OnePlus 9 might offer a subjectively better display than 9 Pro
- According to a new leak from Max Jambor, the OnePlus 9 Pro display could be an LTPO OLED with an adaptive refresh rate of 120 Hz.
- In the meantime, the Vanilla OnePlus 9 could have a straight OLED panel with 120 Hz always on.
- While the 9 Pro’s setup can result in longer battery life, most users will likely agree that an always high refresh rate is the ideal scenario.
Today smartphone leaker Max Jambor signed up on Twitter to share another of his enigmatic leaks. According to Jambor, the upcoming OnePlus 9 Pro could have a low-temperature display for polycrystalline oxide (LTPO). This would mean that the 9 Pro could have a very similar display to this year’s Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Connected: OnePlus 9 Series: Everything We Know So Far
However, this would also mean that the OnePlus 9 Pro display is likely to have an adaptive refresh rate, just like the Galaxy S21 series. With an adaptive refresh rate, software will automatically change the refresh rate from 120 Hz to 10 Hz depending on the situation. For example, the phone would decrease the refresh rate while you are reading an e-book. It would then push it to the limit while playing a game that supports 120Hz.
According to Telephone arenaJambor privately confirmed that the Vanilla OnePlus 9 would not have this feature. If that’s true, it means the OnePlus 9 Pro display has an adaptive refresh rate, while the OnePlus 9 is only 120Hz most of the time, just like last year’s OnePlus 8 Pro. Ironically, a large segment of the OnePlus user base would likely always prefer the idea of adaptive refresh rate to 120Hz.
OnePlus 9 Pro display: is it worth the compromise between battery life?
The advantage of having an adaptive refresh rate over a static one is battery life. In this e-book example mentioned earlier, there is no reason why your screen should be refreshed 120 times per second while reading only text on a static page. This is a situation where an adaptive refresh rate would be beneficial.
However, there will certainly be situations where the adaptive refresh rate of the OnePlus 9 Pro display would overcompensate. In other words, there will very likely be times when you want a refresh rate of 120Hz, but the software won’t let you do that. In this sense, the OnePlus 9’s constantly active refresh rate would be ideal.
Load surveyWhich situation you like better ultimately depends on your personal taste. In the survey above, you can tell us which situation you think is the best. Maybe we’re wrong and OnePlus fans would rather have adaptive refresh rates.
However, we cannot ignore the possibility that OnePlus has the best of both worlds with the OnePlus 9 Pro display. There may be an always-on update rate option in addition to the adaptive option. We have to wait and see. Fortunately, we expect the OnePlus 9 series to hit the market much earlier than usual this year, so we probably won’t have to wait long.
