According to a Weibo post from a well-known Chinese leaker, next year’s non-Pro iPhone 17 series is very likely to get displays with “higher refresh rates”.
At the time of writing, it’s not known what specific high refresh rate the base iPhone 17 modes will come with. Apple could standardise its 120Hz LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED tech across the whole iPhone 17 lineup, or could just give the non-Pro iPhone 17 devices 90Hz panels instead.
Currently, 120Hz panels are solely reserved for Pro iPhones
In 2021, the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max were the first Apple smartphones to come with the brand’s ProMotion displays with 120Hz refresh rate. Till today, only the Pro iPhones come with higher refresh rate displays.
Specifically, the iPhone 16 Pro comes with a 6.4-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 2622 x 1206 pixels. The iPhone 16 Pro Max gets a larger 6.9-inch panel with a pixel count of 2868 x 1320. Both models are also equipped with Always-On display (AOD) functionalities.
The base iPhone models like the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus come with 60Hz panels instead. Honestly, this is ridiculous according to today’s standard, considering the number of sub-RM1,000 Android phones out there that already come with at least 90Hz displays.
In terms of display specs, the base iPhone 16 sports a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED panel with a 60Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 2556 x 1179 pixels. The larger iPhone 16 Plus rocks a 6.7-inch panel with 2796 x 1290 pixels.
iPhone SE 4 to be the only iPhone with a slow display?
If the vanilla iPhone 17 series is indeed getting high refresh rate displays, that will leave the iPhone SE, including the upcoming iPhone SE 4 as the only remaining iPhone model to be stuck with a 60Hz panel.
That would be a shame as even the current iPhone SE 3 doesn’t come cheap, retailing at a starting price of RM2,199 for the 64GB model.
