You prefer 60Hz OLED over high refresh rate LCD
OLED vs LCD has been a battle for years, where both screen technologies have their strengths and weaknesses. However, OLED has become the screen technology of choice for flagship phones and some mid-range phones, while LCD screens are typically found on budget and mid-tier phones.
The past few years have also seen high refresh rate screens offering smoother animation and better performance in system menus, supported games, and much more. So we wondered if people would choose an OLED screen with a standard refresh rate (60Hz) or an LCD screen with a high refresh rate.
Do you prefer a 60 Hz OLED or a high refresh rate LCD?
Results
At the time of writing, our website had a total of 3,633 votes, with 72.5% nodding 60Hz OLED screens, compared to 27.5% choosing high refresh rate LCD screens.
We saw a very similar breakdown when we published this poll on twitter. A total of 5,062 votes were cast on Twitter, with 72.9% choosing 60 Hz OLED panels and 27.1% LCD technology with a high refresh rate.
In other words, the winner of a landslide is clearly a 60Hz OLED, with readers believing that the benefit of a high refresh rate doesn’t outweigh the benefit of a standard OLED panel. This survey has been particularly relevant over the past few months as the Realme 7 offers a high refresh rate LCD while the Realme 7 Pro delivers a 60 Hz OLED panel. We also saw that Xiaomi recently launched the Mi 10T series, which includes high refresh rate LCD panels.
For more information on the differences between OLED and LCD, see the previous link. Even so, OLED screens generally offer better power consumption, deeper blacks, and can get very bright. In the meantime, LCD panels are cheaper to make and are less prone to burn-in as we see with some OLED panels over time.
Your comments
- Shizuma: While I generally prefer high refresh rates on computers for games, I don’t see many benefits on phones as I don’t play on my phone as honestly mobile games are terrible compared to console / PC games and high update die Rate shortens the battery life. In this case I would prefer OLED to a high refresh rate for a phone, especially for the ability to always have on displays.
- 2much2soon: I tested a grade 9 against note20ultra at school and used it separately, nobody noticed a difference between 60 Hz and 120 Hz … zero and that was almost 20 people. When 4 out of 10 people were placed next to each other, they thought there was something else (only when scrolling long websites), 2 out of 4 thought it was because of a faster “CPU”. Didn’t play games or movies. Android and apps only.
- Zero: 90 Hz is cool and anything but the AMOLED display suits me as the dark mode is very suitable for AMOLEDs
- EspHack: The thing is that OLED naturally looks “smoother” than LCD, for reference only, my 60Hz OLED looks about as smooth as my 90Hz surface, LCD is just with artifacts and problems littered, which are not present in OLED, the only disadvantage of OLED is potential burn-in and often lower brightness. So yes, a higher refresh rate LCD in many ways just makes up for its shortcomings when compared to a lower refresh rate OLED. This is a difficult choice even then as switching back to Hz is annoying, but going back to gray-black and headlamp halos and blur and worse than perfect response times and a million other visual annoyances is just too much for me
- Stefan M .: High Refresh is only interesting for a couple of hours when you first receive it. After that, switch it back to 60 to save battery. Plus 90% of the content is (at best) in 60 fps so you really don’t need more than 60 Hz panel. OLED is great 100% of the time and saves battery. No room for discussion here 🙂
- Leander Berg: I would work with 30 fps LCD if the phone was at a reasonable price with long term support. In all honesty, everyone falls in love with corporate stupid tactics.
The cheapest iPhone will have years of software support that not even 3 times that of Android phones can match. Why are we talking about what brands want us to do instead of discussing the far bigger problem with today’s devices? I just tried this specification talk when we just needed simple serviceability and long term support. - I will never go back to the LCD again. Even the best LCD screens cannot be compared to OLEDs.
Thank you for taking this survey and leaving all these comments! We really appreciate it. What do you think of this question and the results? Let us know below!
