t read while scrolling at 60Hz. It’s not movies what makes you notice

[–] bodge5000 3 days ago

From what I can tell, it's the thing they notice more than almost anything else. I was recently shopping for a new phone and my brother, who has no interest in tech, kept telling me I need to get the one with it (I forgot the exact term he used, it wasn't 120hz admittedly).

[–] hobo123 2 days ago

My Samsung Galaxy has a switch for either 120hz or better battery life. Never bothered to even try the 120hz. The phone feels fine. Hell, the only reason I even upgraded to this one was to get security fixes.

[–] pettijohn 2 days ago

I am a nerd, but scrolling and my mouse cursor is obviously smoother at 120hz over 60. I can't tell the difference at 144 vs 120 however.

[–] neya 3 days ago

> I can barely get the regular people in my life to nice anything above 30 hz or turning off motion smoothing. I really don't see how any of this stuff matters for most people

"I don't have an issue with it, so most people also don't have an issue with it"

False Consensus Effect (or false consensus fallacy):

It happens when someone overestimates how much other people agree with them, assuming that their own personal beliefs, values, or experiences are the default for everyone else.

[–] crazygringo 3 days ago

But in this case, most people really truly don't have an issue with it.

It's a very small minority who cares.

[–] neya 3 days ago

> It's a very small minority who cares.

Cite your sources, please or you're just echoing "trust me, bro".

[–] Klonoar 3 days ago

You can’t prove your inverse take tho.

[–] neya 3 days ago

Reading comprehension is important. There was no inverse take here. Just pointing out anecdotal evidence isn't enough to draw a conclusion over a larger sample size.

[–] Klonoar 2 days ago

Mmm nope, that trick doesn't work here today.

You want them to cite sources for something they can't possibly cite. I'm telling you that you are doing the same thing they are: confidently asserting that you're correct even though you cannot possibly prove that.

It is not a difficult concept.

[–] neya 2 days ago

> confidently asserting that you're correct

Where did you see this? The acoustics in your head must be wild:))

[–] drawfloat 3 days ago

Most people don’t even know what a refresh rate is. They don’t know why it’s measured in hz. They certainly don’t know what 60 vs 120 means.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

The comment wasn't saying "I don't have an issue with it." It said "regular people in my life." In fact, maybe the commenter is one of the few people who have an issue with it.

[–] UltraSane 2 days ago

My monitors accidentally switched to 30hz and it was extremely noticeable.

[–] globular-toast 3 days ago

Nobody ever wanted a >60Hz display, but once you've used one it's hard to go back. It's like having a higher-performance car. You're now stuck with paying more just for baseline happiness.

It's probably not actually as hard to go back as we think it is, but holding on to stuff is in our genes.

[–] atlasduo 3 days ago

I keep hearing this all the time, and I think this is an absolutely massive overstatement that you cannot go back to 60 hz after experiencing high refresh rates.

My personal experience is that I do notice the difference - for like a minute - and then I adjust and never care anymore.

[–] hbs18 2 days ago

Strangely enough, I can't use a sub-120hz phone anymore, but I have no problems using my 60hz laptop or 75hz desktop monitor. Maybe the different form factors let people compartmentalize their experiences.

[–] globular-toast 3 days ago

Yeah, we're talking more like reducing the amount of sugar in your tea hard, not quitting heroin hard.

[–] globular-toast 3 days ago

As an experiment I put my phone into 60Hz after posting this comment. 5 hours later I've remembered. I didn't notice.

[–] ckx 3 days ago

I think it only really matters for gamers, but seriously, who's gaming on an iPad?! Use a PC or console!

[–] RaisingSpear 3 days ago

It's worth pointing out that mobile gaming surpasses PC and console combined, in terms of marketshare and revenue. https://playercounter.com/gaming-industry-revenue-statistics...

I don't know how "mobile" gamers are using iPads (or tablets), but considering the size of the market, I doubt it's particularly niche.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

Yeah, but they aren't "gamers," they're just people who sometimes play games. Which is fine. I'd much rather be in the latter camp.

[–] RaisingSpear 2 days ago

> they aren't "gamers," they're just people who sometimes play games

I thought that basically fits the definition of "gamer" so I'm clearly mistaken. How do you define "gamer"? Someone who "always" plays games? (for some definition of "always"?)

Regardless, non "gamer" game players can still benefit from higher refresh rate screens, and they're not insignificant in number.

[–] mahboi 1 day ago

Gamer is someone who considers video games a hobby. Kind of like a drinker.

[–] RaisingSpear 22 hours ago

So if the definition is based off personal preference, how do you know mobile game players aren't gamers?

Mobile gacha/micro-transaction games often encourage frequent/repetitive play (e.g. via dailies, limited time quests etc). Would someone engaging in this likely consider the game to be a hobby?

[–] neya 2 days ago

Source?