Apple’s ProMotion technology, which delivers buttery-smooth scrolling and motion content on some iPads, may come to the iPhone this year.
According to a report from Digitimes, the next-gen iPhone will adopt LTPO (low-temperature polycrystalline oxide) backplane technology that could enable 120Hz screen refresh rates. The current iPhones have a refresh rate of just 60Hz.
Apple’s ProMotion screen tech debuted on the iPad Pro back in 2017. However, to date it has not made its way to the iPhone.
Competitors, on the other hand, delivered faster refresh rates. In early 2020, Samsung introduced 120Hz displays with its Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra handsets. That made them the world’s first smartphones to feature 120Hz OLED displays. It’s a big selling point of Samsung’s newer phones — and other smartphone-makers followed suit. The advanced screen technology proves tough to ignore once you’ve seen it in action.
Lowering the power consumption
According to Digitimes, the iPhones set to debut later this year will benefit from power-consumption rates 15% lower than iPhone 12 models. This is important because a high screen refresh rate depletes batteries faster.
It’s not yet clear which of the next-gen iPhones will boast the 120Hz displays, though. In the past, Apple debuted top-of-the-line new features only in its high-end iPhones, before making them available to everyone further down the line. Most recently, Apple did this with OLED screens on the iPhone X, while the iPhone 8 — released the same year — stuck with an LCD screen. Last year marked the first time every new iPhone in the lineup boasted an OLED screen.
If Apple follows that strategy, the company might add 120Hz displays only to the iPhone 13 Pro models, with “regular” iPhone 13 models sticking to 60Hz. The faster displays might arrive in the entire lineup a year or two later.
Have you seen 120Hz smartphones in action? Did the ProMotion technology win you over on the iPad? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Digitimes
