As good as the iPhone 12 series is, it lacks a feature that the best Android phones have had for some time. But it looks like the iPhone 13 will address that weakness in most premium models.
According to an ET News report (via wccftech), Apple will offer a 120 Hz OLED panel for the “first two out of the four iPhone 13 models”, which are likely to be the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max The higher refresh rate allows for smoother scrolling, as well as better movie playback and gameplay on compatible content.
These dynamic panels should also help more advanced models of the iPhone 13 save battery.
By employing Low Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide (LTPO) technology, the 120 Hz iPhone 13 Pros will be able to dynamically adjust its refresh rate from 120 Hz to 1 Hz. The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra already has a 120 Hz LTPO screen , and the technology should also appear on at least one model of the Samsung Galaxy S21.
There were rumors that Apple would adopt a 120 Hz ProMotion screen for the iPhone 12 Pro or Pro Max, but that never happened. Apple was hoping that more LTPO panels would be made available to offer a better balance between performance and battery life.
As reported by ET News, “it is understood that Apple has decided to introduce LTPO-TFT to compensate for the increase in energy consumption caused by the improvement in the refresh rate, and the improvement in the performance of the next iPhone screen is expected to be noticeable.”
In our own iPhone 12 battery test, Apple’s latest line did not do very well, especially with 5G enabled, so adding LTPO to iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max should help. In addition, Apple will offer a more efficient 5 nm Qualcomm X60 modem for the iPhone 13 family.
Both Samsung and LG provide the OLED displays for the iPhone 13 line. It looks like the sizes will be the same this time: the 5.4 inch iPhone 13 and the 6.1 inch iPhone 13 will have 60 Hz LTPS panels more traditional, while the 6.1-inch iPhone 13 Pro and the 6.7-inch iPhone 13 Pro The Max is supposed to increase for 120 Hz OLED LTPO screens.
The only bad news in this ET News report is that there may be “an increase in the supply price”. But it is not clear whether Apple will pass this increase on to consumers or not.