It's hard to believe
thats the first smartphones with
a high-refresh rate screen was released in November 2017. The original Razer
Phone's 120 Hz screen was primarily aimed at gamers, but the
technology has quickly spread to countless consumer-focused devices. consumer.
With the
exception of Apple's iPhone, it would now be difficult to find a flagship with
a 60Hz display, while phones as cheap as the € 199 Xiaomi Poco X3 have
a 120Hz panel.
Logic
suggests that notebooks will be the next major form factor in adopting high
refresh rates. Once again, gaming devices have been the early adopters,
with displays up to 300Hz. It seems like it's only a matter of time before this
trickles down to everyday consumer devices.
However,
you will have to be patient. The coronavirus pandemic has skyrocketed
demand for laptops, and even now the education sector is reporting a shortage
of devices suitable for homeschooling.
With this
in mind, it's no wonder manufacturers prioritize solid performance and a
portable design over these kinds of frills.
At CES
2021, Lenovo introduced one of the few consumer-oriented high-refresh-rate
laptops to hit the market. The Yoga Slim 7i Pro has a 90Hz display, 11th
Gen Intel chips, and the option of a discrete Nvidia GPU, but at a price to
match: it will likely cost more than $ 1,000.
Why We Have Not Seen More High Refresh Rate Laptops
Aside from customer
demand, the other big factor is price. Quite simply, it still costs a lot
more to include a high-frequency display than a 60Hz one. That's why the Asus
ROG Zephyrus G14 and the Acer Predator Helios 300 start at € 1,099 and € 1,299
respectively.
Traditionally,
laptops with a high refresh rate have tended to reduce the color accuracy and
contrast of the screen. This may have made some manufacturers reluctant to
adopt this technology, but the strength of the Razer Blade Stealth's display
has shown that these sacrifices don't need to be made.
As with its phones,
Apple seems to have taken a different approach. The new M1 chip in your
MacBook laptops (like the new Air) offers big improvements in performance and
energy efficiency, two areas that are probably most noticeable on a day-to-day
basis.
The company
hasn't shied away from the technology entirely - it's in the iPad Pro, after
all - so don't rule out Apple's high-refresh rate laptops being in the near
future.
High refresh rate or OLED?
Processing power
aside, the display is one of the most common ways to distinguish a premium laptop from
its more affordable siblings. The shortage of high refresh rate consumer
laptops means you'll probably have to choose between this and an OLED display.
Both are
"nice to have" rather than a necessity in an everyday laptop for
productivity, but that changes if you also want to use it to consume content or
play games.
The rich
colors and deep blacks of an OLED display offer notable benefits when watching
movies or TV shows, but gamers will appreciate the added fluidity that a
high-refresh rate display offers.
However,
OLED displays haven't made their way to budget laptops yet, so you'll likely
have to pay four figures anyway.
Samsung could be leading the way
In case high-refresh
notebooks become the norm, it looks like Samsung is ahead. As Business
Wire reported , in January 2021 the Korean company began
mass-producing 90Hz laptop displays, before an alleged rollout to devices in
the relatively near future.
This will
likely start with Samsung's own hardware, such as the upcoming Galaxy Book Flex
or Galaxy Book Ion, but we would still expect to see more laptops embrace the
technology in the near future.
High refresh
rate consumer notebooks may not be widely available yet, but it seems like it's
only a matter of time before they become the new industry standard.
