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by Jcampuzano2 474 days ago
Yeah I think when they say non-tech people they mean a subset of people who know a bit about refresh rates (example being avid PC gamers for instance), but I'd still say the vast majority of people cannot tell 60 to 120. That or its not something they think about.

Certainly if they had both side by side they may be able to notice a difference, but in everyday use it makes no real difference to the vast majority of people. Anecdotally even though I do use Android myself, everyone around me still think iPhones look the smoothest (albeit most of them have never even touched a quality phone running android)

4 comments

They don't know the words but they definitely notice it. "Why is it so smooth/rough?"
It's one of those things where once you have used it, you will notice it. Given most iOS users aren't swapping between pro and non pro models, it's not something you think about.
Just tried ProMotion vs. 60Hz on MBP, no/very little difference I can see. Sure it's just me but for me all the claims here are way exaggerated/psychological, almost like audiophiles being able to "hear" stuff that doesn't exist in a blind test.
It's baffling to me that some people claim to not see the difference. It's literally light and day to me. It's like someone looking at a low DPI screen and a high DPI screen and not being able to tell the difference.
Yeah I move a window and it's immediately noticable. I'm jealous of people who can't tell.
Same. The suggestion that it’s like audiophiles totally missed the mark, because lots of audiophile claims do not stand up to double blind tests. I can guarantee that 60 vs 120 hz blind tests would be insanely easy to pass if there was window movement or scrolling or basically anything but static frames.
Are you sure the underlying application and the OS are even rendering 120Hz all the time? The panel being able to was enough to convince some people they're seeing "smooth scrolling" when it was actually 60Hz saving battery. That's the analogy to audiophiles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/10skjxm/promotion_d...

As one of the upthread comments mentioned, this is something that probably varies with sensitivity between people.

But I am quite confident I'd be able to tell 60/120hz with a 100% accuracy within 5s of being able to interact with the device.

Probably under a second on an iPhone, ~2s on a Mac with a built-in display and slightly longer on iPads and bigger displays. Add ~2 extra second if I'm using a mouse instead of a trackpad.

It is _that_ noticeable to me.

I'm generally ok with 60Hz (the difference isn't that significant to me). But I can definitely see the difference in a head-to-head comparison with fast moving content. The easiest way to see it for me was to move the cursor around quickly. With 60Hz there are much more visible "jumps" between positions. With 120Hz it animates much more smoothly.
In this case it really is just you. I can tell a high-refresh-rate display from across the room. I can tell if someone’s iPhone is a Pro even if the person is sitting five meters away from me on a moving bus.

On the other hand, my MacBook has a 120 Hz display and both my iPad Mini and iPhone Mini are 60 Hz, and even though the difference is night and day, I don’t really MIND using them. It’s just not that cool.

>Yeah I think when they say non-tech people they mean a subset of people who know a bit about refresh rates (example being avid PC gamers for instance)

no, he didn't say that. he said they comment on the difference between apple and android (their perception). you have to take that as a given.

that "it's because refresh rate" is his hypothesis, so yes argue that, but not by changing his evidence.