iPhone 15 Pro ProMotion might be flawed from a user experience perspective

[bryanrs]

I just returned the 15 Pro and got the normal 15 instead and I did a lot of digging to understand what is going on with the iPhones that have a ProMotion display. I first noticed this in 2021 when I got the 13 Pro Max, which I returned for the same reason (also it was too big and heavy for me). So I'm confident this issue is not specific to the 15 Pro. Anyways, the reason I've now returned 2 different iPhones that have a ProMotion display is because they have a subtle choppy/stutteryness to the scrolling that isn't present in the normal 60Hz OLED iPhones. The non-pro iPhones have a fixed refresh rate, meaning they're 60Hz at all times. iPhones that have a ProMotion display have "dynamic" refresh rate, and the way Apple has implemented it is not good. It's frequently below 60Hz when scrolling, which is a problem especially on an OLED where such low refresh rates make motion and scrolling look choppy/"skippy"/stuttery. Google the amount of people that upgraded from an LCD tv to an OLED that can no longer play 30 FPS games because they look so choppy/stuttery on the OLED, this is one of the downsides of OLED (OLEDs require higher framerate's for motion to appear as smooth as LCDs but once you reach that framerate threshold, they're far better and clearer than LCDs). What makes this issue especially silly is that every iPhone that has a ProMotion display has an extremely fast SoC that is rendering scrolling at 120 frames per second or higher, yet Apple isn't showing all those rendered frames because they're being excessively strict about the displays power draw. The end result is that, overall, the regular 60Hz OLED iPhones have a better, more consistent scrolling experience than the iPhones that have a ProMotion display!

Can Apple do anything about this? I'm almost certain they can update the software so the displays refresh rate never goes below 60Hz (this ensures they'll at least never be worse than their 60Hz iPhones). Beyond that, Apple can and should relax the restrictions to allow users to actually see the high frame rates their phone is capable of. With the 15 Pro especially, if Apple were to set it to a fixed/locked 120Hz, the battery hit would not be significant and users would immediately notice the smoother, clearer scrolling.

 

[MercuryNL]

Maybe not exactly 'on topic', but I tried upgrading to a 15 pro from an XS and found out that I don't really like the 120hz promotion. I can see that scrolling is a little smoother, but I actually prefer the '60hz' experience. It feels like I have more control/grip on my scrolling actions with 60hz. In addition I believe it gave a mild headache after a couple of days of using the 15 pro, so I sent it back. Currently still using my trusty XS with 60hz.

 

[cableguy84]

Just turn off 120hz

 

[TacoFan]

Are you sure about that? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that before

I mean yes, regular is fixed at 60hz, pro is variable and pro isn’t 120hz all the time (which happens when you start screen recording and the difference is very noticeable). These are facts

But to the point of having a choppy/stuttering phone and preferring the regular? I’m a bit baffled 🤔

(I have a regular 15 btw)

 

[snipr125]

The stuttering as you probably know, is because the Pro motion display is moving back to a high refresh rate after being in a very low refresh rate, especially when you’re viewing a lot of static content like text. I have noticed it for sure on my 15 Pro, but it does save battery power though e.g. some days i read a lot of text clocking up 6 hours SOT, but still have almost 50% battery left at end of day!.

 

[bryanrs]

Maybe not exactly 'on topic', but I tried upgrading to a 15 pro from an XS and found out that I don't really like the 120hz promotion. I can see that scrolling is a little smoother, but I actually prefer the '60hz' experience. It feels like I have more control/grip on my scrolling actions with 60hz. In addition I believe it gave a mild headache after a couple of days of using the 15 pro, so I sent it back. Currently still using my trusty XS with 60hz.

Exactly! Portions of the scroll can look smoother and clearer when the displays ramps up to around 90Hz or higher, but often the initial part of the scroll or the "decay" of a scroll (when you're slowing down) can actually look more choppy/stuttery than a 60Hz iPhone because ProMotion changes the refresh rate in big chunks during a scroll, which is an insanely bad idea and Apple should know better. Apple even shows it during the announcement of the 13 Pro https://www.youtube.com/live/EvGOlAkLSLw?si=TS_4jU4rz7zck2E5&t=3712

Apple really shouldn't allow scrolling to go below 60Hz and I hate to be dramatic but I'm disappointed that was allowed to make it into production software/product. Don't get me wrong, it would still be a inconsistent experience even if they did that (seeing your scrolling transition from 60Hz to 120Hz in a single scroll is almost disorienting on an OLED display). I believe here is the list of refresh rates it can jump between while scrolling https://developer.apple.com/documentation/quartzcore/optimizing_promotion_refresh_rates_for_iphone_13_pro_and_ipad_pro#:~:text=The iPhone 13 Pro and,10Hz (100ms)

 

[savagewatts]

Nah, I can never go back to before pro motion. There is a clear difference in quality. Some apps need to get on the ball and update their apps to 120hz but the difference is probably one of the biggest jumps for iPhone lately. Those on the fence should definitely check it out before taking this post to heart.

 

[Ralfi]

🤔 Interesting observation. If that’s how it works, having the ability to set a minimum refresh rate does make sense.

Curious to see how Apple implements ProMotion this year, either in software updates or in the iPhone 16 Pro (hopefully it’ll also come to the non-Pro iPhones this year).

 

[bryanrs]

For anyone that actually wants to see what this looks like with their own eyes, view https://www.testufo.com/ on an OLED display.

On the vast majority of LCD displays, the difference between 30 FPS and 60 is subtle and 30 is passable because LCD pixels somewhat gradually transition from color to color, but on an OLED it's instantaneous and you can see how bad 30 FPS looks.

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

Scrolling is basically flawless on my 15 Pro. The only app I see any scrolling stutter in is Reddit, but if I use the website it’s smooth.